- 49 - o UP2-800 (BNI 117), facility reprocessing spent fuel, like UP3, and also with a nominal capacity of 800 t per year of fuel, but also designed to reprocess MOx fuel; STE 3 (BNI 118), industrial complex reprocessing liquid effluents and purifying radioactive effluents before they are discharged at sea. Facilities shut down the UP2-400 plant (BNI 33) created for reprocessing of GCR spent fuels, that is peeling and dissolution of fuels, separation of fission products, uranium and plutonium, then purification and packaging of the U and the Pu. This facility is today shut down and the final shutdown and decommissioning authorisation application is currently under review; STE 2 (BNI 38), facility which, prior to discharge at sea, reprocessed low and intermediate level radioactive liquid effluents from the UP2-400 plant. It also stores low or intermediate level wastes mainly from UP2-400 for which the disposal solutions had not been defined at the time they were produced. This facility is today shut down and the final shutdown and decommissioning authorisation application is currently under review; ELAN2B (BNI 47), facility designed for the fabrication of sealed sources of caesium 137 and strontium 90. This facility is today finally shut down and the shutdown and decommissioning authorisation application is currently under review; HAO (oxide high activity) facility (BNI 80), built for unloading, shearing, cutting and dissolving fuel from ordinary water reactors, today at the decommissioning phase. Tricastin site The Tricastin site is located within an area bounded by the Rhone river to the west and the Donzère canal at Mondragon to the east. The canal is about 100 m away, while the left bank of the Rhone is 5 km away. It is surrounded to the north by former CEA facilities and to the east by the EDF power plant, from which it is separated by a road; to the south by the CD 204 road and to the west by agricultural land. The facilities inspected were: the Georges Besse I plant (GB I) (BNI 93) operated by Eurodif, located on the communes of Pierrelatte (Drôme), St Paul-Trois-Châteaux (Drôme) and Bollène (Vaucluse) which uses gaseous diffusion to enrich uranium in the chemical form of uranium hexafluoride (UF6) up to 5% isotope 235. Its creation authorisation decree dates from 8th September 1977 and its commissioning license was received on 25th August 1983. It is currently operating at reduced power and production is scheduled to come to an end in late 2012; the Georges Besse II plant (GB II) (BNI 168) under construction on the Tricastin site, to be operated by the Société denrichissement du Tricastin (SET). It uses ultra centrifuging to enrich the 235 isotope of uranium in the chemical form of uranium hexafluoride (UF6). This process has two main advantages over the gaseous diffusion process used by Eurodif: significantly less energy consumption and greater control of the risk of dissemination of radioactive and chemical materials (small stocks of UF6 in the enrichment modules and the process operating conditions); the Areva NC site (formerly COGEMA) at Pierrelatte in the Drôme (26) whose activities are primarily the front-end of the fuel cycle with the W plant (which transforms the depleted uranium from the Eurodif establishment into stable uranium oxide for long-term storage) and the cycle back-end with the TU5 facility (BNI 155, which reprocess the uranyl nitrate from the La Hague site and converts it into uranium tetrafluoride (UF4) or uranium oxide); the Comurhex I plant comprises facilities classified on environmental protection grounds for the chemical transformation of natural uranium tetrafluoride (UF4) into uranium hexafluoride (UF6) in order to supply the enrichment plants and a basic nuclear installation, shut down since 31st December 2008, which transformed uranyl nitrate (UO2(NO3)) from reprocessing of spent fuels into uranium sesquioxide (U3O8) and uranium hexafluoride (UF6). A new plant is under construction, and will be a facility classified on environmental protection grounds (Comurhex II); the Socatri plant, an auxiliary company of Tricastin (BNI 138), on the commune of Bollène (Vaucluse), working with equipment and effluents from Eurodif (clean-up and maintenance of components). Socatri also provides services on behalf of Andra (storage of low-level, long-lived waste).
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