PARIS (Reuters) - The French nuclear safety agency (ASN) said on Tuesday it had approved "in principle" allowing France's oldest nuclear reactors to run for another 10 years, bringing their life span to 40 years.
"The ASN has indicated to (power utility) EDF...that it had not identified any generic problems questioning EDF's capacity to manage the safety of the 900-megawatt reactors for a 40-year life span," the ASN said in press release.
The ASN said it would gave final approval, reactor by reactor, after each one undergoes its third once-a-decade inspection. These inspections are expected to take place until 2019.
There is no official limit setting the maximum life span of EDF's 34 nuclear reactors that have a capacity of 900 megawatts, but the state-owned utility says they were originally designed to run for 40 years.
The ASN in May began a series of once-a-decade inspections of the reactors, which will decide whether they can continue operating for a further 10 years.
The reactor 1 at Tricastin in southeastern France was the first reactor to undergo its third such inspection but the process has been delayed by strikes and an incident that damaged the lid of the reactor's tank.
EDF, the world's largest nuclear producer with 58 reactors, aims to extend the life span of its reactors to 60 years, arguing similar reactors in the United Sates had been authorised to operate for that length of time.
Greenpeace France, which opposes nuclear energy, said on Monday it was preferable to authorise France's reactors to run for another 10 years than to embark on a large scale renewal of the country's atomic sector.
Spain last week gave the go-ahead for its oldest nuclear power station to stay open for another four years in the Socialist government's first test of its electoral pledge to phase out nuclear energy.
(Reporting by Muriel Boselli and Mathilde Cru, editing by Anthony Barker)
