Radioactive waste from the first La Hague Plant

During and after the Second World War, countries wishing to acquire nuclear weapons, the 'atomic bomb' - the United States, the USSR, the United Kingdom, France and later China, but not Canada - chemically treated or 'reprocessed' spent or 'irradiated' fuel from nuclear reactors to extract the plutonium. In France, these reprocessing operations were initially carried out at the UP1 plant (UP: plutonium plant) in Marcoule, now being dismantled, before the first plant at La Hague took over in the 1960's. The first La Hague plant consisted of four basic nuclear installations (INB), INB 33 (UP2- 400), INB 38 (STE 2), INB 47 and INB 80 (HAO). These INBs in turn have been in the process of being dismantled since their definitive shutdown in the early 1980's. During the years when this first plant at La Hague was in operation, large volumes of reprocessing waste were stored in bulk in precarious conditions, in silos and even in trenches in the open ground. Nearly 60 years after the start-up of the plant, tens of thousands of tons of waste have still not been properly retrieved and conditioned, despite numerous reminders from the French safety authority (ASN). This Global Chance report takes stock of the situation on the basis of various ASN decisions, reports from the Institute for Radiation Protection and Nuclear Safety (IRSN) and information provided by the operator, currently ORANO. As the French government announced in February 2024 its intention to continue reprocessing beyond 2040, it is essential that the various ASN decisions are finally complied with, possibly by imposing financial penalties, in order to guarantee the safety of dismantling and waste conditioning operations at the former La Hague site. (authors)