France Visit Enables Information Exchange to Advance EM Cleanup

An EM team led by Senior Advisor William “Ike” White recently traveled to France to visit the nuclear company Orano and Alternative Atomic Energies Commission (CEA) facilities, and meet with representatives with the French National Radioactive Waste Management Agency (ANDRA). The trip provided an opportunity for the EM leaders to learn about how France disposes of nuclear waste and assess how the country’s lessons learned can apply to EM’s cleanup mission. “I believe we can work together to achieve safe, cost-effective and accelerated cleanup in our programs through information exchange and sharing of best practices,” White said of EM’s collaborative relationship with France, while speaking with ANDRA executives. “It would only benefit both of our countries.” The EM team members traveled to Normandy, where they visited Orano’s Research Hall of Beaumont-Hague, Temis, and the company’s large reprocessing plant in La Hague. The Hague treatment site is now the world leader in the field of reprocessing used fuel and serves as a technological model for many countries, as well as a source of constant innovation. In addition, the team visited CEA’s Marcoule site in the south of France to see CEA’s vitrification pilot facility, and met with the CEO of Orano, Philippe Knoche. This visit was of importance to EM, allowing the cleanup program leaders to evaluate vitrification capabilities to assess potential applicability for treatment of calcined high-level waste and possibly sodium-bearing waste at EM sites, including the Idaho Cleanup Project.

Exploring vitrification possibilities for legacy waste was also a focus of another recent EM trip when White and other EM subject-matter experts traveled to Veolia’s GeoMelt Nuclear Waste Vitrification Facility in Texas.

The EM officials visiting France said the country has made many positive contributions in the radioactive waste management field. These accomplishments have been of keen interest to EM, including the deactivation and decontamination of legacy nuclear sites; decommissioning and dismantling of facilities; remediation, including groundwater and soil; long-term waste management solutions; workforce development; and stakeholder engagement.

EM upholds a memorandum of understanding with ANDRA that provides a framework for cooperation between the United States and France in radioactive waste management, including repository disposal technologies, geologic and engineering studies, decommissioning approaches, groundwater and soil remediation, and interim storage of spent fuel.

A joint statement among the United Kingdom, France, Canada and the U.S declares the parties’ commitment to continue building their longstanding collaboration of cleanup of legacy nuclear sites. The statement was issued during the Waste Management Symposia in Phoenix, Arizona earlier this year.

“Our partnerships around the globe help shape best practices and solve remaining challenges to environmental cleanup,” White said. “When it comes to building a world that is safer, cleaner and healthier, we are all truly in this together.”