David Jones, Senior VP, Back End Business Group, AREVA North America

Let’s start with this fact: MOX fuel has been used safely for decades in numerous nuclear reactors worldwide.

Now let’s dig into the details.

Most fuel used in nuclear reactors is uranium oxide. Uranium oxide (UOX) is also the primary material in mixed oxide (MOX) fuel. In MOX fuel assemblies, uranium oxide averages between 90- to 97-percent of the mixture, with the remainder being plutonium oxide. Of the total amount of fuel assemblies in a reactor, typically up to 30% can be MOX fuel.

For more than 40 years, AREVA's MOX fuel---now made at the MELOX facility in France---has safely powered nuclear reactors.

Today marks an important step for Japan’s energy independence and for the future of the nuclear industry.  As World Nuclear News and others are reporting, Kyushu Electric Power Company restarted Unit 3 of the Genkai nuclear power plant using MOX (mixed oxide) fuel recycled at AREVA’s MELOX facility in Marcoule, France.  Eventually, the Genkai plant plans to use MOX fuel at one-quarter of their 193 assemblies.

Because of Japan’s unique place on the world stage – a nation with a large energy appetite but relatively few natural resources – they’ve embarked on a plan to generate fully 40% of their energy from nuclear power and to start their own recycling operations on the islands, instead of sending their used nuclear fuel to France for recycling (as they’d done up until 1998, when they started collecting their own fuel).  They’ve known for a long time that just storing away once-used  
nuclear fuel and calling it “waste” – as we do here in the U.S. – doesn’t make sense.  Not only does recycling get more energy out of the used nuclear fuel, it also reduces the volume of the most dangerous waste by over 60%.

We’re proud to be working with Japan in taking this first step toward a cleaner, carbon-free, independent energy future.  Japan’s example makes it clear that a crucial stepping stone toward sustainability and energy independence – not only in Japan, but here in the U.S. and Canada as well – is expanding the use of nuclear power and putting in place a program to recycle used fuel.

Kyushu is one of the first of AREVA’s agreements to supply MOX fuel to Japan; the latest came in September with Chogoku.

by Katherine Berezowskyj

Yesterday Japan’s Chugoku EPCo utility signed a contract for AREVA to supply 40 Mixed-Oxide (MOX) fuel assemblies for one of the reactors at the Shimane nuclear power plant located in the city of Matsue.

MOX fuel is a distinct blend of uranium and plutonium oxides, but is particularly interesting because the plutonium used in the fuel is recovered from used nuclear fuel and fabricated into MOX fuel at AREVA’s MELOX plant in southern France. AREVA has decades of experience fabricating MOX fuel assemblies that have been used for energy generation in several countries including the United States, Germany, Switzerland, France, and Japan.

And right now AREVA is in the process of bringing this recycling expertise to the United States. As Shaw AREVA MOX Services LLC, we are currently constructing the MOX Fuel Fabrication Facility at the Savannah River Site in South Carolina. This Department of Energy project will be a facility that removes surplus weapons-grade plutonium and recycles it to make MOX fuel for use in nuclear reactors. When completed, the facility will have the capacity to take 3.5 metric tons of weapons-grade plutonium and turn it into MOX fuel each year, providing the United States with important energy and non-proliferation benefits.

To find out more about the MOX Fuel Fabrication Facility, click here.

Clean Skies is a site for discussion and debate over energy and environmental policy in the U.S., including in-depth video news of important issues. As nuclear energy is a leading CO2-free energy source, the network has focused some recent pieces on key aspects of nuclear energy.

In a report from July 1^st, Clean Skies News talks about the success that France has had with nuclear energy, meeting approximately 80 percent of its energy needs.

http://www.cleanskies.com/videos/energy-report-7109-afternoon-edition

The following clip looks at another aspect of nuclear energy; the question of what to do with spent fuel in the U.S.  Here, the Clean Skies Team visits AREVA’s La Hague and MELOX recycling facilities for a report of the benefits of recycling technology.

http://www.cleanskies.com/videos/recycling-nuclear-waste