While France currently uses HEU for both military and civilian purposes, Paris has been supportive of efforts to reduce its use in both the civilian and military sectors. France moved away from the use of HEU in power reactors by closing its Superphénix breeder reactor in favor of reactors using MOX fuel, despite its high reliance on nuclear power (over 75% of electricity generated in France is derived from nuclear reactors). [1] Paris is also progressing in the conversion of its research reactors to LEU fuels.

OVERVIEW

Military HEU

France is a nuclear weapon state party to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT). French military use of HEU includes nuclear weapons and defense reactors (including research reactors and naval propulsion reactors). Albright and Kramer estimated that as of the end of 2003, France had 29 metric tons (± 7 tons) of HEU in military stockpiles: this included approximately 25 metric tons of uranium in primary military stocks; one ton for naval propulsion reactors; and 3.5 tons in spent fuel at military production reactors.[2] The 2011 report by the International Panel on Fissile Materials estimated French military stocks at 26 ± 6 tons.[3] Unlike Russia and the United States, which employ HEU fuel in their naval reactors, France's newest submarines use LEU fuel, which can be recycled together with civilian nuclear fuel. [4]

Civilian HEU

The French government voluntarily declares its civil HEU holdings to the IAEA as part of its annual declaration of plutonium stocks (INFCIRC/549). Summary information from France's declarations to the IAEA is presented in the table below.

France declared 4.64 tons of civilian HEU, which includes 3.17 tons of unirradiated material. However, several tons of France's civilian HEU holdings are foreign-owned, and include U.S. and Russian-origin materials for use in research-reactor fuel. [5]

HEU Production

France has not produced HEU since 1996.[6] France became the first nuclear weapon state to announce that it would cease all production of fissile material for nuclear weapons, closing the Pierrelatte enrichment plant where highly enriched weapons-grade uranium had been produced. In September 2008 and March 2009, France organized visits by international experts to observe the dismantlement of Pierrelatte. [7] France currently has two civilian enrichment facilities, Georges Besse I and Georges Besse II, which are used exclusively for LEU production. [8]

HEU Commerce

France has purchased HEU from both Russia and the United States. French companies obtain foreign-owned HEU for fabrication into fuel rods, which are then exported (for example, to Germany's FRM-II). Additionally, France accepts spent HEU fuel for reprocessing in its civilian facilities.

In 1996, France and Russia concluded an agreement for the purchase of 625 kg of HEU over nine years (55kg/yr for HFR and 125 kg for Orpheus). By January 2006, all of the Russian HEU had been delivered (a total of 627 kg). [9] France also has the option of purchasing U.S.-origin HEU. Paris bought 69 kg in HEU credits from the U.S. Department of Energy in 1990 when Russian fuel shipments were delayed (after promising that it would convert the Réacteur à Haut Flux (High Flux Reactor or RHF) in Grenoble as soon as appropriate LEU fuel became available). However, when Moscow started the shipments, Paris did not move forward with obtaining the U.S. fuel. In 2006, Grenoble's Laue-Langevin Institute (ILL) sold the American fuel credits to Belgium's Nuclear Research Center (SCK/CEN) for its BR2 reactor in Mol. In March 2010, France requested 160 kg of U.S.-origin HEU for the operation of the ILL. Washington conditioned these shipments on a commitment to convert the ILL reactor. Later that year, Belgium requested a shipment of 93.5 kg of U.S. HEU for the fabrication in France of fuel for the BR2. [10]

France also imports spent HEU fuel for reprocessing. The recovered HEU is blended-down to LEU, and the wastes are returned to the country of origin. [11] The French company Areva has had contracts with Australian and Belgian customers for research and test reactor fuel since 2005. As of 2011, half of Australia's spent fuel had been reprocessed. [12]

While the French government has been supportive of decreasing civil HEU use, nuclear industry personnel have voiced concerns about maintaining market share. In April 2008, for example, an AREVA official concerned about the end of production of HEU at Western enrichment plants suggested that the company stockpile "large quantities" of HEU to ensure future availability for customers requiring HEU fuel. [13] Caroline Jorant, director for nonproliferation and international institutions in AREVA's International and Marketing Division, said that HEU fuel is needed for high-power research reactors until new LEU fuel is developed, and that power reactors will one day need LEU fuel enriched as high as 9 to 10% U-235 - far above current LEU enrichment levels of 3-4%. [14] In a similar vein, AREVA's Jean-Francois Gervais said downblending 93%-enriched material to 4.95% for LWR fuel is "a waste of resources."[15] Industry is likely to support blending down material to 20% U-235 after customers have converted from the use of HEU fuel.

