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REGIONAL ACCESS
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Safety first and foremost
Outstanding safety level
 PWR reactors are extremely safe, non-proliferating industrial facilities.
EPR uses an instrumentation and control limitation system allowing return to normal operations in order to avoid emergency shutdown.
The design, construction materials and improved safety systems of the EPR ensure even greater safety.
Four safeguard buildings
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The major safety systems comprise four sub-systems or trains, each capable of performing the entire safety function on its own.
Each safety system is physically separated from the others and two of them are airplane crashes resistant.
They are located in separate parts of the plant and have their own protection features. This overcomes the risk of simultaneous failure of all the safety systems due to internal or external events, such as fire or airplane crash.
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Reactor building
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These systems reduce, to residual risk level, the probability of a serious accident to almost zero. Even so, the EPR is designed in such a way that, should an accident occur, the leaktight containment around the reactor would limit off-site measures in time and space. The containment can withstand high pressure and temperature, even during severe accidents leading to core meltdown and reactor vessel failure.
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Corium retention area
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Should the Reactor Pressure Vessel fail, the molten core materials would be passively collected, retained and cooled in a specially designed area inside the reactor containment building, with water coming from an in-containment storage tank.
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EPR is robust against external hazards, in particular:
The outer reinforced shell
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Airplane crashes (military jet or large civilian aircraft)
The containment building which houses the reactor is particularly robust:
 the upper part comprises two walls: an inner pre-stressed concrete housing with a steel liner and an outer reinforced concrete shell.
the outer shell protects the inner walls and structures from direct impact and resulting vibrations.
This protects the reactor building, the spent fuel building, two of the four safeguards buildings and the main control room.
The two other safeguards buildings and the diesel buildings are geographically separated, so they cannot both be impacted at the same time.
Earthquakes: to withstand severe earthquakes, the entire nuclear island stands on a single reinforced concrete basemat and the height of the buildings has been minimized.
This also makes the EPR extremely resistant to external hazards.
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Press releases
02/02/2010 - United States: AREVA Receives NRC Approval for Safety-Related Digital I&C System
02/01/2010 - Conversion: INB and AREVA sign a conversion services contract
01/20/2010 - AREVA signs agreement with Alstom and Schneider Electric for sale of the Transmission and Distribution business
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Press Releases - EPR
11/27/2009 - UK: Regulators reiterate confidence in EPR™ Technology
11/24/2009 - Finland: heavy components for OL3 EPR™ arrived on site
06/18/2009 - United States: AREVA, Duke Energy and UniStar Nuclear Energy start negotiations to develop an EPR™ reactor in Ohio
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