Calogena requests approval for its nuclear boiler

At a time when start-ups are aiming to develop small reactors (known as SMRs in English for small modular reactors, Editor's note) intended to produce electricity and/or heat, the Gorgé group, specializing in submarine defense, has taken a "major step" by submitting "its safety option file (DOS) to the Nuclear Safety Authority (ASN)", the nuclear installations regulator.

For the group, this is "the culmination of the preparatory review phase with the ASN, during which the Calogena teams presented the main characteristics" of this 30 MW thermal reactor, according to its press release.

This step marks the start of a pre-instruction process which could take around "two years" and could then lead to the examination of the application for authorisation to create (DAC) the nuclear installation, the duration of which is "3 years with a possibility of an extension of 2 years", the ASN indicated to AFP, confirming the submission of the Calogena file.

Calogena is proposing a reactor project that is based on proven technologies "of pool-type research reactors well known to safety authorities" and which will use "commercially available fuel benefiting from an existing reprocessing sector", according to the press release from Calogena and Gorgé.

The innovation is mainly intended to be "commercial": "we are targeting a very simple application, heating," Calogena's general manager, Julien Dereux, told AFP.

The concept: a reactor, smaller, less powerful than the reactors currently present on the territory.

But unlike power plants dedicated to electricity production, the Calogena reactor will provide low-carbon heating via heat networks that are still very dependent on fossil fuels.

The group is relying on a "burgeoning" district heating market, representing a potential of several tens of billions of euros in Europe, particularly in Northern and Eastern Europe, according to the group's press release, which is studying several options for establishment in France and Finland.