Continuing HEU Use

France's HEU requirements are slowly being reduced, in the military as well as the civilian sphere. While France's second generation submarines used HEU fuel, its newer submarines use LEU fuels for naval propulsion. Thus as older boats are decommissioned, France will no longer require HEU for naval propulsion. [16] France has also worked to standardize the fuel used in its naval and civilian reactors so that their spent fuel can be reprocessed in the same facilities.

In the civilian sphere France is gradually decommissioning its HEU-fueled reactors, and plans to fuel future reactors with LEU. However, the Jules Horowitz reactor (JHR) is currently slated to start up in 2014 using 27% enriched fuel, pending the availability of suitable LEU fuel. After the JHR ceases employing HEU, the only continuing use for HEU in the civilian sector will be to test new core designs for future fast reactors using mixed-oxide plutonium (MOX) fuel in the Masurca Fast Critical Assembly at Cadarache. While 90% uranium is currently used for this purpose, MOX fuel can be mocked up with 30-35% enriched material (while plutonium can also be employed, LEU cannot be used to mock up MOX fuel). [17]

Fuel Return

While some of France's research reactor fuel is U.S.-origin, France is unlikely to repatriate this fuel to the United States. France is one of six countries currently developing alternatives to disposing of U.S.-origin fuel in the United States (the others are Argentina, Belgium, Canada, the Netherlands, and the United Kingdom). [18] According to Albright and Kramer, France is expected to reprocess most of its own spent HEU reactor fuel and blend it down to LEU, although it may not be economically viable to reprocess some of the spent HEU fuel, which would therefore be disposed of as spent fuel. [19]

CONVERSION AND SHUTDOWN OF HEU-FUELED REACTORS AND REACTOR PROJECTS

As a country highly reliant on nuclear power, France is committed to maintaining an advanced level of nuclear research, and possesses unique facilities for research into fourth-generation nuclear fuels. Fuels that would make it possible to cease using HEU in all of these facilities are under development, both in France and elsewhere. The French U-Mo fuel development group consists of CEA, CERCA, COGEMA, Framatome-ANP, and Technicatome; it has been working since 1999. [20] When the development of high density U-Mo fuels ran into some difficulties, the French Atomic Energy Commission (CEA) increased its commitment to research and development, including international collaboration. According to JHR head Daniel Iracane, France is "deeply committed" to developing a low-enriched fuel for use in its research reactors that can be reprocessed. [21] Indeed, Iracane noted that from the beginning France made the policy choice to use LEU in its new JHR reactor, and was examining the possibility of starting the JHR with an alternative silicide fuel that has a lower enrichment level than the 27% enriched silicide fuel employed in current tests. [22]

Three critical assemblies and two reactors had stopped using HEU by 2011 (and are instead using MOX fuels), while three reactors and one critical assembly that had used HEU had been shut down. Two reactors, the Réacteur à Haut Flux (RHF) at the Institute Max Von Laue-Paul Langevin (ILL) in Grenoble (one of the world's premier sources of neutrons, which receives funding from Germany and the United Kingdom, as well as France), and the Orphée at the Laboratoire Léon Brillouin (LLB) in Saclay, cannot be converted with fuel that is currently available. However, in 1998 the French institutes pledged to convert the reactors to LEU fuel; France and the United States signed memoranda of understanding to convert the facilities when fuel becomes available. The U.S. Department of Energy is currently working on developing LEU fuel for the two reactors as part of a four nation initiative agreed to at the 2012 Nuclear Security Summit. The reactors will be converted when that fuel is qualified, a process currently underway.

Conversion of the RHF is under examination. The tri-national convention that governs ILL currently runs through 2013, but the institute intends to operate the reactor until 2020 or 2025. According to ILL reactor division director Herve Guyon and ILL director Colin Carlile, conversion is not out of the question, even for only a decade of operation (2015-2025). ILL received 186.4 kg of HEU from the Y-12 National Security Complex in 2012 to manufacture fuel for the RHF. This shipment is intended to be the last the reactor receives from the United States if the new fuel qualification proceeds as expected. [24]

POLICY ISSUES

The French government is likely to support international efforts to reduce the use of HEU in civilian facilities, provided the caveat "as soon as technically feasible" remains. Because of the delay in the development of the new high-density LEU fuel needed, the Jules Horowitz reactor (JHR) currently under construction in Cadarache, Paris, will not support any HEU reduction efforts that preclude the use of the 27% fuel in the JHR prior to the reactor's start-up. Once fuels are developed for the RHF and the Orphée, Paris is likely to move forward on their conversion as pledged to the U.S. Department of Energy in 1998. At the 2012 Nuclear Security Summit, France signed on to a joint project with the United States, Belgium, and South Korea to develop and use the high-density LEU fuel necessary to operate these reactors over the next several years, including fabricating the fuel and loading it into its high-performance reactor. [25] In addition, France has agreed to work with the United States, the Netherlands, and Belgium on converting medical isotope production to LEU-based processes (fuel and targets) by 2015, "subject to regulatory approvals." [26] As such, France continues to provide steady support for HEU minimization efforts while maintaining enough flexibility to continue its current production until all requisite technology for conversion becomes available.

