Status and trends of the nuclear fuel cycle research in France

Bernard Boullis and Philippe Brossard
Radiochemistry and Processes Department, CEA Rhône Valley Center
Nuclear Energy Division of CEA

ABSTRACT

France, since many years, is a strong advocate of nuclear fuel recycling. With the mid-70’s oil crisis, it became clear that energy resources have to be saved and that nuclear technology, including, fuel recycling, was a key element to insure sustainable economic development. Thirty years later, that remains particularly true. Indeed, we consider that reprocessing and recycling is both an attractive and responsible solution for the nuclear energy fuel cycle, for the main following reasons :

q it allows major energy resources saving and optimization,

q it makes it possible to drastically minimize the quantity and the long term radiotoxicity of High Level and Long Life Waste, and opens several genuine ways of improvement in this field,

q it is compatible with a proliferation resistant approach,

q it is based on a safe and at maturity industry, which takes benefit from a very satisfactory experience feedback, continuous optimization and high level R&D.

Thus, an industrial policy was set for the reprocessing of spent fuels (La Hague Plant), the recycling of valuable materials, uranium and plutonium, as MOX fuel (MELOX plant) to be burned in PWR reactors (among the 58 running NPP’s, 20 are partially loaded with MOX fuel). Breeders reactors have also been considered although not yet deployed. That remains a clear efficient solution for the future.

Main opposition to that policy came about the management of highly radioactive waste, in particular the long‑term behavior of long‑lived radionuclides. Although the recycling of uranium and plutonium allows a strong reduction of both their volume and long‑term radiotoxicity, the entire problem has to be tackled and the so-called “December 1991 Act”, voted by the parliament, put in place an R&D program in order to provide, by year 2006, a set of technically, economically and environmentally acceptable solutions. Three routes are under detailed study :

q Topic 1 : Separation/transmutation solutions.

q Topic 2 : Reversible or irreversible repository in a deep geological formation.

q Topic 3 : Conditioning and long-term interim storage options, pending the development of management routes based on the research engaged under topics 1 and 2.

Last, but not the least, the preparation of the future of nuclear industry is of major concern. New Research & Development programs have been launch since few years in CEA to provide optimized reprocessing-recycling technologies for advance nuclear systems. The main idea is to develop an integrated approach based on recycling of all the actinides in such a way that the actual waste to be definitely disposed will only be the unavoidable fission products, the amount of which is directly related to the energy production.

Another improvement will be to limit as much as possible transportation of radioactive materials. An objective could be to have reprocessing and fuel fabrication on the same site than the reactors.

Technical solutions can be developed, either improvements of existing technologies or developments of new ones such as, for instance, dry processing or pyroprocessing.

All these studies are done within international collaborative frameworks like the Gen-IV forum or through bilateral collaboration aggreements.