The nuclear fuel cycle in France comprises all the operations involved in supplying fuel to French nuclear reactors and managing irradiated fuel. These operations include ore extraction, uranium concentration, conversion, enrichment, fuel fabrication, irradiation in reactors, recycling, and waste management.
In France, the upstream and downstream parts of the cycle are handled by companies in the Orano Group (formerly Areva).
Ore, mined in mainland France from the 1950s until the late 1990s, is now entirely imported. It is then converted at the Comurhex plants in Malvési (Aude) and Pierrelatte (Drôme), then enriched at the Georges-Besse II plant on the Tricastin nuclear site. The original Georges-Besse plant closed in 2012. Reactor fuel assemblies are manufactured by Framatome on the Romans nuclear site for normal fuel and by Orano Melox on the Marcoule nuclear site for Mox, a fuel composed of uranium and plutonium. Orano also conducts reprocessing, which separates fission products and actinides from spent nuclear fuel.
After three years of irradiation, spent nuclear fuel has been transformed, with the appearance of plutonium, fission products, and minor actinides. What's more, around 1% of the fissile 235 isotope remains, more than in natural uranium (0.7%), and it may be worth enriching this spent uranium for recycling.
After being stored for a year in a deactivation pool at a nuclear power plant, spent nuclear fuel assemblies are transported to the La Hague reprocessing plant in the Manche region of France, where all the recoverable radionuclides are separated from the other elements, which are treated as waste. This operation is undertaken after a further three to five years of storage in a pool to allow radioactivity to decay.
La Hague has the capacity to reprocess about 1,700 tons of spent fuel per year. One-third of the uranium recovered at La Hague (i.e. 280 tons per year) is re-enriched, enabling the annual production of 35 tons of enriched reprocessed uranium (ERU) fuel. Plutonium and reprocessed uranium are then sent to the Melox plant to manufacture Mox for use in one of the 22 authorized power plants.
On December 31, 2007, a total of 1,150,969 m3 of waste was stored at the various sites, including 2,293 m3 of high-level waste. The Morvilliers repository in the Aube region of France receives very low-level waste, while the nearby Soulaines repository accepts low- and intermediate-level short-lived waste. Long-lived and high-level (HL) waste will be accepted at these deep sites, which will be defined before 2015.
On November 28, 2008, EDF communicated its cycle development forecasts for the period 2007-2017 to the supervisory authorities based on four scenarios. On May 9, 2011, the ASN requested that an additional study be carried out within a year, taking into account the lessons learned from the Fukushima nuclear accident, particularly about deactivation pools and a downward revision of annual production.
Closed cycle with reprocessing
The nuclear fuel cycle includes uranium mining, uranium concentration, conversion, enrichment, fuel fabrication, irradiation in reactors, recycling, and waste management.
This cycle can be open, whereby spent fuel irradiated in reactors undergoes no further treatment and is sent to storage sites of varying design depending on the country, as is the case in Sweden and the United States. It can be closed, with the spent fuel undergoing treatment in specialized plants to recover plutonium and uranium for recycling and eventual reuse, while the final waste is permanently stored on specialized sites.
France has opted for the so-called “closed cycle” with reprocessing, as have the Netherlands, Russia, and Japan.
Depending on the source of supply, uranium arrives in France either in its natural state, with a simple concentration treatment carried out at the extraction site, after which it is converted and enriched in France, or already enriched. For example, Kazakh uranium is converted and enriched in Russia, while uranium from Niger is converted and enriched in France.
After irradiation in the reactors, the fuel is processed to extract plutonium and so-called reprocessed uranium, some of which is stored, thus constituting a reserve, and some of which can be used to manufacture new nuclear fuel, enriched reprocessed uranium. The plutonium, mixed with depleted uranium from the enrichment stage, is recycled into new MOX (mixed oxide fuel). This new fuel is then used in nuclear power plants that accept this type of fuel, saving 900t of natural uranium out of the 8400t consumed annually.
In 2022, Bernard Doroszczuk, Chairman of the French Nuclear Safety Authority, called for “a major overhaul of Orano's aging fuel cycle processing facilities.” In February 2024, the French Nuclear Policy Council approved the continuation of nuclear fuel reprocessing and recycling in France for new reactors to be built between now and 2040-2045. With a minimum lifespan of 60 years, France is looking ahead to 2100. To accomplish this, the government is planning a program to extend the lives of La Hague and Melox beyond 2040, and launched studies on a new MOX fabrication plant and a new reprocessing plant.
Natural uranium mining
History
Uranium mining in France began immediately after the Second World War, with the creation of the Commissariat à l'Energie Atomique (Atomic Energy Commission) by General de Gaulle on October 18, 1945. In the early 1950s, numerous deposits were discovered: in Limousin from 1948 to 1950, then in Vendée in 1951, in Forez in 1954, and finally in Hérault in 1957. At the same time, significant deposits were discovered abroad: the Arlit mine in Niger and the Cluff Lake deposit in Canada came on stream in 1968.
