From ACTIV-L@MIZZOU1.missouri.edu Tue Jan 3 22:00:30 1995 Reply-To: Rich Winkel Sender: Activists Mailing List From: Rich Winkel Organization: PACH Subject: GP: Report on French Nuclear Waste To: Multiple recipients of list ACTIV-L /** headlines: 965.0 **/ ** Topic: Report Reveals Dangers Of Nuclear W ** ** Written 9:28 PM Jan 1, 1995 by econet in cdp:headlines ** /* Written 7:34 AM Dec 28, 1994 by tgray in energy.nuclear */ /* ---------- "GP: Report on French Nuclear Waste" ---------- */ /Written 9:52PM Dec 27,'94 by jym@remarque.berkeley.edu in talk.environme/ /* ---------- "GP: Report on French Nuclear Waste" ---------- */ [Greenpeace Press Release -- Redistribute Freely] ************************** GREENPEACE PRESS RELEASE ************************** FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE PARIS, December 7,1994-(GP)- Greenpeace released a report today which documents the extensive generation of nuclear waste at the French la Hague plutonium separation, or "reprocessing" plant. The study, produced by WISE-Paris (1), is based on published and confidential sources and provides an extensive survey of nuclear waste generation, storage and environmental discharges at the la Hague plant. The WISE report totally destroys the myth of the "ecological" virtues of reprocessing. The report for example reveals that annual liquid discharges from la Hague, authorized by the French government, are roughly 3 times the total liquid discharges from all the nuclear reactors world-wide. In addition, the report documents the fact that as la Hague has grown, so too has its radioactive discharges to the environment. Far from limiting the nuclear waste problem, reprocessing at la Hague generates such large volumes of waste that at least 6 to 9 times more storage capacity is required than if the irradiated nuclear fuel were directly stored in the first place. In addition, while COGEMA (2) suggests that some 6.6 cubic metres of waste are generated per tonne of reprocessed irradiated nuclear fuel, the WISE report reveals that between 17.2 and 85.4 cubic metres of waste are generated when decommissioning and other discharged nuclear wastes are taken into account. The report further reveals that the great majority of this waste will remain in France; stored or as radioactive contamination in the environment. This extraordinary decision--to effectively allow France to become a nuclear waste dump for foreign customers--was partially revealed in a document leaked to and made public by Greenpeace in July of 1994. The paper, which outlined contract negotiations between COGEMA and a german electricity ultility, suggested that as little as 0.5 cubic metres of nuclear waste would be returned to the German company if it maintained its contracts with la Hague. These secret negotiations bring COGEMA, a governmentally-owned company, into direct conflict with the French law which requires that no such nuclear wastes of foreign origin remain in France. The WISE report suggests that COGEMA fully intends to retain a vast proportion of the generated nuclear waste regardless of ongoing contract negotiations. "This report reveals the true nature of la Hague--this is a factory for the production of nuclear waste," said Jean-Luc Thierry of Greenpeace. "While industry may profit by trading in plutonium, the public will pay the price of struggling with nuclear waste and environmental contamination for generations to come." ---End--- Notes 1.WISE-Paris (World Information Service on Energy) is a public research and information centre specialising in energy and environmental issues. 2. COGEMA (Compagnie Generale Des Matieres Nucleaires) is the governmentally controlled company which owns and operates the la Hague reprocessing facility. For More Information - Penelope Komites, Damon Moglen, Jean-Luc Thierry Greenpeace in Paris: +33 1 4770 4689 Mycle Schneider, Frank Homberg, Matthieu Pavageau WISE-Paris: +33 1 4565 4793 =================== SUMMARY/CONCLUSIONS; COGEMA-La Hague : Waste Producing Techniques CONCLUSIONS The purpose of the COGEMA plant at La Hague in Normandy is the production of plutonium. Plutonium, uranium, wastes and other byproducts are separated from spent nuclear fuel, in a complicated chemical process called reprocessing. The first incentive for plutonium production was of military order. Today, France has announced, it has given up further military plutonium production. The second incentive for plutonium production was then the development of fast-breeder reactors like the Superphenix in Southern France. This reactor type has been almost completely abandoned. The few prototype fast reactors operating (more or less) today would not be a justification of the increase of infrastructures as large as those in La Hague, which for a long time was considered as the largest building site in Europe. In fact, the multiplication by four of the French installed capacity for plutonium production over the last five years finds its origins in decisions taken in the 1970s. Today, the justification put forward for the futher operation of the plutonium production facilities is the the potential reintroduction of plutonium as MOX fuel in light water reactors. This justification is an afterthought, decisions on investments having been taken a long time ago. What will remain of yesterday's decisions is waste. This report tries to analyze the characteristics and quantities of waste from the plutonium factory of La Hague. The report does not analyze risks induced from activities at La Hague nor issues like nuclear proliferation, or potential consequences of radioactivity releases to the environment. Nevertheless, these issues should or have been analysed in the framework of other studies. A first point concerns the opacity around this subject. Significant information which would have been necessary for an independant analysis has not been accessible : it has been stamped as protected by "commercial and industrial secret". All of the waste technical specifications from La Hague are classified. We filed a request with the Commission d'Acces aux Documents Administratifs (CADA), the Prime Minister's Commission on Access to Administrative documents : CADA responded by confirming this secret classification. We consider that the need for open and independant analysis of technical criteria concerning the safety