ok and? uranium isnt on the sanctions list from the last time i looked
Garbage article, but that’s not unexpected from that news organisation (and from Greenpeace) on that topic.
What Le Monde omits to say is that France imports on average three times the uranium it needs for the consumption of its reactors. The two thirds that aren’t destined to be used in French reactors belong to foreign operators who are paying Orano or Framatome to provide the chemical conversion and/or enrichment of their uranium.
One thing you need to know about the nuclear industry is that each service provider organizes transport to the next service provider. It means that when a foreign operator buys uranium from Kazakhstan (the largest supplier of unranium ore in the world) and have it transported to France for conversion/enrichment, it is likely to show up as a Russian import in France’s customs records because Rosatom is usually the transporter from Central Asia to France.
And that’s how Greenpeace and Le Monde intentionally confuse their readers. They mix up:
* what the French customs records show (a significant amount of uranium being imported through Rosatom),
* and whom the uranium actually belongs to and is ultimately destined to (operators from all over the world, who are customers of Orano’s and Framatome’s chemical conversion, enrichment and fuel manufacturing service).
France doesn’t need Russia for its nuclear industry. We are in fact one of the very few countries in the world with mastery of the entire nuclear cycle (chemical conversion, enrichment, fuel assembly manufacturing, spent fuel reprocessing, ultimate waste disposal).
Trusting Le Monde on the topic of nuclear energy is like trusting a snake oil salesman with your medical ailments.
>The latest Greenpeace report on France’s alleged dependence on Russia for its uranium supplies presents accurate figures from customs. But their interpretation and the conclusions of the NGO are inaccurate. Sfen provides an update on the organization of the upstream fuel cycle markets. It points out that France has a diversified supply of uranium and is one of the few countries in the world to master the entire industrial chain.
>On March 11, Greenpeace published a report of nearly 100 pages, taken up by the press, on the links between the French nuclear industry and the Russian Rosatom. The organization claims, on the basis of customs statistics, that France is “bound hand and foot to Russia”. While Greenpeace has gathered a lot of information, the report contains omissions and errors of reasoning. It demonstrates a lack of understanding of the (complex) way nuclear fuel markets work.
>In reality, France is one of the only countries in the world to have a complete chain (conversion, enrichment, assembly) to manufacture its nuclear fuel on its soil. It is not under the “control” of anyone. The French industry is even working today to develop additional capacities through a project to extend its enrichment plant (Orano) and a project to recycle reprocessed uranium.
>Reminder: nuclear fuel is manufactured in four stages
>To understand the mistakes made by Greenpeace, it is first necessary to understand how the nuclear fuel markets work. It takes two to three years to go from the extraction of uranium ore to the loading of the reactor of a nuclear power plant. There are several intermediate steps: conversion, enrichment and assembly of nuclear fuel
> * 1st step: mining. After extraction, the ore is transformed on site into a concentrate that looks like a yellow powder – the “yellow cake[1]”. This is shipped by the mining company to the so-called “chemical conversion” plants chosen by its customer. In the jargon of the nuclear industry, this is called natural uranium (Unat).
> * Stage 2: chemical conversion. The natural uranium then undergoes two new stages of transformation, first into uranium tetrafluoride (UF4), then into uranium hexafluoride (UF6). In France, these stages are carried out by Orano at the Malvési plant (Aude) and by Philippe Coste at the Tricastin site (Drôme).
> * 3rd step: enrichment. In natural uranium, there are two isotopes in proportion: uranium 238 and uranium 235. Only uranium 235 (0.7% of Unat) is fissile. To operate in light water reactors (the most widespread in the world), the proportion of uranium 235 must be increased to 3% to 4% (enriched UF6). In France, this enrichment is carried out by centrifugation at the Georges Besse II plant on the Tricastin site. To obtain one ton of enriched U, approximately 5 to 6 tons of Unat are needed.
> * 4th step: fuel fabrication. The enriched UF6 is sent by the enrichment manufacturer to the fuel fabrication plant chosen by its customer. There, it is transformed into uranium oxide, packaged in small cylindrical pellets. These pellets are stacked in long metal tubes made of zirconium alloy to constitute the fuel itself. The manufacturer then ships this fuel to its customer’s power plants.
>There are three important points to note in this process in order to understand and interpret the customs statistics (used by Greenpeace) on imports into the country:
> * Uranium has only one owner: from the end of step 1 (extraction), the nuclear power plant operator (future user) has purchased the uranium from the mining company. He will remain the sole owner during the conversion stage, the enrichment stage, and the fuel fabrication stage. For these last three stages, the link between the company and the industrial suppliers takes the form of service contracts.
> * The uranium circulates: these four stages can be carried out in four different countries. Let’s take a fictitious example: uranium purchased by a Finnish nuclear operator can be mined in Kazakhstan (Kazatomprom), converted into UF6 in France (Orano), enriched in the United Kingdom (Urenco) and then assembled into fuel in Sweden (Westinghouse) before being delivered to Finland. Throughout the chain, the same uranium will have been recorded as import/export in the customs statistics of four different countries.
>**Customs statistics**
>All goods entering or leaving French territory are accounted for, whether or not the corresponding exchanges are paid for. Each commodity must be declared, classified in the customs nomenclature, and the country of origin or destination must be mentioned, as well as the value of the commodity.
