The extension of the nuclear fleet for up to sixty or eighty years, planned by the government, and the construction of several pairs of new reactors between now and 2050 represent major challenges. Another project, just as important but less known, also awaits the atomic sector: that of the renewal of installations intended to reprocess spent fuels.
Monday February 26, a third nuclear policy council chaired by Emmanuel Macron, and held in complete discretion, confirmed the choice of Paris for the coming decades. Unlike most other nuclear states, France will continue to reprocess and reuse the fuels used to operate not only the current fleet, but also future EPRs. The country’s current energy roadmap, adopted in 2020, only endorsed this orientation until 2040. Confirming an information of the Echoesthe Elysée also specifies that the La Hague site (Manche), where the Orano reprocessing plants are located, will be subject to “significant investments”.
France is one of the only countries in the world to have opted for reprocessing, considering that most of what comes out of reactors is not waste, but materials. After being unloaded and cooled, the fuel assemblies are thus reprocessed to separate the fissile materials, considered as ultimate waste (4%), the plutonium (1%) and the reprocessed uranium (95%), the latter two being considered by the industry as “valuable”. Orano claims that this strategy already saves 20% of natural uranium requirements and could, ultimately, allow a saving of more than 30%.
However, this choice is contested. “We are recommitting ourselves to reprocessing for fifty years, even though there is no solid outlook on the future capacity of the park to reuse these materials”, estimates Yves Marignac, member of the Permanent Group of Experts for Nuclear Pressure Equipment. Opponents cite the low rate of actual recycling of materials and the fact that, while waiting for potential reuse, they accumulate.
“Economic and industrial constraints”
At the end of 2020, the Nuclear Safety Authority (ASN) called for part of the depleted uranium to be reclassified as waste and warned against increasing stocks of reprocessed uranium and plutonium, a particularly sensitive substance. At the end of 2022, the stock of stored plutonium exceeded the threshold of 100 tonnes for the first time. “France is almost a world champion in the accumulation of civil plutonium, even though it is one of the only countries to implement its reuse”remarks Mr. Marignac.
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