by Benjamin Mallet
PARIS (Reuters) – France plans to build two new factories on the Orano site in La Hague (Manche) as part of the extension of its nuclear fuel reprocessing and recycling strategy beyond 2040, the minister announced on Thursday of Economy and Finance, Bruno Le Maire.
A nuclear policy council chaired by Emmanuel Macron validated on February 26 the continuation of this strategy until at least 2100, particularly in the context of EDF’s project to build six new EPR2 reactors in France.
Bruno Le Maire declared during a trip to La Hague that studies would be launched with a view to building a MOX-type recycled fuel manufacturing plant on the Orano site, at an unspecified deadline, as well as a new spent fuel reprocessing plant by 2045-2050.
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The Ministry of the Economy has not communicated the amount of the planned investments.
“Our objective is obviously to guarantee the reuse of reprocessed fuels in French reactors to strengthen our sovereignty and reduce uranium imports,” declared Bruno Le Maire.
“This will allow us to ultimately reduce uranium consumption in France by 25%, it will allow us to reduce the volume of final waste by around 75%, which is good for the environment, and that will obviously lead to the creation of thousands of qualified jobs in France,” he added.
The Orano plant in La Hague constitutes a centerpiece of French spent fuel management, but it is today faced with the aging of its installations.
To invest in the renewal of its factories which will reach 50 years of operation during the 2030 decade, or even build new ones, Orano requested visibility on the State’s projects beyond 2040, the date after which the continuation of French treatment-recycling was not assured.
The former Areva argues that the process saves natural uranium and reduces the volumes of waste to be stored.
The French nuclear “cycle”, however, currently only allows one reuse of fuels resulting from reprocessing, namely MOX – currently manufactured in the Orano Melox factory in Marcoule (Gard) – and reprocessed uranium. enriched, which involves moving materials back and forth with Russia.
The La Hague plant notably has four storage pools, allowing used fuels to be cooled before processing them to extract reusable materials and waste, which face a risk of saturation.
EDF, which represents more than 95% of Orano’s recycling activity, is therefore planning to build a new one, for an amount of 1.25 billion euros, which would be put into service in 2034.
(Report by Benjamin Mallet)
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