Crack in French nuclear reactor pipe highlights maintenance issues for state-run EDF's aging plants

Paris — French energy group EDF has reported discovering a significant new crack in a cooling pipe at a nuclear power plant on the Channel coast, in the latest such incident to plague the energy sector. The group has been beset by maintenance problems at its ageing park of reactors over the last year that have forced it to take more than a dozen of them offline for checks and emergency repairs.

EDF last month reported the latest "serious corrosion problem" on an emergency cooling system at its Penly 1 plant in northern France, which was among the 16 taken offline in the last year. The plant started operating in 1990.

The report went largely unnoticed until it was covered in French media on Tuesday.