The first oil crisis boosted prospecting and production, and uranium prices rose in 1973. New deposits were discovered and brought on stream in Aveyron, Allier, Creuse, Corrèze, and, in 1974, Gironde. The latter was not exploited, however, as it was insufficiently rich. In 1976, the CEA handed over the exploitation of its metropolitan deposits to its subsidiary, Compagnie Générale des Matières Nucléaires (Cogema). New deposits were discovered in the Hérault region in 1981.
In 1988, the French nuclear industry produced 3,420 tons of uranium in the course of the year, or 5.6% of the world's total, estimated at 61,000 tons at the time. However, the necessity was growing, and the conditions for exploiting deposits in mainland France were becoming less profitable. From then on, France's uranium supply came from mines in Australia (Ranger in particular), Niger, Gabon and Canada.
In 1995, the last operating shaft in the Limousin region, at Margnac, was closed.
In 2001, the last mine in operation, the Jouac mine in the Haute-Vienne region, ceased production. Reputed to be France's richest deposit, with over 5 kg of uranium per tonne of ore, mining at depths of over 400 meters was no longer profitable.
Mines in France
Uranium can occur naturally in rocks, soils, continental waters, or seawater. In France, the deposits that have been mined are located either in magmatic rocks or in sedimentary soils.
Ore from magmatic rocks results from the migration and precipitation of granitic magma solutions into the earth's upper crust along zones of disturbance. The Morvan, Limousin, and Vendée sites fall into this category. The Morvan deposits are associated with the Luzy granitic batholith, those in Limousin with the Monts d'Ambazac granitic massif, and those in Vendée with the Mortagne granitic massif. Sedimentary deposits result from the alteration of igneous rocks and the concentration of debris in other types of sedimentary rock, consolidated or unconsolidated. The Lodève deposit, located in the Permian sandstones of the Hérault region, falls into this category.
Ore is extracted and mined either in open-pit mines, which account for 30% of France's metalliferous mines, or in underground galleries. While open-cast mining offers the advantages of lower costs and greater production capacity, it also has a greater impact on the landscape and the environment. In Limousin, for example, the Brugeaud mine created an excavation 15 ha in size and 130 m deep. Between 1955 and 1972, an estimated 20 million tonnes of rock were extracted from the quarry alone, while only 2,124 tons of uranium were extracted from the quarry and gallery site as a whole. IRSN lists 217 mining sites in France, spread over 25 departments.
The low-grade ore requires concentration. Processing involves both physical operations (pre-concentration and conditioning) and chemical operations (acid etching of the ore and purification of the concentrate). It requires fairly extensive facilities that discharge large quantities of solid and liquid waste. Ten uranium concentration processing plants have existed in France. Each of Cogema's mining divisions had such a facility: l'Escarpière for the Vendée division, Bessines for the La Crouzille division, Saint-Priest-la-Prugne for the Forez division.
Three other private mine operators have existed in France: Société Industrielle et Minière de l'Uranium (SIMURA), which exploited deposits in the Bonote region near Pontivy (Morbihan); Compagnie Française des Minerais d'Uranium (CFMU) in Lozère; and Société Centrale de l'Uranium et des Minerais Radioactifs (SCUMRA), which operated the Saint-Pierre deposit in the Cantal region. Each has its conversion plant.
These sites supplied 52 million tons of ore, including 76,000 tons of uranium, and left around 166 million tons of waste rock and 51 million tons of tailings.
Uranium production trends in France between 2000 and 2010, according to World Nuclear Association statistics, are shown in the table below. Following the closure of the last French mine in 2001, a few tons of uranium are still produced annually, through the treatment of resins from mine drainage water at the former Lodève mine in southern France. 20002001200220032004200520062007200820092010320 195 20 9 7 75 4 5 8 7
Uranium imports Since the closure of the last French mine in 2001, France no longer produces uranium directly and imports it in its entirety. Its supply strategy, through its main operator EDF, is based on diversification of sources, both geographically, with materials from deposits in Canada, Australia, Kazakhstan, or Africa, and in terms of suppliers. In 2011, EDF sourced 40% of its materials from Areva and 60% from other suppliers. In line with the conclusions of the Roussely report on the future of the French nuclear industry, published by the Élysée Palace in June 2010, in February 2011 EDF examined the possibility of becoming a reference shareholder in Areva's mining division.
Orano, which has been present in Mongolia for 25 years, is carrying out a pilot on-site test from July 2021 to December 2022 to extract uranium from the Zuuvch Ovoo deposit, in partnership with the Mongolian state-owned company Mon-Atom. Mongolia has the largest reserves in Asia, but they are still poorly exploited. Emmanuel Macron supported the uranium mine project during his visit to Mongolia in May 2023. In 2023, despite sanctions linked to the war in Ukraine, France imports almost 54% of its enriched uranium from Russia.
Conversion
Conversion to uranium tetrafluoride
Conversion involves transforming uranium concentrate from the mines into a gaseous state for use in enrichment plants. Conversion takes place in two stages. The uranium concentrate is first transformed into uranium tetrafluoride (UF4) and then into uranium hexafluoride (UF6).