What is this “industrial project of the century” which must be implemented in Orano La Hague?

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Since February 26, 2024, the face of the French nuclear industry has no longer been the same. Or at least plan to no longer be the same.

Until this date, the French model of recycling of spent nuclear fuel was in fact in an impasse, with a long-term vision without guarantee. The very future of the Orano La Hague (Manche) factory was up in the air.

France's industrial mastery

The announcements by President of the Republic Emmanuel Macron, at the end of the Nuclear Policy Council in February, have finally removed all doubts. The presentation of the PPE (Multi-annual energy programming), at the beginning of November, even hit the nail on the head and validated “the continuation of the nuclear fuel reprocessing and valorization strategy as well as the renewal of the downstream facilities of the cycle”.

In this context, it is interesting to know the orientations of Nicolas Maes, general director of the Orano group since November 2023. As it is not easy to get an interview with the “big boss”, we will therefore be content with his remarks formulated in … “La Jaune et la Rouge”, the monthly magazine of the Society of former students and graduates of the École Polytechnique.

In this month's magazine, the former graduate (class of 1995) puts pen to paper, with Pierre-Étienne Girardot, director of strategy, mergers & acquisitions at Orano, to discuss “circularity, a strength of the French nuclear model” and especially on “the industrial project of the century », which must be implemented in particular in La Hague.

Huge investments

In this article, Nicolas Maes praises, for example, “France's industrial mastery of the entire nuclear value chain”, which no other country in the world can boast of. He obviously evokes the huge investments scheduled on the La Hague site.

“Program aimed at extend the operation of current factories beyond 2040launch of studies for the realization of a new Mox fuel manufacturing plant and a new spent fuel processing plantboth on the Hague site”, lists the general director, who also speaks about the need “to work together within the sector and the different stakeholders” in order to “develop new solutions to progress towards closing the cycle”, like multirecycling.

A sacred roadmap which does not lack ambitions or obstacles.

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