of hundreds of future genenerations (which is the case for high-activity radwaste) should overpower the commercial interests of a perishable industrial group. The information we have collected has often been contradictory, sometimes even in the same document, without it being possible for us to determine the reasons for the contradictions. Considering that plutonium production at La Hague is not a requirement, we analyzed reprocessing as a technical choice which has to be compared to another option of spent fuel management: direct disposal without reprocessing. No country plans to reprocess all of its fuel, not even France. About 8.000 Metric Tonnes (MT) of Electricite de France (EDF) spent fuel is stored in cooling ponds, which corresponds to 10 years of nominal capacity of UP2-800, the installation dedicated to EDF fuel. This stock increases by 300 or 500 MT every year. Around 90% of discharged spent fuel around the world is not reprocessed. It will therefore be necessary to face the problems of direct storage. Reprocessing has lost all of its attractiveness. Many countries, particularly Germany and Belgium, which were commited to reprocessing yesterday, are trying to abandon this option today. The Belgian COGEMA client SYNATOM has failed to identify a replacement client for its reprocessing capacity : there is no interest. The operation of reprocessing plants lead to considerable radioactive discharges : . The annual legal limit for liquid discharges from La Hague corresponds to 1.400 times the limit per reactor of the Gravelines site, which is also situated on the sea side. In other words, liquid discharges allowed from La Hague roughly correspond to three times the liquid waste discharges authorized for all the nuclear power plants in the world. . The annual limit for gaseous discharges from La Hague corresponds to 850 times the limit per reactor of the Gravelines site, or roughly twice the authorized releases for all the nuclear power plants in the world. The conditioning of the wastes coming out of La Hague is to be considered the first barrier of a system which is supposed to guarantee the isolation of the radioactivity it contains from the biosphere on a long term basis. The most complete quality control of conditioned waste is a destructive sample analysis. This quality control and the respect of the specifications is particularly important in the case of vitrified high-level waste (HLW). According to COGEMA, only 3 out of almost 3,000 vitrified containers have been subject to destructive analysis. We consider this sampling ratio completely insufficient and in no case representative. The quality control is to be guaranteed by the private auditing organization Bureau Veritas. The methods and techniques employed are confidential. Furthermore, Bureau Veritas has not been able to indicate us its expert experience considering radwaste. Bureau Veritas cannot be considered as a guarantor for quality. On the one hand, it does not carry any reliability for possible malfunctioning of its controls. On the other hand, even though Bureau Veritas has a rather good reputation for ship expertise, there is never a garauntee : the ferry Estonia was certified by Bureau Veritas on September 9, 1994, just four weeks before sinking in the Baltic Sea at the beginning of October, taking with it 910 lives. Liquid and gaseous radwaste releases into the environment is not a requirement, but corresponds to a choice of industrial management. Listing radwaste due to activities at La Hague reveals a number of radwaste categories which are not incorporated in the usual presentations of the industry. Among the missing particulars are: . radwaste without specifications; . virtual radwaste corresponding to released effluents; . decommissioning radwaste; . radwaste due to americium separation; . reprocessed uranium which is stored indefinitely. The comparison of COGEMA figures with our own analysis gives the following results (as volume per metric ton of spent fuel): . While COGEMA indicates 6.6 m3/MT, the result of our calculation is 17.2 m3/MT (without taking into account either discharges to the environment or decommissioning waste), which is 2.6 times the volume given by COGEMA. . We consider the discharges should be taken into account in the radwaste production and we evaluated its volume in low level activity waste. The volume increases up to 52,8 m3/MT, eight times the volume indicated by COGEMA. . The future decommissioning of the installations is also to be taken into account. The volume then rises to 85,4 m3/MT, thirteen times the volume indicated by COGEMA. The reference point remains the non-reprocessing option, which is the direct storage of spent fuel. In order to judge the difference in induced waste production, we have also evaluated the volume of the direct storage option. . 2,7 m3 without taking into account decommissioning waste. The comparative reprocessing volume (without decommissioning nor discharges) is more than six times greater. . 9,7 m3 taking into account decommissioning waste. The reprocessing option then produces close to nine times more waste. The total quantity of waste produced by reprocessing the 6,480 MT of light water reactor fuel reprocessed at La Hague, of which 4,220 MT (two thirds) for foreign clients, totals around 554,000 m3, of which 193,000 m3 should be attributed to EDF and 361,000 m3 to foreign clients. According to the existing contractual agreements, only 68,000 m3, which is less than 20% of the total, will be returned to the foreign countries. The effluents and the decommissioning waste, together with the waste produced by reprocessing of foreign waste without return clauses, will undoubtely stay in France. Nevertheless, a December 30, 1991 French law stipulates that the waste from reprocessing of foreign waste has to be sent back to its originating country. We consider the current situation as clearly illegal. In conclusion, the reprocessing plants at La Hague can be said to be genuine waste production facilities. ** End of text from cdp:headlines ** *************************************************************************** This material came from PeaceNet, a non-profit progressive networking service. For more information, send a message to peacenet-info@igc.apc.org ***************************************************************************