“The news release issued today by Friends of the Earth is inaccurate and draws incorrect conclusions about the performance of the MOX lead test assemblies and the overall state of the Department’s mixed oxide fuel program at the Savannah River Site.  Shaw AREVA MOX Services and the National Nuclear Security Administration remain steadfast in our commitment to dispose of surplus weapons plutonium in a manner that results in the safe, affordable, and carbon-free generation of electricity for the benefit of American public.  Not only will the fuel produced at the MOX Fuel Fabrication Facility produce enough energy to power one million homes for 50 years, but the disposal of weapon-grade plutonium is a key component of President Obama’s commitment to strengthening international arms control and nonproliferation programs.  In addition, the Department of Energy has evaluated numerous approaches for disposing of surplus weapon-grade plutonium and, simply put, there is no, ‘cheaper, safer and faster alternative.’  This critical project also is important for the Southeastern region of the United States, where it will create jobs and stimulate the local economy.” –NNSA Spokesperson Jennifer Wagner

Dædalus, founded in 1955, features essays from country’s most prominent thought-leaders. This year’s Fall issue focuses on “The Global Nuclear Future,” and features Mrs. Lauvergeon’s article, “The nuclear renaissance: an opportunity to enhance the culture of nonproliferation.” In her article, Lauvergeon discusses the balance between the world’s need for more nuclear energy and communities cooperating to control proliferation.
 
The full text of Mrs. Lauvergeon’s essay, along with the rest of the issue, can be found
here.

Who are we?

AREVA subsidiary, AREVA Federal Services, works to support the Department of Energy in projects throughout the United States. Some of the important work going on right now includes nuclear engineering services, such as nuclear waste cleanup activities, nuclear nonproliferation, nuclear energy sciences and radioactive waste services.

AFS came about in 2007 to meet the growing needs of the Department of Energy. As an integral part of AREVA North America, AREVA Federal Services can provide its customers with the best in technologies and services. AREVA Federal Services personnel have been in the business for many, many years and are very experienced in the nuclear energy industry.

A little about what we do:

Nuclear Waste Cleanup
AREVA Federal Services is actively involved in the nuclear waste clean up efforts out at the Hanford site in southeast Washington State. The Hanford site is the largest environmental cleanup project in the U.S. Just last year, we won two contracts to be a major subcontractor to the Tank Operations Contract and to the Plateau Remediation Contract.

The Tank Operations project is for the complex and challenging cleanup of 53 million gallons of residual radioactive and chemical waste stored in 177 large aging underground tanks grouped in 16 farms at the 586 square mile Hanford site. The tank contents include material from the World War II years and post-war production of material for nuclear weapons. AREVA Federal Services is a member of the Office of River Protection LLC, the group responsible for safely managing the waste until it is prepared for disposal.

There is about 2,300 tons of used nuclear fuel, 11.5 tons of plutonium in various forms and 25 million cubic feet of solid waste in the Hanford Plateau. The Plateau Remediation project involves environmental and facility cleanup at the Plutonium Finishing Plant.

Contributing to Nuclear Nonproliferation
Down at the Savannah River Site (SRS) in Aiken, South Carolina Shaw AREVA MOX Services LLC is building a facility to dispose of weapons-grade plutonium. The MOX Fuel Fabrication Facility will take surplus weapons-grade plutonium, remove its impurities and mix it with uranium oxide to form MOX fuel pellets for nuclear fuel reactor assemblies. These assemblies are then used in commercial nuclear power reactors.

Aerial View of MOX Facility Construction

In other words, Shaw AREVA MOX Services LLC, which AREVA Federal Services is a partner in, takes nuclear weapons-grade plutonium and reduces it down to usable fuel to power America.

That’s just a glimpse of what we do. AREVA Federal Services does much more too! The next blog will focus on AREVA Federal Services’ role and experience in nuclear energy sciences and our radioactive waste services. Stay tuned!

“Workers will transform 34 metric tons of plutonium taken from about 10,000 dismantled nuclear bombs into something much less sinister, in fact beneficial: fuel rods that can be sold to utilities for use in commercial nuclear reactors.”

The facility is a massive undertaking using more than 170,000 cubic yards of concrete and 35,000 ton of reinforcing steel to complete the 600,000 square-foot facility. When fully operational, the MOX Fuel Fabrication Facility will be capable of turning 3.5 metric tons of weapons-grade plutonium into MOX fuel assemblies each year.

The Chronicle also points out how this project is a highly-regarded solution for weapons disposal. Current Secretary of Energy, Dr. Steven Chu, was quoted as saying “the men and women building the MOX Facility at Savannah River Site are working day and night to advance our vital national security interests…this facility will allow us to lead by example by demonstrating our commitment to eliminating surplus weapons plutonium in a transparent and irreversible manner.”

To read the rest of the article that includes some great background on the MOX projects, check out “MOX: The Future of SRS.”

For more information on the MOX Project, check out the official site.

Anne Lauvergeon, CEO of AREVA

For nearly half a century, non-proliferation treaties and other multinational collaborations have helped facilitate the safe expansion of nuclear technology for peaceful purposes. But some wonder whether the benefits of the so-called “nuclear renaissance” are worth the increased risks of the technology and potentially dangerous materials being used as weapons by terrorists, recalcitrant governments, and other groups that care little for the benefits of international cooperation.

AREVA CEO Anne Lauvergeon addressed these concerns in a speech to the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace’s 2009 Conference on Nonproliferation in Washington, D.C.

Lauvergeon noted that while governments bear primary responsibility for effectively preventing the spread of nuclear weapons, the nuclear industry can and must play a critical role as well.

“We have entered a world where nuclear industry is not to be seen as part of the problem, as it could have in the past, nor as a passive actor, but as an active part of the solution,” she said.

Citing corporate policies such as AREVA’s own Values Charter, which mandates working only with customers from countries that conform to international nonproliferation norms and obligations, and the emergence of reprocessing protocols that limit access to used fuel, Lauvergeon called the international growth of nuclear energy, “a unique opportunity to promote an enhanced culture of nonproliferation.”

The key, she explained, is to promote initiatives such as an international fuel bank that would help developing nations rectify their acute energy imbalances, and a well-functioning, closed fuel cycle market that would provide enrichment and used fuel recycling services at competitive prices. Such measures, she said, would minimize any incentive for non-nuclear countries to acquire fuel recycling and enrichment facilities of their own.

Noting how AREVA has already treated more than 20,000 tons of used fuel from seven countries, “The experience shows that, under the right framework, treatment and recycling are a very good option,” said Lauvergeon.

In closing, Mme. Lauvergeon said that the ongoing nuclear renaissance offers the world “a tremendous opportunity to meeting the energy, economic and environmental needs of both developed and developing countries, for the lifetime of our children and beyond. This, without increasing the risk of nuclear weapons.”

A transcript and video of the Conference are available here.

Construction of the facility has been going successfully since it started in 2007. Already 263,000 square feet of office space has been completed, with 78,000 currently under construction, not to mention over one million safe work hours already logged. The facility should open in 2016, and when it’s up and running it will be turning 3.5 metric tons of weapons-grade plutonium into MOX fuel each year, which we hope to supply to many customers–including TVA. We’re proud to be working with the Shaw Group on this important endeavor for nuclear energy and nonproliferation in support of U.S. energy and security needs.

A link to AREVA’s press release can be found here.

To check out more information on the project, go to the MOX Project website.

Some highlights include Hanson’s analysis of the main benefits and criticisms of recycling:

The main benefits associated with recycling are that it makes waste management easier, provides strategic flexibility and confidence for the long term, and saves natural resources and is able to burn plutonium, thereby reducing proliferation concerns.

• Makes waste management easier by reducing the volume of high level waste for disposal. “When such waste is vitrified, or specially-packed into a highly compact glass-like waste form for final storage, and added to the volume of compacted structural waste, the total volume necessary for final disposal is 75% less than the volume required if the used fuel is disposed directly in a repository.”
• This saves space in the geological repository, and “when a high-level waste repository eventually opens in the U.S., one would want to make optimal use of every cubic unit of emplacement.” The quantity of used fuel from U.S. reactors is already very large, about 60,000 metric tons. “If Yucca Mountain were to open in the next decade, the amount of fuel available for emplacement would already completely fill the repository’s legal capacity.” Even further, by extracting plutonium and uranium from the waste, it reduces the toxicity by a factor of about 90%.
• Recycling saves “15% of natural uranium resources. Recycling plutonium into mixed oxides, or MOX, fuel, allows about 12% of natural uranium savings…a total savings of at least 27% of natural uranium resources.”
• It is a means to burn plutonium, thereby, reducing proliferation concerns. “Recycling plutonium in MOX fuel consumes roughly one-third of the plutonium through single recycling and significantly alters the isotopic composition of the remaining plutonium, thus severely degrading its potential weapons attractiveness.”

Hanson also addressed the criticisms of used fuel recycling:

• On non-proliferation concerns, “the U.S. government has demonstrated an ability to prevent diversion of its weapons material, there is no reason to believe it could not prevent diversion of material recovered from used fuel by the same means. If recycling is done by a commercial entity, the government could impose its own safeguards in addition to IAEA (International Atomic Energy Agency) safeguards to prevent diversion.”
• About the associated cost, Hanson highlighted the Boston Consulting Group Study from 2006 which the economics of “once-through” and recycling are comparable within a 10% difference, attributed to the increasing cost of uranium, high total life-cycle costs of a geological repository, and the significant cost savings created by the 2,500 metric tons capacity of the recycling facility.
• Concerning the volume of waste generated, he explained that there are “two streams classified according to their ultimate disposal pathway: surface disposal and underground, or geologic, disposal, the latter being order of magnitude more complex, more expensive, and more sensitive to implement.” Comparing the volume of material (high level waste) for underground disposal, reduced by at least 75%, the projected increase for low-level waste, disposed in near-surface facilities, would amount to “only 2.5% of the volume of such waste disposed annually in the U.S.”

Importantly for the future, Hanson stated firmly that “it is time for America to regain global leadership” and “a used fuel recycling facility should be built in the U.S. Britain, France, China, Japan, and Russia have already built or are developing recycling capabilities. America was the first to develop this technology, we were the first to send a man to the moon, and it is time for America to take the lead again.”

Thus, we thought that this would be a good time to highlight AREVA’s commitment to non-proliferation of nuclear weapons, and our being a partner in the US Department of Energy’s Global Threat Reduction Initiative. As it says on the DOE’s site:

The mission of the Global Threat Reduction Initiative (GTRI) is to reduce and protect vulnerable nuclear and radiological materials located at civilian sites worldwide. GTRI helps the Department of Energy achieve its Nuclear Security Goal to prevent the acquisition of nuclear and radiological materials…Three key subprograms of GTRI –Convert, Remove, and Protect—provide a comprehensive approach to denying terrorists access to nuclear and radiological materials.

As part of this commitment to remove weapons-grade material from stockpiles, AREVA has partnered with the Shaw Group to build the MOX Fuel Fabrication Facility at the Savannah River Site in South Carolina. This facility when complete with convert the weapons-grade plutonium into MOX fuel for use in commercial nuclear power plants. This $4.9 billion project now under construction employs some 1,000 workers and is being built for DOE.

Anne Lauvergeon, CEO of AREVA

Anne Lauvergeon is CEO of AREVA. This speech was given at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace’s 2009 Conference on Nonproliferation in Washington, D.C. on April 6, 2009. Previously: Part I – Part II – Part III

The nuclear industry itself can play an important role in making the acquisition of national enrichment and recycling facilities unnecessary and uneconomic. Thanks to a well-functioning fuel cycle market, with suppliers like AREVA that provide enrichment and used fuel recycling services at competitive prices, newcomers to nuclear energy simply do not need sensitive technologies! As well as many countries such as the Netherlands, Belgium, or Switzerland have enjoyed the benefits of nuclear energy for 40 years without mastering any sensitive technology! Fuel is supplied as part of long-term contracts, covered by export licenses. To make sure its products and services remain viable in the long term, the nuclear industry has already committed to major investments in new capacity.

I can see some of you reacting when I speak about recycling… Let me make a special focus on the recycling issue as I am convinced that this has to be the nerve centre of the partnership between nuclear industry and the non-proliferation community.

As we all know, there has been a long-standing debate about the merits of recycling and the management of the back-end of the fuel cycle.

• On one side is the once-through approach historically endorsed by the United States, which involves disposing of used fuel as a waste.
• On the other side is the recycling approach adopted by France, Japan, the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, and under consideration by China and India, which consists of recycling used fuel and recovering both plutonium and uranium to produce recycled fuel.

Concerns about proliferation risks of recycling were at the heart of the US policy, which was originally established on an interim basis by President Gerald Ford and extended by President Carter. The Bush Administration showed a new willingness to reconsider America’s once-through used fuel management strategy and to examine the merits of developing advanced technologies. We do not yet know what policy the Administration of President Barack Obama will adopt on recycling, but Secretary of Energy Steven Chu has expressed interest in continued research and development on recycling technologies.

Those decisions belong to the US Government and it is certainly not my role to interfere! Let me just give you my experience as a CEO of the world leader in this field. For this very reason, I might appear biased on the question of recycling… I am indeed guilty of such bias, but not for ideological or commercial reasons!

The closed fuel cycle approach is an industrial solution available today, and the inescapable path of the future. The experience shows that, under the right framework, treatment and recycling are a very good option, at a competitive cost. AREVA has treated more than 20 000 tons of spent fuel from 7 countries, on a commercial basis. Concretely, it means that the spent fuel used by our customers is taken back to La Hague, treated there in a way that enables to recycle 96% of it. The recycled materials are then taken to our facility in Melox, where MOX fuel is manufactured. This technique means that our customers have no access to any separated fissile materials, at any moment.

I am convinced that recycling is an economically, environmentally and socially responsible approach to the management of used nuclear fuel. I am always ready to share my views with skeptics and opponents, but I would first give them an advice: “please, come and see what recycling means to AREVA in our facilities! Come and visit AREVA’s recycling facility at La Hague and MOX fabricating in Melox!”

By sharing with you my experience, I would like to convince you that recycling used fuel and fabricating MOX fuel under effective safeguards and physical protection measures have not contributed and will not contribute to the weakening of the nonproliferation regime.

On the contrary, I believe that AREVA is contributing to reducing proliferation risks and being environmentally responsible. AREVA removes used fuel, recycles reusable material, and reduces the volume and radiotoxicity of waste. In the United States alone, if the US chooses to recycle, there is already enough used fuel in temporary storage at utility sites to generate enough electricity from nuclear origin to power the US for 7 years.

In addition AREVA is contributing to nuclear arms control and disarmament by
helping to eliminate weapons plutonium declared as excess by the United States in connection with its international commitments. We are building a MOX Fuel Fabrication Facility in Savannah River, South Carolina, based on our MELOX facility used to produce recycled fuel in France. This will enable the United States to convert 34 metric tons of surplus weapons-grade plutonium into MOX fuel for the elimination / destruction / disposition of nuclear weapons and the production of electricity in commercial nuclear plants! We are also part of the Global Threat Reduction Initiative of the DoE by recycling in La Hague separated plutonium, then used in MOX fuel.

As we all know here, MOX fuel is the only solution available in the short-term to reduce the surplus of weapons-grade plutonium. I think important to state it here, when President Obama has urged weapon-states to go further in nuclear disarmament. Let me say that AREVA is ready to deepen its partnering with the US Government.

Ladies and Gentlemen,

After the G20 Summit last week in London, some comments said that we may enter a new world as far as economy is concerned. For nuclear energy, it is already done! We have entered indeed a world where nuclear industry is not to be seen as part of the problem, as it could have in the past, nor as a passive actor, but as an active part of the solution; a world where efficiency and pragmatism have replaced prestige.

The ongoing nuclear renaissance offers us indeed a tremendous opportunity to meeting the energy, economic and environmental needs of both developed and developing countries, for the lifetime of our children and beyond. This, without increasing the risk of nuclear weapons!

On the contrary, I strongly believe that thanks to the partnership between all the stakeholders in non-proliferation – you, from the community of non-proliferation, me, as a representative of the nuclear industry, – we are able to seize this nuclear renaissance as the unique opportunity it is, the opportunity to enhancing the culture of nonproliferation among all the stakeholders of this renaissance.

Ladies and Gentlemen, thank you for your attention. I’ll be happy to address and
deepen any questions you may want to tackle.

Anne Lauvergeon, CEO of AREVA

Anne Lauvergeon is CEO of AREVA. This speech was given at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace’s 2009 Conference on Nonproliferation in Washington, D.C. on April 6, 2009. Previously: Part I – Part II

In considering the global nuclear renaissance, we need to pay special heed to the interests of developing countries in acquiring civil nuclear programs. I know that some are concerned about such a development. Personally, I consider the interest shown by these countries in nuclear energy as good news, for at least three reasons.

First, we need to do everything we can to put an end to today’s global energy imbalance. Two billion people are currently living without access to electricity, left by the wayside. And no electricity means life expectancy of thirty-five or forty years. We cannot allow this situation to continue.

Second, the effects of climate change will not be limited to the industrialized countries. Developing countries will be particularly hard hit by global warming. Many developing countries are now turning to nuclear power as a source of energy that is carbon-free. Far from trying to dissuade them, we should be applauding and supporting their efforts.

Third, objections to deploying nuclear energy in the developing world on nonproliferation grounds are politically and legally unacceptable – and, to me, ethically unacceptable. Nuclear energy is not just a privilege for rich countries. Any effort to deny the benefits of nuclear technology to developing peaceful nuclear technology will only undermine the NPT. Should I remind you about the text of the treaty itself, that “parties in a position to do so are obligated to assist the nuclear programs of other parties, with special attention to the needs of developing countries.” This provision was part of the basic bargain of the NPT – this “sound basic bargain” mentioned by President Obama. Thus, challenging the aspirations for or rights of developing countries to nuclear energy on the grounds that they would increase proliferation risks, is tantamount to challenging the fundamental balance of NPT, and jeopardizing the very foundation of the nonproliferation system.

By making the case for developing countries, I am not saying that any of them can accede to nuclear energy. Nuclear will not be appropriate for several countries in the world, whether for political reasons, or because of lack of required industrial infrastructure and skills in the country. To develop a nuclear program means for a country to be stable and rational. Some countries in the world cannot develop a nuclear program. This is clear.

But for those who can, AREVA’s rules for selling nuclear reactors and fuel are fair, non-discriminatory and universal. Whether our customers are American, Finnish, French, Chinese or South African, British or Indian, the same rules should apply: all countries must comply with international nonproliferation norms and their obligations. In this respect I am very pleased that diplomatic efforts over last years have succeeded in reaching a global and pragmatic solution allowing a re-opening of nuclear trade relations with India with the necessary peaceful use guarantees.

You will have understood why in my view, nuclear renaissance does not equate to proliferation risk. I would go further: the nuclear revival provides a unique opportunity to promote an enhanced culture of non proliferation. Let’s seize it! How? What can and what should we do?

In the past several years, we have witnessed a number of proposals to minimize the risks associated with the spread of these sensitive nuclear technologies. International fuel bank under the auspices of the IAEA, mentioned yesterday by President Obama, Six-nation “Concept of fuel assurances”: those initiatives prove that all the stakeholders involved in non-proliferation have taken the measure of the actions to take.

The nuclear industry supports the principle of a global system for ensuring security of supply to States so that they do not perceive a need to develop sensitive technologies and facilities. But, it is important to bear in mind that, whatever technical arrangements are established, the most important factor in assuring nuclear fuel to consumers is the commitment of supplier governments and industries to provide nuclear fuel on a reliable and predictable basis under strict nonproliferation controls.