France sets out long-term used nuclear fuel recycling plans

[NNadir]

France sets out long-term nuclear recycling plans

I'll comment after a few excerpts:

Minister for the Economy, Finance, Industrial and Digital Sovereignty Bruno Le Maire announced the decision to continue with France's treatment-recycling strategy for used nuclear fuel beyond 2040, with plans to extend the life of existing recycling plants and to launch studies for a new MOX fuel fabrication plant and a new used fuel processing plant...

...Le Maire announced three measures that will be taken towards this goal: a sustainability/resilience programme extending the life of the La Hague and Melox recycling plants beyond 2040; the launch of studies for a new MOX fuel fabrication plant at the La Hague site; and the launch of studies for a new used fuel processing plant, also at La Hague, by 2045-2050.

"A new page in French nuclear history is about to open. The time for large-scale national projects has returned and the nuclear energy sector has a central role to play," Le Maire said during his visit to La Hague...

"...Thanks to this strategy, we will ultimately reduce the volume of nuclear waste by 75%," he said. "Our message is clear: nuclear power occupies a central place in the decarbonisation of our economy, the strengthening of our energy sovereignty and the reindustrialisation of our country..."

... In the French model, the reusable materials which make up some 96% of used fuel are separated at La Hague. The plutonium recovered from this processing is reused in MOX (mixed-oxide) fuels manufactured by Orano at the Melox plant. Some 10% of nuclear electricity in France today is generated by recycling materials in the form of MOX fuel, Orano said, and this can rise to 25% and to almost 40% if used MOX fuel is further recycled.

Only the plutonium recovered from processed fuel is currently used in MOX. Reprocessed uranium - or RepU - can be re-enriched for use as fuel in existing light-water reactors. Four of France's reactors - at the Cruas-Meysse plant in Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes - are certified to use such uranium. In February, Cruas 2 became the first of those units to operate with a full core of fuel made from recycled uranium.

Some comments:

I'm not necessarily fond of the PUREX (solvent extraction) reprocessing used at La Hague, but it has a long industrial history and works well. I think there is much better reprocessing chemistry available.

If the world is to scale up access to nuclear energy at the pace required to make any kind of dent in the degradation of the planetary atmosphere that has taken place in the era of fossil fuel dictatorship driving fossil fuel growth, aided by reactionary enthusiasm for so called "renewable energy," coupled with very insipid antinuke radiation paranoia fetishes, we will need access to fissionable isotopes on a much grander scale than can be provided by enrichment facilities and uranium mining. I I generally oppose both as being unnecessary, although I do favor recovery of thorium from lanthanide mine tailings. The key to having access to fissionable material is to recover plutonium from used fuels.

Although I oppose enrichment facilities in general, under the current circumstances of the climate emergency, I can certainly live with re-enrichment of once through uranium however. This is because it addresses the spectacular anti-weapons proliferation fear that permeates our culture because once through uranium will contain an isotope not found in uranium ores ²³⁶U. In an operating reactor, this isotope produces, via serial neutron capture, ²³⁷Np and ultimately ²³⁸Pu. ²³⁸Pu renders plutonium nearly or completely impossible to utilize in nuclear weapons because of the heat load and neutron flux from spontaneous fission.

In fact, the complex isotopic vector (the distribution of Pu isotopes) in used MOX fuel - twice through plutonium - can be utilized to immediately denature weapons grade plutonium in cases of nuclear weapons disarmament, the "beating swords into ploughshares" proposals and practices on which Al Gore worked as Vice President when Russia was briefly a civilized nation.

For the long term, on a planet awash in thermal reactors, I would like to see British and French isolated plutonium utilized to make ternary Pu-U-Th fuels to provide high burnups in CANDU type heavy water reactors, which should produce used nuclear fuels wherein after removal of neutron absorbing fission products, will have uranium with complex uranium isotopic vectors that can be directly utilized in other types of thermal reactors and eliminate the need for enrichment, and indeed (for a long period) the necessity for uranium mining, perhaps forever, if we industrialize the extraction of uranium from seawater.

This French decision, if seen through, is good news for the environment and for our increasingly slimming hopes of addressing climate change.

I have written in this space and elsewhere about the use of the transuranium actinides other than plutonium, chiefly americium and neptunium as additional fissionable nuclear fuels that can serve humanity, most recently here:

Fast Clean Separation of Americium and Europium.

[eppur_se_muova]

1. Would love to see that 40% figure realized.

Although, even if "only" 25% were achieved, it would still be a powerful argument for increased effort in this area, and for exploration of methods to recover and utilize other actinides.

The probability of success for a goal which has already been achieved is unity. Certainly weakens the arguments against.

[NNadir]

2. I would go further, although in thermal neutron spectrum reactors, full utilization is not achievable without thorium...

...and then only realistically in CANDU type heavy water reactors.

This is why I favor fast spectrum reactors of the "breed and burn" type, a few of which are being explored commercially.