Gard
Gard () is a department in Southern France, located in the region of Occitanie. It had a population of 748,437 as of 2019;Condolet commune in the Gard department (France) /ref> this nuclear facility is operational since 1999.
Types of radioactive waste
Nuclear waste treated by Centraco are very low, low and intermediate activity (TFA, FMA). They come from the nuclear industry (mainly from
Areva
Areva S.A. is a French multinational group specializing in nuclear power headquartered in Courbevoie, France. Before its 2016 corporate restructuring, Areva was majority-owned by the French state through the French Alternative Energies and Atom ...
), research centers (Atomic Energy Commission, CEA), and small producers such as hospitals and universities.
Types of waste treated in the plant:
* Metallic objects from maintenance operations in controlled area and the dismantling of
nuclear power plant
A nuclear power plant (NPP) is a thermal power station in which the heat source is a nuclear reactor. As is typical of thermal power stations, heat is used to generate steam that drives a steam turbine connected to a electric generator, generato ...
s;
* Burnable (i.e., incinerable) waste, mainly gloves and overalls;
* Liquid waste such as cleaning solutions, oils, solvents, resins, and sludges from nuclear installations.
Waste treatment
The main goal is to minimize the waste volume before it is conditioned and packaged. The Centraco plant consists of two main units dealing with waste by type:
* The melting of metals
* The incineration plant for burnable waste and liquid effluents.
Residues from each unit are mixed with a conditioning matrix and then packaged. The final volume of waste is reduced by a factor of 10.
The incineration plant
The furnace of the incineration plant consists of three chambers:
* A primary chamber with a temperature of 900 – 1000 °C
* A secondary chamber with a temperature of 1100 – 1200 °C
* A tertiary chamber.
Solid waste is fed into the primary chamber. Liquid waste is injected either in the primary chamber, or in the secondary chamber according to their chemical composition and thermal power output.
The
ash
Ash or ashes are the solid remnants of fires. Specifically, ''ash'' refers to all non-aqueous, non- gaseous residues that remain after something burns. In analytical chemistry, to analyse the mineral and metal content of chemical samples, ash ...
es and
slag
Slag is a by-product of smelting (pyrometallurgical) ores and used metals. Broadly, it can be classified as ferrous (by-products of processing iron and steel), ferroalloy (by-product of ferroalloy production) or non-ferrous/base metals (by-prod ...
s are collected and immobilized within a cementitious matrix. They are then packed in metal drums and shipped to the National Agency for Radioactive Waste ( ANDRA).
The incinerator has a rated capacity of 5000 tons of waste / year.
An explosion on September 12, 2011 caused the death of an employee, and injured four others. This happened in a furnace at the site of reprocessing nuclear waste at Marcoule. It was an "industrial accident" and not "nuclear accident".
The furnace
The
smelter
Smelting is a process of applying heat to ore, to extract a base metal. It is a form of extractive metallurgy. It is used to extract many metals from their ores, including Silver mining#Ore processing, silver, iron-making, iron, copper extracti ...
ingots
An ingot is a piece of relatively pure material, usually metal, that is cast into a shape suitable for further processing. In steelmaking, it is the first step among semi-finished casting products. Ingots usually require a second procedure of sha ...
and metal
ferrules
A ferrule (a corruption of Latin ' "small bracelet", under the influence of ' "iron") is any of a number of types of objects, generally used for fastening, joining, sealing, or reinforcement. They are often narrow circular rings made from me ...
. The metals are melted in the furnace at 1600 °C. Impurities are removed manually, then the molten metal is poured into a ladle and is then cast into ingots, or centrifuged to form a tube.
The ingots, cylinders of about 1.5 ton, are considered as final waste products of low and intermediate activity and then sent to the Storage Center of Aube (Centre de Stockage de l'Aube, CSA) in
Soulaines-Dhuys
Soulaines-Dhuys () is a commune in the Aube department of the Grand Est region of northern France.
Population
See also
*Communes of the Aube department
The following is a list of the 431 communes of the Aube department of France.
The com ...
for long-term storage (300 years) on surface.
The steel tubes are recycled for manufacturing
gamma radiation
A gamma ray, also known as gamma radiation (symbol Îł or \gamma), is a penetrating form of electromagnetic radiation arising from the radioactive decay of atomic nuclei. It consists of the shortest wavelength electromagnetic waves, typically s ...
shields for medium-level waste (MLW) such as inner shells, or internal shielding, for ''Îł''-irradiating drums, allowing so the reuse of part of the metallic waste.