Élisabeth Borne expresses doubts about EDF's "technocentre" project in Fessenheim

"EDF is working on a metal recovery technocentre in Fessenheim" and "it is a project that would target a wider market than the simple dismantling of Fessenheim", she recalled at a hearing of the Development Committee and that of Economic Affairs in the National Assembly.

"I had exchanges with my German counterparts (energy and the environment are not carried by the same minister in Germany). I cannot tell you that there are great signs of opening of the from our neighbors on the use of a technocentre which would imply for them to move nuclear waste across the border, "she added.

"And quite frankly it does not necessarily seem to me an easily concrete track," concluded the minister.

The Fessenheim nuclear power plant must stop producing electricity this year, with the shutdown of the first reactor in February and the second in late June. EDF and the public authorities are considering ways to maintain activity in the territory in the future.

EDF has in particular raised the possibility of setting up a "technocentre", which would treat metal waste from the decommissioning of shutdown plants on a European scale.

Its location "has not been defined to date" and Fessenheim is only "one of the possible sites", according to the company.