Design and construction of the new reprocessing plants at La Hague

Cogema decided at the end of the 1970s to expand its spent fuel reprocessing complex at La Hague near Cherbourg: - construction of the entirely new UP3 reprocessing plant with a capacity of 800 tons per year of LWR fuel, - extension of the existing UP2-400 reprocessing plant to form the UP2-800 plant with the same annual capacity of 800 tons. Hot commissioning is scheduled for UP3 in early 1989 and for UP2-800 in 1992. This outstanding construction program will, when finished, have involved investments of about 50 billion French francs over slightly more than 10 years. The La Hague site will then have a coherent set of high-capacity industrial facilities for reprocessing and also for related upstream and downstream operations, the latter including: - spent fuel unloading from shipping casks and decay pools storage before reprocessing. La Hague will have a total storage capacity of 10,000 tonnes of uranium, of which 6,000 tonnes are already in operation, - processing and packaging of all radioactive wastes for final disposal, including vitrification of fission products