France: the new radioactive waste reprocessing pool at La Hague in question
Nuclear waste treatment pool at La Hague, in north-western France, June 5, 2018 © AFP - CHARLY TRIBALLEAU
Text by: RFI Follow
2 min
The public is invited to express their views on the project for an additional swimming pool to store spent fuel on the La Hague site.
The consultation begins this Monday, November 22 and continues until February 18.
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The question is already making a lot of noise among environmentalists.
Should a new pool for irradiated fuels be built at La Hague?
The National Commission for Public Debate (CNDP) is organizing until February 18 a "preliminary consultation" on this project for a "
basin with a total storage capacity of 6,500 tonnes
" which aims to "
avoid the saturation
" of the current swimming pools. The Hague.
The spent fuel in all the power stations in France cools there, ie a little less than 10,000 tonnes at present, the equivalent of 100 reactor cores.
Public meetings are planned in La Manche and everyone can also give their opinion on the projet-p Piscine.edf.fr website.
On the one hand, the urgency is there and on the other, the debate on the treatment of nuclear waste in France is relaunched.
The country is an exception in this area since in other States, waste is buried dry, next to each power plant, which avoids problems particularly related to the transport of radioactive waste.
The second basin project is valued at 1.25 billion euros.
It will be "
protected by a bunkerized wall
", according to EDF, unlike current swimming pools.
►
To listen: Greenpeace report on nuclear waste: "We maintain the myth of recycling"
"
Extremely hot and extremely radioactive fuels
"
The reprocessing of waste is more than ever called into question, because it still represents risks in terms of safety and questionable economic relevance, according to the report of a member of the majority. Recycled fuels manufactured on site would be used very little in practice, demonstrated Greenpeace in a recent study.
For Catherine Fumé, member of the Sortir du nuclear collective and of the STOP nuclear swimming pool coordination, this “
project to build a new swimming pool, especially for these spent Mox fuels that we do not know how to recycle, which are extremely hot, extremely radioactive and which 'must be kept underwater between 50 and 100 years. This calls into question this French choice of reprocessing, which produces plutonium and which we do not know what to do with. It is an additional installation in a factory which is already polluting with a lot of installations which are dilapidated and which will have to be dismantled gradually.
"
"
Does it make sense to make this huge swimming pool?"
"Asks the anti-nuclear activist, who asks for guarantees:"
What are we going to do since it is scheduled for 100 years and what will happen when it is over?
What will be the releases into the environment and what will the population of La Hague suffer?
There are a whole bunch of questions that arise.
"
►
To read also: In France, questions pending after the debate on nuclear waste
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