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The French nuclear group Orano has signed a contract worth more than one billion euros to return to Germany by the end of 2024 high-level nuclear waste processed in France.
Orano announced Thursday that a “package of agreements” between the power companies PreussenElektra, RWE, ENBW and Vattenfall had formalized an agreement in principle reached in June by the French and German governments.
For 44 years, German electricians have sent spent nuclear fuel to Normandy for recycling.
The rail convoys carrying the waste were regularly blocked by environmental activists, some of whom chained themselves to the tracks.
Thorny problem
Under the terms of the agreement, which follows years of difficult negotiations, it is not German intermediate level waste that will be returned, but French high level waste from EDF power plants.
Orano said that meant it would take less volume and less time to send the same level of radioactive waste back to Germany.
“In terms of mass and radioactivity, it doesn’t change anything,” Orano said in a statement, calling the agreement “a fairly common equivalence practice.”
A single train of 100 containers carrying the spent nuclear fuel is to be transported from the Orano plant in La Hague, Normandy, to Germany within the next three years.
Under French law, nuclear waste that enters France for treatment cannot remain in the country.
However, Germany does not have a solution for the management and long-term storage of radioactive materials.
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