Lesson 5 ◆ 5.2 History of Fuel Reprocessing

  • France: Marcoule UP1 (1958—1997) and La Hague (UP2 from 1966, UP3 from 1981), both using the PUREX process. Cap de la Hague is the world’s largest commercial reprocessing facility.

  • Centrifugal extraction to increase processing speed was first used at Savannah River (1966) and then at Cap de la Hague in France and Barnwell in the USA.

  • Other reprocessing facilities were built at West Valley, USA (1966), WAK Karlsruhe, Germany (1971), and Tokai Mura, Japan.