Unit 2 of France’s Cruas-Meysse NPP is now operating its first full core of recycled uranium fuel. EDF Nuclear & Thermal Park Director Cedric Lewandowski said this was “a historic step for the relaunch of the uranium reprocessing sector”.

Reprocessed uranium (RepU) is derived from used reactor fuels after they are reprocessed at Orano’s la Hague facility. In France, only the four reactors at the Cruas-Meysse NPP in Auvergne-Rhone-Alpes are certified to use RepU. “Long-term work has been carried out over the past 10 years to revive a reprocessed uranium sector, suspended in 2013 (and which resumed in 2018) explained Lewandowski on LinkedIn.

Treating used fuel to extract material with recoverable energy potential (96% of the mass composition of the used fuel), namely uranium, for use a second time (mono-recycling) is a circular economy approach that will save 25% of natural resources in the coming decades, he noted. “In addition, this sector emits 30% less CO2 emissions than the natural uranium sector and reduces the impact on the environment.”

France aims to gradually ramp up production over the next few years and EDF's objective is to reuse the RepU in 1300 MWe plants from 2027. In the 2030s, reprocessed uranium will represent more than 30% of the uranium loaded each year into France’s reactors.

Historically, the enrichment process, requiring centrifuges solely dedicated to RepU, was only undertaken by Rosatom at the Siberian Chemical Combine. However, the new geopolitical situation since Russia’s special military is leading to a revaluation of these contracts.

Even before that, in 2018, Framatome signed a contract to design, fabricate and supply fuel assemblies using RepU to EDF between 2023 and 2032. The fuel assemblies were to be produced at Framatome's facility at Romans-sur-Isère. EDF had studied the possibility of recycling reprocessed uranium in pressurised water reactors in the early 1980s. The first enriched reprocessed uranium manufacturing campaign took place at Romans in 1987. Precursor fuel assemblies were loaded into Cruas unit 4 from 1987 to 1990 and a first enriched reprocessed uranium fuel reload was introduced in 1994. EDF used RepU between 1994 and 2013 in the four Cruas reactors, recycling 4,000 tonnes of RepU.

EDF is storing reprocessed uranium for up to 250 years as a strategic reserve. Currently, reprocessing of 1,100 tonnes of EDF used fuel a year produces 11 tonnes of plutonium (immediately recycled as mixed-oxide fuel) and 1,045 tonnes of reprocessed uranium converted into stable oxide form for storage. Orano says there are some 34,000 tonnes of RepU in interim storage on the Tricastin site.

Image: Cruas-Meysse nuclear power plant in Auvergne-Rhone-Alpes, France