| The reactor makes plutonium |
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 Nuclear technician do a test in a French research reactor. Now the Swedish one million invested in the development of a future French advanced reactor that will use the spent nuclear fuel to produce plutonium. On 12 August last year the government decided, with the then Research Tobias Krantz in the lead, investing in nuclear technology research and education in cooperation with France. The initiative is described as the biggest state in the area since the 80s. The case was on a secret list, a shadow list, internally called B list, and the decision and the subsequent agreements confidential. The investment in nuclear technology is part of a larger Swedish-French cooperation, which also includes research on accelerator technology and climate, covering over half a billion dollars. Sweden allocates funds in exchange for the French were engaged and involved in designing and financing of the research facility ESS in Lund. France pays around 10 percent of the construction cost of 13 billion. - Agreement with France means that Swedish researchers now must go to France to include work on the development of Astrid, "says Jan Blomgren, Director of the Swedish Nuclear Technology Centre and employed in the energy group Vattenfall. Astrid is an upcoming French advanced research reactor, located in Marcoule in Provence in southern France. It is expected to be unique, because you want to run it in two ways. You should first try to burn withdrawal nuclear waste such as plutonium and americium, and generate new plutonium - about the same as it cleaves. This makes the reactor self-sustaining. According to Jan Blomgren the Swedes also do research on how the plutonium-239 can be reprocessed to a large industrial scale to be the fuel of the future "Astrid-reactors". - There are lots of challenges in this, not least, environmentally and technically, and it is not possible today to define what is the most difficult, "he says. The Swedes also get the opportunity to work at the new French material testing reactor Jules Horowitz, to be built in Cadarache in France. The focus will be how quickly the current Swedish reactors are aging. |
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| Last Updated ( Saturday, 19 February 2011 ) |
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