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       Framatome is a French company that manufactures nuclear reactors and nuclear reactor fuel. It was created in 2018 when Areva, another French company, went bankrupt. Seventy five percent is owned by EDF, the French utility company. Twenty percent is owned by Mitsubishi Heavy Industry, a Japanese company, and five percent is owned by Assystem, an international engineering services firm.
       Framatome has just received a forty-nine million dollar grant from the U.S. Department of Energy (DoE) for a twenty eight month project. The purpose of the grant is to accelerate the development and commercial production of enhanced accident tolerant fuel (EATF) for nuclear power reactors. The new grant will allow Framatome to continue work that was begun with a ten-million dollar grant from DoE in 2016. EATFs are being created to improve normal performance in nuclear reactors and to give nuclear plant operators more time to deal with the loss of active cooling in reactors.
       Framatome is working on EATF for all types of nuclear power reactors. In the near term, Framatome is experimenting with the use of chromium in nuclear fuel assemblies. Chromium can be used to coat fuel pellets in fuel rods or to clad the entire fuel rod. These new fuel designs should improve fuel efficiency and give operators more flexibility.
       Adding chromium to the existing cladding alloys use in nuclear fuel assemblies provides a number of advantages over existing nuclear fuels such as improved resistance to oxidation at high temperatures, the reduction of hydrogen gas generation caused by accidents and increased resistance to wear and debris production in normal operation.
       Framatome has been developing chromium cladding for nuclear fuel for several years as part of the DoE’s EATF program. It was announced in July of 2017 that chromium clad fuel pellets and fuel rods would be loaded into the Unit 2 reactor at the Vogtle nuclear power plant in Georgia for testing early in 2018.
       In the long term, Framatome will develop the use of silicon-carbide based cladding for nuclear fuel assemblies. It is hoped that silicon-carbide cladding will offer even more improvements than chromium cladding.
        Bob Freeman is the vice president of Contracts and Services for Framatome Fuel Commercial and Customer Center in North America. He said, “EATF designs represent the next evolution in technologies that will support today's and tomorrow's nuclear reactors and unlock value in Framatome's
products and the existing nuclear fleet. With the support of DOE, Congress and our industry partners, we are ahead of schedule in making this fuel technology available to nuclear power plants so that they can continue to provide clean, efficient electricity.”
      Framatome is one of three companies working with DoE to commercialize EATF. The other two companies are Global Nuclear Fuel (GNF) and Westinghouse. The DoE accident tolerant fuels project was launched in response to the Fukushima nuclear disaster in 2011. The DoE intends to test EATFs in a commercial power reactor by 2022. The DoE is following an accelerated timetable in order to have EATFs available by 2025 for use in the current fleet of commercial nuclear power reactors, many of which are licensed to operate into the 2030s.