| I. Materials > The Uranium-Plutonium Chain > Management of Irradiated Fuel |
After irradiation, the fuel is withdrawn from the reactor, it is cooled for at least five or six months, in general under water, in a pool near the reactor. Then, it can be stored for the long term elsewhere, or, if it is UO2 fuel, reprocessed after about one extra year of cooling in a pool near the reprocessing plant. EDF is at present reprocessing only a portion of its UO2 fuel; the remainder of the uranium fuel and all the MOX fuel is stored for a possible "delayed" reprocessing or for a storage solution.
II. Perspectives for the future: law of 30 December 1991
IIA. Axe 1: separation, transmutation, confinement
IIB. Axe 2: deep underground storage
IIC. Axe 3: treatment and packaging; long-term storage
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