Uranium & Fuel

French Regulator Recommends More MOX Use After Review Of Fuel Management

By David Dalton
23 October 2018

23 Oct (NucNet): France needs to make available new storage capacity or enable the use of mixed oxide (MOX) fuel in more reactors as part of an effort to make sure existing storage capacity is not used up in the coming 10 years, the regulator ASN has said.

ASN also said that any decision to reduce production from reactors which consume MOX fuel should be accompanied by reduced generation from reactors which consume traditional nuclear fuel which uses enriched natural uranium.

This would help reduce inventories and would also solve a potential problem caused by increased stocks of plutonium from the reprocessing of spent fuel. This plutonium cannot be stored for any length of time before it is used in MOX fuel because fission products accumulate in it and it must be reprocessed again.

MOX fuel is manufactured from plutonium recovered from used reactor fuel, mixed with depleted uranium.

The recommendations were the result of a check by ASN of the “overall consistency” of nuclear fuel management in France. ASN periodically requests that state-owned nuclear operator EDF submits a report on the nuclear fuel cycle including policies for different reactor types and different fuels.

Orano is the only company in France to produce MOX fuel assemblies, at its Melox plant in Marcoule, southern France. The plant produces enough MOX fuel each year to supply 25 to 30 reactors as a supplement to enriched natural uranium fuels.

According to Orano, MOX conserves uranium resources. Its fabrication divides the quantity of final waste generated by the nuclear industry by five and it offers a way to deal with the issue of radioactive plutonium.

Orano said: “The amount of plutonium generated by operating reactors is a very serious matter for utilities. By choosing MOX, they are not postponing this issue to tomorrow, since they can consume as much plutonium as their reactors produce today, keeping plutonium inventories in balance.”

Some countries use surplus plutonium from nuclear weapons to produce MOX fuel, but according to ASN France uses only civilian plutonium, extracted from spent fuel.

ASN said MOX fuel has been used in France since 1987. In 2017, of the 58 French reactors, 22 were using MOX fuel while 24 reactors had permission to use it.

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