At the international level, France has supported increased transparency of HEU stockpiles. In its 2005 NPT Committee III Statement, France asserted that it, "is convinced that HEU stocks would benefit from the adoption of [disclosures similar to those on civil plutonium]." [27]. With the United States, France has drafted HEU guidelines along the lines of the existing plutonium guidelines (INFCIRC 549), which include measures on transparency, physical protection, and good management. France is trying to win support for the measure from other countries. Toward this end, Paris drafted a non-paper on the subject for consideration of the countries involved in the 2012 Nuclear Security Summit in Seoul. [28] However, the guidelines ultimately did not make it onto the Summit's agenda.

One of the first countries to sign and ratify the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty (along with the United Kingdom), and the only Nuclear Weapon State to have dismantled its test site and installations for the production of weapons-grade fissile material, France has been promoting the negotiation of a Fissile Material Cut-Off Treaty. [29] France also ratified the 2005 Amendment to the Convention on the Physical Protection of Nuclear Materials.

Sources:
[1] "Nuclear Power in France," World Nuclear Association website, May 2009, www.world-nuclear.org; Areva, "Reference Document," www.areva.com, p. 60.
[2] ISIS, "Military and Excess Stocks of Highly Enriched Uranium (HEU) in the Acknowledged Nuclear Weapon States," Global Stocks of Nuclear and Explosive Materials, June 11, 2004, revised June 30, 2005, www.isis-online.org
[3] International Panel on Fissile Materials (IPFM), Global Fissile Material Report 2011, p. 10, www.fissilematerials.org
[4] "Direction des applications militaires," CEA, www-dam.cea.fr; "Les chaufferies nucléaires françaises embarquées," Cols Bleus No. 2412, 11 October 1997, available on France's Defense Ministry, www.defense.gouv.fr.
[5] International Panel on Fissile Materials (IPFM), Global Fissile Material Report 2010, op. cit., p. 88, www.fissilematerials.org. According to Albright and Kramer's 2005 data, Australia, Belgium, and the Netherlands had various amounts of HEU in France awaiting either reprocessing and blend-down or fuel fabrication. France also stored approximately 400 kg of HEU from Russia for Germany's FRM-II reactor. In addition, Germany reportedly contracted with France to reprocess spent HEU from the closed KNK-II at its fast reactor reprocessing facility. David Albright and Kimberly Kramer, "Tracking Inventories of Civil Highly Enriched Uranium," February 2005, revised August 2005, www.isis-online.org.
[6] "Status of HEU Production in the Five Acknowledged Nuclear Weapon States, end 2003," www.isis-online.org.
[7] "Nuclear disarmament: France's practical commitment," Working paper submitted by France to the Preparatory Committee for the 2010 NPT Review Conference, 13 May 2009, NPT/CONF.2010/PC.III/WP.36, Reaching Critical Will, www.reachingcriticalwill.org.
[8] World Nuclear Association, "Nuclear Power in France," updated 22 July 2011, www.world-nuclear.org.
[9] Ann MacLachlan and Daniel Horner, "BR2 set to get U.S. HEU in 'credits' deal with ILL, DOE," NuclearFuel, Vol. 31, No. 2, January 16, 2006.
[10] NuclearFuel, January 11, 1999, p.1; and NuclearFuel, June 17, 1996, p.1, as cited in Ann MacLachlan and Daniel Horner, "BR2 set to get U.S. HEU in 'credits' deal with ILL, DOE," NuclearFuel, Vol. 31, No. 2, January 16, 2006; Pavel Podvig, "U.S. to supply HEU for the High Flux Reactor in France," March 11, 2010, and "United States to send HEU to France for Belgian BR2 Reactor," February 19, 2010, Fissile Materials blog, www.fissilematerials.org
[11] David Albright and Kimberly Kramer, "Tracking Inventories of Civil Highly Enriched Uranium," February 2005, revised August 2005, www.isis-online.org. See also: "Cogema's Inventory of Spent Fuel at La Hague," SpentFuel, January 30, 2006, p. 4.
