[en] In the frame of the French law for the waste management, we have studied different dynamic scenarios from the present fleet which consists in a single stage of Plutonium recycling in PWRs to the future generation systems taking into account different possible solutions to transmute the minor actinides. This paper presents a synthesis of the different solutions with the accessible technologies (PWRs or SFRs) or with the innovative concepts (ADT, GFRs), analyses the impact on the fuel cycle and on the characteristics of the different waste packages and defines an optimised scenario for managing the actinides in the French fleet. The results presented in this paper give the impact on: The natural uranium resources, The inventory function of time, of different elements (Pu, Np, Am, Cm) at each stage of the fuel cycle and in the wastes, The physic characteristics (thermal power, radiation sources) of the fuel and of the wastes. The fast reactor systems are the more efficiency to manage minor actinides and present less impacts in the fuel cycle. (author)

[en] The French nuclear park with an installed electricity power capability of 60 GWe produces about 11 to 12 metric tons of plutonium per year. With the La Hague plant, 850 metric tons of UOX spent fuel are currently reprocessed, which allow to recover around 8.5 tons of plutonium for the fabrication of 100 tons of MOX fuel at the MELOX plant. This MOX fuel is loaded in 20 PWRs (900 Mwe), using 30% MOX loading in the core. In the coming years, one of the objectives of the French national utility EDF is to achieve a full equilibrium between plutonium produced in UOX fuels of its nuclear park and plutonium used in MOX fuels. On the basis of this recycling strategy, and taking into account a possible development of HTRs, it is interesting to study what would be the performances of a nuclear park composed of LWRs and HTRs with regard to the plutonium management. In this frame, a common program study between the CEA and AREVA-NC has been carried out, in order to assess the capability of a modular HTR (GTMHR type) to stabilize the total Plutonium inventory in the case of the French nuclear park. The HTRs are fed out with fuel assemblies containing coated particles with Plutonium oxide. This concept of fuel allows, through a very high burnup and a high efficiency for the consumption of Plutonium.

[en] The French nuclear park with an installed electricity power capability of 60 GWe produces about 11 to 12 metric tons of plutonium per year. With the La Hague plant, 850 metric tons of UOX spent fuel are currently reprocessed, which allow to recover around 8.5 tons of plutonium for the fabrication of 100 tons of MOX fuel at the MELOX plant. This MOX fuel is loaded in 20 PWRs (900 Mwe), using 30% MOX loading in the core. In the coming years, one of the objectives of the French national utility EDF is to achieve a full equilibrium between plutonium produced in UOX fuels of its nuclear park and plutonium used in MOX fuels. On the basis of this recycling strategy, and taking into account a possible development of HTRs, it is interesting to study what would be the performances of a nuclear park composed of LWRs and HTRs with regard to the plutonium management. In this frame, a common program study between the CEA and AREVA-NC has been carried out, in order to assess the capability of a modular HTR (GTMHR type) to stabilize the total Plutonium inventory in the case of the French nuclear park. The HTRs are fed out with fuel assemblies containing coated particles with Plutonium oxide. This concept of fuel allows, through a very high burnup and a high efficiency for the consumption of Plutonium.

[en] In the French long-lived radionuclide (LLRN) transmutation program, several irradiation experiments were initiated in the Phenix fast neutron reactor to obtain a better understanding of the transmutation processes. The PROFIL experiments are performed in order to collect accurate information on the total capture integral cross sections of the principal heavy isotopes and some important fission products in the spectral range of fast reactors. One of the final goals is to diminish the uncertainties on the capture cross-section of the fission products involved in reactivity losses in fast reactors. This program includes two parts: PROFIL-R irradiated in a standard fast reactor spectrum and PROFIL-M irradiated in a moderated spectrum. The PROFIL-R and PROFIL-M irradiations were completed in August 2005 and May 2008, respectively. For both irradiations more than a hundred containers with isotopes of pure actinides and other elements in different chemical forms must be characterized. This raises a technical and analytical challenge: how to recover by selective dissolution less than 5 mg of isotope powder from a container with dimensions of only a few millimeters using hot cell facilities, and how to determine analytically both trace and ultratrace elemental and isotopic compositions with sufficient accuracy to be useful for code calculations.