La Hague site

The La Hague site is a nuclear fuel reprocessing plant at La Hague on the Cotentin Peninsula in northern France. Operated by Areva NC, formerly COGEMA (Compagnie générale des matières atomiques), La Hague has nearly half of the world's light water reactor spent nuclear fuel reprocessing capacity. It has been in operation since 1976, and has a capacity of about 1700 tonnes per year. It extracts plutonium which is then recycled into MOX fuel at the Marcoule site.

It has treated spent nuclear fuel from France, Japan, Germany, Belgium, Switzerland, Italy, Spain and the Netherlands. It processed 1100 tonnes in 2005. The non-recyclable part of the radioactive waste is eventually sent back to the user nation. Prior to 2015, more than 32,000 tonnes of spent nuclear fuel has been reprocessed, with 70% of that from France, 17% from Germany and 9% from Japan.

The La Hague site was built after the Marcoule site originally for producing plutonium for military purposes. In 1969 the French military had a sufficient supply of plutonium for weapons and as such, had no use for the reprocessing centre any more. After that point, the factory directed its efforts toward civil operations, and with the reduction of 350 people from the plant's workforce, its military connections ended.

This shift to civil uses was supported by Valéry Giscard d'Estaing and strengthened by the 1973 oil crisis.

In the late 1990s, the facility was criticized by Greenpeace who drew attention to its radioactive emissions to the atmosphere and marine environment.

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