The La Hague industrial complex receives an award from the American Nuclear Society

4/25/2005
Press release
The American Nuclear Society has awarded its "Nuclear Historic Landmark Award" to the La Hague plant. At a ceremony to be held today, Anne Lauvergeon, Chairman of AREVA's Executive Board, will be presented with the award by the ANS President, James Tulenko.

The award is given to plants that have made a major contribution to the development of nuclear energy worldwide and provided a significant new departure.

Since 1976, R&D teams from AREVA and the French Atomic Energy Commission have been working to improve the production capacity of the plant which boasts many "world firsts" among its 40 workshops, notably the T0 used fuel dry unloading workshop, the T7 vitrification workshop and the ACC hull compacting workshop where the volume of nuclear waste is reduced.

Thanks to the ongoing optimization and innovation efforts and its customers' unfailing trust, the plant has treated more than 20,000 metric tons of used fuel from nuclear reactors in Europe and Japan. This is the equivalent of 10 years of nuclear electricity consumption in the US.

"The La Hague plant has shown that it is technically feasible to treat used fuel from around the world on an industrial scale. It is a sustainable solution for the management of used fuel and nuclear waste", said James Tulenko, President of the ANS.

According to Anne Lauvergeon, "Treating used fuel reduces the volume of final waste by a factor of five, with 96% of the used fuel being recycled. This is an area in which AREVA's technological expertise is unrivalled. With this award, the ANS is recognizing the professionalism of our teams".

The award is equally encouraging for AREVA's activities in the US where the group has a workforce of 8000, 40 locations across the nation, and posts revenues of US$2.1 billion. In the nuclear energy sector, AREVA is now the #1 US vendor.

*The American Nuclear Society (ANS) is a scientific organization serving nuclear energy. Its 11,000-strong membership includes scientists, engineers, educators and representatives of federal government agencies.

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