(477.4740) WISE-Amsterdam -In France the use of MOX fuel is growing as the 14th nuclear reactor is to be loaded with MOX fuel by the end of this year. For the whole of 1997, a total of 176 MOX elements are to be loaded, being twice as many as EdF has ever loaded in a year. Reactors with a total capacity of 16,900 MWe are now licensed for the use of MOX. The EdF's aim is to have 28,900-MWe units licensed and available for MOX use by the year 2000.
In the "10 years of MOX fuels in France" seminar in June, organized by the French Nuclear Energy Society (SFEN), the EdF's Nuclear Operation employee group Le Bars explained the EdF's plans to have 28 reactors licensed by 2000. Four reactors at Chinon passed the public inquiry process but a ministerial signature is still lacking.
At the end of this year, the EdF is expected to receive a license to burn MOX containing over 5% plutonium. According to a spokesman for nuclear safety agency DSIN, no 'sticking points' had been found in the EdF's safety case for the higher enrichment fuel. The goal of the EdF in the year 2000 is to improve the MOX fuel energy output and to achieve higher burn-up (50 GigaWattdays/Metric Ton; burn-up is defined as the amount of energy the discharged fuel has produced. It is expressed in MWD). The EdF wants to reach this burn-up by using 3.7% U235 enriched uranium fuel and at the same time MOX assemblies with corresponding enrichment and 8.6% total Pu in an assembly with a total of 30% MOX-fuel in the reactor core. The EdF is currently licensed to use MOX at less than 5% Pu, equivalent to 3.1%- enriched UO2 fuel.
Le Bars pointed also to the physical protection and radiological protection issue. Due to the proliferation of risks, fresh MOX fuel must be protected from theft, and therefore the supply and storage is a problem for the utilities-operating reactors. The Cogema Melox production plant at Marcoule (southern France) has limited storage capacity; schedules for production, transport and loading have to be made. Adaptions had to be made at the fuel storage pools: MOX fuel has to be stored separately from uranium fuel. Protection against radiation is necessary in the storage, especially because of neutron radiation from the elements. Before loading in the core the elements must be unloaded from the casks and examined. The EdF plans to replace the current delivery casks with a new type allowing fuel to be unloaded and examined in the fuel pool. When this is realized (by the year 2000), less radiation due to examining and loading MOX fuel should be received by personnel. The EdF is not planning yet to use MOX in its 1300-MW PWRs, nor in the newest PWRs, the 1450 N4 series, as they are not designed for this. The future European Pressurized Water Reactor EPR, still in the design phase and not likely to materialize, would, according to the EdF, be suitable to burn even 100% MOX cores.
The growing use of MOX is now an extra focus point in the campaign of Stop Melox, the regional group opposing the Melox MOX-fuel fabrication plant at Marcoule. Before the elections the Socialists and Greens called for a moratorium on the use of MOX. Now that the Socialists have won in the parliamentary elections, nothing seems to have changed in the government policy. Therefore, Stop Melox is intensifying its campaign against MOX. The 10-year-old Stop Melox group is asking people and groups to join them in their appeal to the government to stop the use of MOX-fuel.
Sources:
- NuclearFuel, 14 July & 11 August 1997
- Silence (Fr), September 1997.
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