The Chinon Nuclear Power Plant (French: Centrale nucléaire de Chinon) is near the town of Avoine in the Indre et Loire département, on the river Loire^[1] (approximately 10 km from the town of Chinon) in central France. The power station has seven reactors, of which three have been closed.

It employs approximately 1,350 full-time workers. The operator is Électricité de France (EDF).

The site houses three of the first generation of French plants, of UNGG-type (similar to the Magnox design), which have now closed. These reactors were named EDF1, EDF2, EDF3 and were later renamed into Chinon-A1, Chinon-A2, Chinon-A3. Four of the first French PWR series were later built on the site (Chinon-B1, Chinon-B2, Chinon-B3, Chinon-B4). The site has four cooling towers, specially designed to be low-profile in order to minimise the visual impact on the Loire.

It is larger than most French plants and feeds approximately 6% of French electricity demand.

• During the unusually cold 1986-87 winter, the water intake from the river, as well as several other important pieces of equipment and machinery, froze.
• On 21 December 2005, sand accumulated inside the tertiary cooling circuit, threatening to block it. This could have stopped cooling of all the reactors.
• On 4 September 2008, some industrial oil was accidentally discharged to the river in a maintenance operation. It was not radioactively contaminated.
• On 30 April 2009, a bomb alert caused an evacuation of the plant and an intervention by several units of army security forces.
• On 10 February 2024, France's EDF shut down two nuclear reactors due to a fire at the plant.^[2]

• Since 1986, the closed Chinon A1 reactor has been redeveloped to hold the French Atom Museum.
• The INTRA (INTervention Robotic on Accidents) group, a national nuclear event emergency intervention group equipped with remotely guided, radiation hardened machinery, has its headquarters at the plant.

• Nuclear decommissioning

• http://www.geniustour.com/en/pages/detail.php?j=Nuclear-Museum-of-Chinon