On Monday, 7th of November, the first day of visit launched the week “Atoms for the Future” 2011. We were received at CEA Marcoule. After meeting at Avignon TGV station at 9:00 am, 45 participants were taken by bus to Marcoule. This visit was sponsored by CEA/Nuclear Energy Division including transfers by bus and lunch.

Before starting the visit, a scientific and technical presentation was given by Dr Christophe Poinssot, Deputy Head of the RadioChemical Processes Department. He gave us an overview of the different activities performed in Marcoule and especially in the Atalante research facility and a presentation about societal and scientific issues associated with the recycling of actinides.

In front of the Visiatome

A few introductory slides presented the different evolution scenarios of energetic needs in the next future highlighting in every case an increase of electric needs. Combined with the need for decreasing by a factor of two the Green House Gases at the world level, Mr Poinssot explained that nuclear energy can help to meet the future energy challenge and be sustainable by meeting together with social, environmental and economical criteria.

He also talked about the impact of the Fukushima crisis that is different between countries : in Germany, Belgium and Switzerland the trend is for phasing out nuclear energy but no change was yet decided in north Europe and in the UK. In BRIC’s countries also, no change but a slight delay of civil nuclear programs is foreseen.

Then he talked about the involvement of CEA to prepare the future of nuclear reactors and especially fast neutron reactors (GEN IV) that would allow consuming more efficiently the uranium natural resource with the help of the plutonium-multi-recycling, and opening the door to minor actinides recycling. Finally he took time to detail the R&D performed in Atalante for optimizing existing reprocessing achieved at La Hague and preparing future nuclear fuel reprocessing :
 How the current PUREX, plutonium-mono-recycling, process has been improved by developing the COEX™ process, co-extraction of uranium and plutonium, leading to a more homogeneous fuel and improving the proliferation resistance. COEX™ process is ready to be implemented at industrial scale ;
 How plutonium-multi-recycling is developed for the use in GEN IV reactors. MOX reprocessing has already been done at large scale (PWR MOX or SFR MOX) but R&D is still needed to optimize the recycling process ;
 How plutonium and minor actinides (especially americium)-multi-recycling is under study considering various types of minor actinides recycling strategy. This could allow decreasing the waste lifetime, toxicity and also heat power which directly determines the final repository density. Recycling the minor actinides would hence allow saving the repository resource. This presentation, appreciated by the participants, gave a good preface to the visit of the Atalante facility.

Then the second part of the day was dedicated to the technical visits ; participants were shared in several groups and went to the Atalante facility to discover Lab 16 where hundreds of extracting molecules are designed and then tested to check their ability to extract actinides from a solution of dissolved spent fuel. Dr Miguirditchian and his team are performing a work of screening in order to find organic molecules able to specifically and rapidly extract actinides from a concentrated solution of nitric acid. Their challenge is also to develop a reversible process so that the extracted actinides can be recovered in an aqueous solution afterwards before being converted into a new solid that can be transformed and used as fuel in a nuclear reactor. Depending on the objectives, this extraction has to be specific to one, two actinides or more.

In the locker room of Atalante research facility

After being developed at lab scale, the promising processes are directly tested on spent fuel in the CBP hot cells (Process Shielded Line). In front of the shielded cells, Mr Espinoux explained to us how the processes are tested on some kilograms of spent fuel for instance. These tests allow demonstrating the possibility to apply such processes at an industrial scale. We followed the shielded cells allowing the entrance, manipulation, cutting, dissolution of the spent fuel and then introduction into pulse columns where the liquid-to-liquid extraction can be performed.

While half the group was visiting Atalante, the other part was invited to enter the Visiatome, an interactive and modern exposition. Imagined as a centre of scientific culture, the Visiatome was officially opened in 2005 and is especially arranged for the public. One can find there information about :
 Energy sources and production ;
 Waste in general ;
 Sources of radioactive waste ;
 Management of radioactive waste ;
 Natural and artificial radioactivity ;
 The effects of ionizing radiation on humans and on the environment ;

Back in town, after this very much appreciated visit, the participants had time to walk the streets of Avignon before we met all together once again to have dinner hosted by WIN Europe in a welcoming brasserie in the town centre. The dinner was a pleasant moment ; even the owner told us that he was surprised and delighted to see our group of young people in his restaurant.