ANSTO was recently advised that COGEMA – the French company contracted to reprocess its non US-origin spent reactor fuel – has received full authorisation to reprocess its spent fuel, and the processing had commenced on June 9th, 2005 at its La Hague facility in Normandy.
It is the first Research Reactor fuel to be reprocessed through la Hague plant. In April this year, a French court gave COGEMA three months to produce the necessary regulatory authorisation to reprocess Australian spent fuels, following action brought by Greenpeace concerning its storage in France.
It is standard practice for COGEMA to only apply for operational consent shortly before the reprocessing of a particular batch of spent fuel. This procedure, which is best practice in safety management, was followed in this case. An application to process a batch of spent fuel including the Australian spent fuel was lodged by COGEMA to the regulator in 27 May 2004.
The authorisation was signed by the regulator on 29 March 2005 then an operational consent was given by the regulator in 31 May, 2005.
The April decision was part of an ongoing series of rulings, appeals and counter appeals that have taken place since March 2001 in an attempt to stop COGEMA reprocessing spent fuel. The issue was between COGEMA, Greenpeace, the French regulator and the French legal system. ANSTO’s contract with COGEMA was never called into question.
COGEMA recovers material from spent fuel that can be recycled to make electricity, as French nuclear power plants supply France with almost 80 per cent of its electricity.
Published: 14/06/2005