27 Sept (NucNet): Casks containing 48 containers of metallic compacted nuclear waste have arrived in Belgium from France – the eighth transport of its kind between the two countries.
Areva said the railway shipment – the result of spent fuel processing and waste separation and conditioning at the La Hague plant in France – left Areva’s railway terminal in Valognes in the Manche region of northern France earlier this week.
Belgium’s Federal Agency for Nuclear Control (FANC/ AFCN) confirmed the shipment had safely arrived on Thursday morning at the Dessel nuclear site in northeast Belgium.
The return of the Belgian waste is carried out under a French law for the return of nuclear waste to its country of origin. It is part of a contract for the reprocessing of used nuclear fuel between Areva and the Belgian company Synatom, which is in charge of nuclear fuel management.
Reprocessing at La Hague results in two types of waste: compacted waste, which is the residue of the metal components of the fuel assemblies used in nuclear plants, and vitrified waste, which is the non-recyclable material containing most of the radioactivity.
