My recent posts have been about breeder reactors which generate more fissile material than they consume. There is renewed global interest in breeder reactors for the production of nuclear fuel and the destruction of nuclear waste. Today's post is the first post in a series about the history and current status of breeder reactors in the France.
France plunged into plutonium production following World War II for nuclear weapons. Fast breeder reactors were also an early strategic goal for the French. In 1957, ten European countries formed a consortium called EUROCHEMIC to cooperate on nuclear technology with France and Germany leading the way.
France's first reprocessing plant UP1 for plutonium recovery started operation in 1958. In the same year, design work began on a loop type sodium cooled fast breeder reactor called Raposide. It's design was a prototype for future commercial power reactors. Construction started in 1962 and it took five years to finish and begin operations. Raposide was upgraded to produce more power but output was reduced in 1980 because of cracks in the reactor vessels. It was turned off in 1983.
The French Atomic Energy Commission (CEA) started a second plutonium reprocessing facility at La Hague in the Normandy region in 1966. In 1976, CEA spun off a daughter company to run the operation called COGEMA. They also started a light-water reactor fuel preprocessor at La Hague designated UP2-4000 in the same year. Up to that point, they had only been processing gas graphite reactor fuel with a much lower burn up rate. COGEMA spent eleven years working on the processing of light reactor fuel. By 1987, they were processing about four hundred tons of fuel a year.
Électricité de France (EDF) is a state utility owned by the French government joined with CEA in a partnership to build the sodium cooled fast breeder plutonium reactor Phénix. Phénix was turned on in 1973 and connected to the French grid. It operated smoothly until the 1980s but then succumbed to transients in reactivity and had to be shut down for repairs. It was only restarted briefly a few times between 1991 and 1994. Between 1994 and 2002, a costly repair and upgrade was carried out. The reactor restarted in 2002 and continued to operate at reduced power until 2009.
The OPEC oil embargo of 1973 sent shockwave through the international energy market. The French government committed to sixteen big power generating reactors in 1974. The price of uranium rose about 600% between 1973 and 1976 which increased the attractiveness of breeder reactors which could produce more plutonium for fuel.
In the early 1970s, France, Germany and Italy signed agreements for joint construction of two commercial scale fast breeder reactors to be located in France and Germany. NERSA, a European consortium to build and operate fast-neutron reactors was created in 1974. Opposition swiftly grew against the project. In the mid 1970s hundreds of French scientists publicized their specific concerns about fact breeder technology. The CEA responded with a call for the "rapid and massive introductions of breeder reactors" because a delay would have “catastrophic consequences on the uranium savings that are expected."
The Marcoule site, with the Phénix reactor on the left side:
