Recycling used nuclear fuel - Orano la Hague - English

[Music] the 300 hectares are on Allah eggplant is located in Normandy on the extreme tip of the Cotentin Peninsula around 4,000 people work there its task to recycle the energy potential of nuclear used fuels arriving from nuclear power plants in France and abroad because having produced energy for four to five years in the core of a reactor spent fuel assemblies have to be replaced and yet these used fuels still contain considerable energy potential the equivalent of a quarter of the energy produced by a brand new assembly the treatment carried out at the leg plant allows the recuperation of the uranium and plutonium contained in the fuel amounting to 96% of the nuclear material the remaining 4% are the fission products this final waste is conditioned in a safe and sustainable way as other metallic structures which are also non reusable there are two tasks the recycling of nuclear materials on one hand and the optimum waste management on the other explanation use fuel assemblies are transported from a nuclear plant to La excite in completely safe casks they are transferred to a first workshop for reception and storage in ponds the casks are controlled prepared and then docked with perfect tightness to the unloading cell here as in all cells complete and extremely reliable automation is used the assemblies are unloaded cooled then placed in a storage pond to enable part of the radioactivity to decrease after several years in the pond an assembly is taken to a workshop where it will first be cut a process known as shearing the end pieces are removed as for the cladding which contains the recyclable materials it is sheared into 35 millimeter sections the dissolution step allows the recovery of the material contained in the sections for treatment [Music] inside the dissolver the sections are plunged into nitric acid the result on one side sections which have been emptied of their material which are called hulls the hulls then follow the same treatment line as the end pieces the same line used for metallic waste on the other side nitric acid containing uranium plutonium and fission products [Music] the solvent therefore contains recyclable uranium and plutonium and non recyclable fission products the extraction step consists in separating these three materials in two phases firstly the fission products are separated from the plutonium and uranium and secondly the uranium from the plutonium extractions are carried out in the liquid phase a solvent is used for one element to have an affinity to an organic phase while the other remains in liquid phase like water and oil the two elements separate naturally at the end of the extraction cycles three separated materials are obtained the fission products concentrated by evaporation uranium also concentrated by evaporation and plutonium which is transferred to its workshop for conditioning the uranium is first purified this involves removing the last traces of the fission products then it is concentrated in liquid form called urinal nitrate to be recycled again in the fuel cycle the urinal nitrate is then stored in tanks before being shipped to be recycled in enrichment and fuel manufacturing plants the plutonium contains a large quantity of energy its treatment consists in changing it from a liquid form to a solid form for this it is first purified then converted into plutonium oxalate of pulp using precipitation calcination then completes the transformation of the oxalate into a powder plutonium oxide [Music] the plutonium oxide is finally conditioned in stainless steel boxes which are placed in cases which in turn are placed in containers particular attention is given to the airtightness and non contamination of the containers after a storage phase they are sent to the Arana Maalox plant which makes new fuels called MOX in nuclear power plants MOX fuels are used to generate electricity at each step of the process the quality of the products is meticulously analyzed at or enola ugh the purity of the materials obtained is systematically measured by chemical physical and isotopic analyses materials recycled at or enola AG have a considerable energy potential one gram of plutonium which equals 100 grams of uranium represent the energy equivalent of over one metric tonne of oil [Music] fission products extracted from the solvent are not recyclable they contain almost all of the used fuels radioactivity they are incorporated in glass frit and conditioned into an extremely stable form for optimized and long-term safety management this process is called vitrification step 1 evaporation of the nitric acid present in the solution by heating it in a vessel this enables the concentration of the fission products step 2 precise dosing of the solution to enable fusion with the glass frit and step 3 the solution is transferred to a calcine ater where it is heated at a very high temperature once it leaves the calcine ater the glass frit is added the mix falls into a melting furnace heated to 1,100 degrees Celsius which ensures the perfect incorporation of the products and a homogenous glass form this guarantees a very chemically stable matrix for several tens of thousands of years the molten glass obtained is poured into a 175 liters stainless steel container which is then cooled welded shut cleaned and smear tested to check it is contamination free regarding the metallic structure of the fuel assembly the hulls and end pieces are rinsed separately [Music] the end pieces in acid and water [Music] the hulls in water [Music] transported together the hulls and end pieces will then be precisely sorted by a separator doser to ensure the correct distribution into casings [Music] the filled casings are then compacted under a 2,500 metric ton press the casing compacting cycle is entirely automated and takes only 12 minutes the compacted casings are placed in a container which is welded and checked for non contamination before being sent for storage with these operations waste volume is divided by five which means a reduced environmental footprint the containers with vitrified and compacted waste are standardized to facilitate logistics and long-term management they are stored in total safety in specially designed halls in line with French law vitrified and compacted waste from abroad is then returned to the country of origin waste from French sources is stored at Lauren allah awj while awaiting the commissioning of the deep geological storage center cgo in northeastern France thanks to the treatment process at Oran Ola AG 96% of recyclable material contained in spent fuel can be recovered to produce electricity again the final waste is conditioned in a safe and stable form for the long term today Parrinello AG is the industrial reference in treating used nuclear fuels from nuclear power plants in both France and abroad thanks to this know-how unique in the world the teams of Iran Ola ugh contribute to the sustainable management of energy resources in the service of a competitive and safe industry

Channel: Orano

Views: 64,928

Keywords: ORANO, Energie, Nucléaire, Recyclage, Areva, fusion nucléaire, centrale nucléaire fonctionnement, radioactivité, reacteur nucleaire, jancovici nucléaire, médecine nucléaire, plutonium, uranium 235, recyclage, déchets nucléaire, énergie bas carbone, nucléaire climat, emploi nucléaire, combustible nucléaire, énergie électrique, réchauffement climatique, la hague, tricastin, melox, mox, transport nucléaire, démantèlement centrale, environnement, le nucléaire ça pollue, science

Id: V0UJSlKIy8g

Length: 9min 58sec (598 seconds)

Published: Thu Aug 01 2019

Reddit Comments

[u/kkruulik]

Reminds me of Portal lol

[u/Cryten0]

The amount of times they say something like completely safe and secure makes me wonder if it really is.

[u/National_Analytics]

This is amazing. Why have no one said that? Tell me why this isnt amazing!

[u/ModCensorshipSucks]

Strangely translated

[u/PickledDildos]

Video sounds like they popped their french into google translate and had some from lady from fiverr read it.

[u/Oneeyed_Cat]

French here. We stock nuclear wastes in many different sites without any serious idea on what will happen next. The recycling factory we have in La Hague used to pollute the shore while kids in the area developped cancer. Nuclear recycling is a joke but we want to believe in it because we make much money building nuclear plants all over the world.

[u/[deleted]]

Prob put it in a sauce.