The UP1 decommissioning programme at the Cogema-Marcoule site strategic approach

Commissioned in 1958, UP1 plant is located on COGEMA Marcoule site in southern France along the Rhone River. It reprocessed first spent fuels from plutonium producing reactors for Ministry of Defence and later, spent fuels from commercial GCR gas cooled-graphite reactors for the CEA, EDF and others COGEMA clients such as Hifrensa for a total of about 18 600 metric tons. The plant production was officially stopped by the end of 1997 and followed immediately by a major decommissioning project which is still now underway. In this presentation we will first provide an overview of the activities on the site before targeting on some key issues to illustrate the choice of the decommissioning strategy. (author)