[12] Ann MacLachlan, "Foreigners own little spent fuel, more waste and Pu at La Hague," NuclearFuel, July 27, 2009. Email communication with Ann MacLachlan, Platts Nuclear Publications, May 15, 2008. Also see table 5 in Mycle Schneider and Yves Marignac, Spent Nuclear Fuel Reprocessing in France, International Panel on Fissile Materials, 2008. Email communication with Rob Floyd, Director General, Australian Safeguards and Nonproliferation March 12, 2013.
[13] Ann MacLachlan, "Areva proposes secure storage to ensure some HEU for future use," NuclearFuel, April 7, 2008.
[14] Ann MacLachlan, "Areva proposes secure storage to ensure some HEU for future use," NuclearFuel, April 7, 2008.
[15] Ann MacLachlan, "Areva proposes secure storage to ensure some HEU for future use," NuclearFuel, April 7, 2008.
[16] The French experience with the move to LEU naval propulsion is detailed in Rebecca Ward, "Prospects for Conversion of U.S. Naval Propulsion Reactors," University of Texas at Austin, April 2011, www.heuphaseout.org
[17] Massimo Salvatores, Amine Khalil, Gilles Bignan, Robert Hill, Robert Jacqmin, and Jean Tommasi, "Advanced Fast Reactor Development Requirements: is there any need for HEU?" Cadarache/Argonne, April 2006.
[18] GAO Report GAO-05-57, "Nuclear Nonproliferation: DOE Needs to Consider Options to Accelerate the Return of Weapons-Usable Uranium from Other Countries to the United States and Russia," November 2004.
[19] David Albright and Kimberly Kramer, "Tracking Inventories of Civil Highly Enriched Uranium," February 2005, revised August 2005, www.isis-online.org.
[20] J.-M. Hamy, A. Languille, B. Guigon, P. Lemoine, C. Jarousse, M. Boyard, and J.-L. Emin, "Status as of March 2002 of the U-Mo Development Program," Transactions of the 6th International Topical Meeting on Research Reactor Fuel Management (RRFM 2002), Ghent, Belgium, March 17-20, 2002, pp. 33-39. Cerca is working on LEU fuels to be used in the United States and Germany, as well as France and elsewhere, testing many of the fuels in France's Osiris reactor. For example, see "FRM-2 can't run on low-enriched fuel, Munich experts calculate," NuclearFuel, Vol.30, No. 11, May 23, 2005.
[21] Presentation by JHR program director Daniel Iracane, Technical Workshop on HEU Minimization in Oslo, June 18, 2006.
[22] Currently, a 4.8 gU/cm3 U3Si2 fuel is being used, however, CERCA is qualifying a higher density (5.8 gU/cm3) fuel that could possibly be used in the JHR; however, more testing is required and performance may not be the same as with the 4.8 gU/cm3 fuel. From presentation by JHR Program director Daniel Iracane, Technical Workshop on HEU Minimization in Oslo, June 18, 2006.
[23] Ann MacLachlan and Daniel Horner, "BR2 set to get U.S. HEU in 'credits' deal with ILL, DOE," NuclearFuel, Vol. 31, No. 2, January 16, 2006.
[24] Podvig, Pavel, "U.S. Reported to Complete HEU Shipment to France," April 2, 2012, www. fissilematerials.org; communication with U.S. government officials.
[25] "Joint Statement on Quadrilateral Cooperation on High-density Low-enriched Uranium Fuel Production," 2012 Seoul Nuclear Security Summit, www.thenuclearsecuritysummit.org.
[26] "Belgium-France-Netherlands-United States Joint Statement: Minimization of HEU and the Reliable Supply of Medical Radioisotopes," 2012 Seoul Nuclear Security Summit, www.thenuclearsecuritysummit.org.
[27] "Pour ce qui le concerne, mon pays est déterminé à poursuivre les efforts de transparence déjà entrepris, notamment en matière de sûreté. S'agissant des matières nucléaires, la France est membre du groupe des pays signataires des directives adoptées sur la gestion du plutonium civil et à ce titre elle publie annuellement l'état de ses stocks civils. Mon pays est également convaincu que la gestion des stocks d'uranium hautement enrichi gagnerait à l'adoption de directives similaires," www.un.int.
[28] Miles A. Pomper, Cole J. Harvey, and David A. Slungaard, "Toward the Global Norm: Supporting the Minimization of Highly Enriched Uranium in the Civilian Sector," the Asan Institute for Policy Studies, June 23, 2011, www.asaninst.org.
[29] See, for example, the 31 March 2008 speech by President Nicolas Sarkozy at the launch of Le Terrible, in Cherbourg, French embassy to the United Kingdom, www.ambafrance-uk.org.