Plutonium and Minor Actinides Management in France: Future Possible Scenarios

Full text of publication follows: Plutonium management options are key for the development of sustainable nuclear fission systems. Several reasons for this: (i) plutonium efficient burning can open the way to the valorisation of huge natural energy resources (²³⁸U, the plutonium precursor, is the most abundant fossil energy source); (ii) and plutonium is also, to several respects, a sensitive element (plutonium handling and/or disposal raise important issues). This gives the guidelines for French fuel cycle back-end policy: used (enriched uranium oxide) nuclear fuel is currently reprocessed, and recovered plutonium is re-loaded as MOX fuel in LWRs. This allows uranium savings (about 10% of French electricity come from burning MOX fuels), and final waste without plutonium (nuclear glasses for fission products and minor actinides confinement); the recovered plutonium is systematically recycled (no Pu build-up increase) and used MOX fuels are stored in pools, as a resource for future nuclear systems. This can be seen as the first step toward sustainability. Next step of sustainability would be the deployment, in the French fleet, of Generation IV fast neutron reactors which could allow, in the future, a complete and recurrent recycle of both uranium and plutonium, drastically extending (about two orders of magnitude) the natural uranium use, and possibly eradicating any TRU content in the final waste. Such options are currently investigated in the frame of a specific Act, voted by the French Parliament 'for sustainable management of radioactive materials and waste'. Different scenarios have been drafted and will be assessed (taking into account the diverse criteria and appropriate attributes), as a joint work embedding research and industrial bodies. A dedicated research programme, the ASTRID programme, has been launched by CEA: it aims at designing of a generation IV sodium cooled demonstrator (both reactor and related fuel cycle facilities), which could be operated from around 2025. Fuel cycle technologies are focusing important means, concerning both fuel fabrication and used fuel processing: the main goals are, keeping a progressive (step by step) approach, to improve current technologies (simplify, even increase compactness, safety, safeguardability), to adapt them to the specific features of fast reactor future fuels (higher Pu content, higher burnup,...), and, in a longer perspective, to complete them to allow in addition TRU recycle (Am recovery in used fuel and Am-bearing fuels manufacturing). The presentation will give, for these respective routes, the main guidelines and recent advances. (authors)