The French group Orano continued to send uranium to Siberia until October, where a conversion installation is located. The war in Ukraine raises the question of the future of the reprocessing sector.
by Perrine Mouterde and Marjorie Cessac
Unlike other Eastern European countries, France does not depend on Russia to operate its 18 power stations. Imported natural uranium comes from Niger, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan and Australia. It can then be converted and enriched in the installations of Orano on the sites of Malvési (Aude) and Tricastin (Drôme), the fuels being then manufactured in the factories of the French Framatome or the American Westinghouse.
But the war in Ukraine, which exposes European and global dependence to the Russian nuclear industry, is not completely without consequences on the French sector. Because today, only one installation allows you to “recycle” uranium from the fuels used in the 56 reactors of the park: the Seversk factory, located in the region of Tomsk, in Siberia, which belongs to the Russian group Rosatom.
A definitive judgment of the uranium trade between Paris and Moscow would inevitably have consequences on an already weakened reprocessing sector and could ultimately lead to uranium resulting from worn fuels is considered additional waste to Manage, not as material that can be reused.
For the past two years, uranium has been sent from France to Russia. The Greenpeace antinuclear NGO documented at least five deliveries between January 2021 and January 2022: 11 containers loaded in the port of Le Havre, on February 12, 2021, 20 containers loaded in Dunkirk, October 29, 2021, and 13 containers in the same port , in November 2021… on September 28, 2022, seven months after the triggering of the invasion of Ukraine, the organization still revealed the presence of the Russian cargo Mikhail Dudin in the port of Dunkirk.
“The uninterrupted round trips of this cargo between Saint Petersburg and Dunkirk betray how the French nuclear industry is trapped in its dependence on Russia, then denounced Pauline Boyer, campaign manager energy and nuclear transition For Greenpeace. France must urgently stop any nuclear energy trade with Russia. “The atom sector is not the subject of European sanctions. H2>
The French group Orano, owner of reprocessing uranium (URT) mainly from foreign power plants and engaged by a contract signed in 2020 with Rosatom, confirmed that he had made “five or six deliveries” to Russia, for a volume total of 1,150 tonnes. The company has revealed to the world, however, that this contract was now ended, a last uranium transport which took place in October 2022. Orano also affirms not to consider signing again with the Russian nuclear giant.
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