Disposal of Long-Lived Highly Radioactive Wastes in France: An IEER Evaluation

By Arjun Makhijani and Annie Makhijani

France is often held up by nuclear power advocates in the United States and elsewhere as a model of energy development, not only because it gets almost 80 percent of its electricity from nuclear power plants, but also because it reprocesses most of its spent nuclear fuel to extract plutonium for reuse as fuel.  Yet, France has a considerable volume of long-lived, highly radioactive waste that is slated for disposal in a deep geologic repository, including vitrified high-level waste from reprocessing, unreprocessed uranium spent fuel, unreprocessed mixed oxide (MOX) spent fuel, and some other long-lived wastes of lower specific activity.[2]  MOX spent fuel arises from the use of reprocessed plutonium as a reactor fuel. 

The 1991 French law on nuclear waste mandates, among other things, investigation of deep geologic disposal.  In 2003, the Institute for Energy and Environmental Research (IEER) was retained by the ComitИ local d▓information et de suivi (CLIS) of Bure to conduct an evaluation of French geologic repository research program for disposal of high-level radioactive wastes.  The CLIS is an official stakeholder group, consisting of local and national elected officials and non-government leaders.[3]  It is funded by the French government, to provide input and advice to the process of site characterization and research.

The site being investigated by ANDRA (Agence national pour la gestion des dИchets radioactifs), the French nuclear waste agency, is located near Bure, a village in eastern France not far from the German and Swiss borders.  (See the map in Energy & Security no. 10, on the Web at www.ieer.org/ensec/no-10/no10frnc/franmap3.html.)  The area is known as the Meuse-Haute Marne region, after the two major rivers, the Meuse and the Marne, that drain it.  The Bure site is the French counterpart of the U.S. Yucca Mountain site.  It is the only site currently being investigated in France, since research into granite sites was suspended in the year 2000 due to intense local opposition.  Interestingly, U.S. research into granite sites was suspended in 1986, apparently due to political opposition,[4] after which Yucca Mountain was named as the only site.