Publication Laka-library:
Cogema - La Hague: The waste production techniques (1995)
| Author | Homberg, Pavageau, Mycle Schneider |
| Date | March 1995 |
| Classification | 2.02.8.10/10 (FRANCE - LA HAGUE - GENERAL) |
| Front | 
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From the publication:
INTRODUCTION Managing spent nuclear fuels which have been irradiated in nuclear power plants, can be done using two radically different methods. The first method considers the spent fuel as final waste, which implies a strategy for conditioning and direct disposal of the waste (once through cycle). This means finding adequate final- storage techniques to deal with the extremely high levels of radioactivity contained in this type of waste. Today, the United States, Canada, Spain and Sweden are among those countries which have opted for such a strategy. The other method is to reprocess the spent fuel so as to recover the uranium and plutonium content for reuse. This solution, known as reprocessing, generates large quantities of waste, both radioactive and non-radioactive, with differing characteristics in terms of physical form, radioactive content and conditioning. In the medium term, no country is able to reprocess all of its spent nuclear fuel arisings. The most notable example of this is France which has planned for a nominal reprocessing capacity of 800 tonnes per year beyond the capacity needed for foreign clients, whereas it actually produces annually around 1 100 tonnes of spent fuel. Moreover, this nominal capacity was not available before 1995, and France has already stockpiled around 8 000 tonnes of spent fuel which is kept in storage ponds either at the reactor sites or at La Hague. Apart from this, separated plutonium cannot be used indefinitely (1) and some spent MOX fuel is inevitably earmarked for direct disposal. Countries which reprocess their spent fuel, such as the F.R.G., the United Kingdom, Belgium, Switzerland and the Netherlands, are in a similar situation whereby part of their fuel is destined for reprocessing and the rest for direct disposal. Furthermore, France has committed itself not to undertake "on-the-shelf" stockpiling of separated plutonium. E.D.F., the French electric utility, has therefore announced to only reprocess spent fuel in the quantities necessary for its MOX-fuel program requirements. (1) In fact, the quality of plutonium becomes degraded each time it is reused and today MOX reprocessing is no longer envisaged, given that uranium fuel is widely available.
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