>As Greenpeace explains in its report, imports and exports of natural uranium (stage 1) and enriched uranium (stage 3) are available in open data on the customs site, recorded according to customs codes. In addition, imports in the form of fuel are also available.
>**Why are Greenpeace’s arguments about a possible “Russian hold” on French supplies false?**
> * Greenpeace’s first argument: *uranium imports from Central Asia (and transported via Russia) represent half of the uranium imported into France each year.*
>[Greenpeace bases this on statistics on imports of natural uranium (code 28441090), which give the following breakdown by country of origin, with the main countries being Niger, Kazakhstan, Australia and Uzbekistan.](https://www.sfen.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/Figure-3.png)
>In fact, the figure given by Greenpeace concerns only imports of natural uranium, and includes both the uranium consumed in France and the uranium of Orano and Framatome’s customers, which is intended for re-export. The figures for natural uranium do not correspond to the figures for total imports. Enriched uranium and uranium delivered in the form of fuel must also be added. For the latter, it is impossible to know in which country the corresponding ore was extracted.
>In total, France imported about 21,000 tons of uranium last year [2]. However, the consumption of its power plants is estimated at 7,000 metric tons (data: EDF), or less than half of the imports. If one can imagine a possible increase in strategic stocks, it is clear that nearly two-thirds of uranium imports are made up of materials owned by Orano’s clients for conversion services (stage 2) or enrichment (stage 3), or by Framatome for fuel fabrication (stage 4).
>Orano is one of the four major uranium enrichers in the world, along with Rosatom (Russia), Urenco (United Kingdom) and Chinese manufacturers. If we look at the figures for exports of enriched uranium (which are not presented in the Greenpeace report), we see that in 2022 France exported 22,165 metric tons of enriched uranium, or 50 times more than it imported (464 metric tons). These exports are distributed internationally to countries that have nuclear fuel fabrication plants (step 4): Sweden (Westinghouse), the United Kingdom (Westinghouse), Germany (Framatome Gmbh), the United States, South Korea and Japan. It is not possible to know from the customs statistics which reactors the fuel was finally delivered to (after stage 4). But what is known is that the final recipient remained the owner of these materials throughout the period when they were in the French plants.
> * Greenpeace’s second argument is that *”Rosatom has a stranglehold on a large part of the natural uranium imports from Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan. The report adds that “The French nuclear industry, far from being a guarantee of French energy sovereignty, is therefore dependent on the Russian nuclear industry at all stages of the uranium journey, with no credible alternative possible.”*
>This reasoning is inaccurate for two reasons. As we have seen, most of the uranium imported into France is not destined for French reactors. It is impossible, in the available statistics, to know the origin of the part of the uranium that is consumed in France and the part that belongs to foreign customers (and is only transiting on our soil before being re-exported).
>EDF has indicated that it has a policy of diversification among several countries, without specifying which ones, for reasons of business confidentiality. Also, according to the practice of the nuclear industry, the contracts for the purchase of uranium between the owners of nuclear power plants and the mine operators include the organization by the latter of delivery to the site of the conversion plant (for example Malvési in France).
>The transport contracts through Russia are signed by the mine operators, in this case the Kazakh and Uzbek operators, and therefore not by the uranium buyers or their contractors. Kazakhstan today, at the request of its customers, has stated that it is seeking to develop new routes. Although the southern route is not very voluminous, the country now exports via China, which is a major customer. Finally, since uranium occupies little volume, it can be transported by cargo plane if necessary.
4 comments
>while France does not import Russian natural uranium, it has brought even more enriched uranium from Russia in 2022 than in previous years.
vs https://www.reddit.com/r/dataisbeautiful/comments/107dsgw/oc_the_origins_of_germanys_natural_gas/
Russia completely removed from the system
ok and? uranium isnt on the sanctions list from the last time i looked
Garbage article, but that’s not unexpected from that news organisation (and from Greenpeace) on that topic.
What Le Monde omits to say is that France imports on average three times the uranium it needs for the consumption of its reactors. The two thirds that aren’t destined to be used in French reactors belong to foreign operators who are paying Orano or Framatome to provide the chemical conversion and/or enrichment of their uranium.
One thing you need to know about the nuclear industry is that each service provider organizes transport to the next service provider. It means that when a foreign operator buys uranium from Kazakhstan (the largest supplier of unranium ore in the world) and have it transported to France for conversion/enrichment, it is likely to show up as a Russian import in France’s customs records because Rosatom is usually the transporter from Central Asia to France.
And that’s how Greenpeace and Le Monde intentionally confuse their readers. They mix up:
* what the French customs records show (a significant amount of uranium being imported through Rosatom),
* and whom the uranium actually belongs to and is ultimately destined to (operators from all over the world, who are customers of Orano’s and Framatome’s chemical conversion, enrichment and fuel manufacturing service).
France doesn’t need Russia for its nuclear industry. We are in fact one of the very few countries in the world with mastery of the entire nuclear cycle (chemical conversion, enrichment, fuel assembly manufacturing, spent fuel reprocessing, ultimate waste disposal).
Trusting Le Monde on the topic of nuclear energy is like trusting a snake oil salesman with your medical ailments.
[The report quoted in this article was debunked](https://www.sfen.org/rgn/le-nucleaire-francais-nest-pas-sous-emprise-russe-fact-checking-du-rapport-greenpeace/)
>The latest Greenpeace report on France’s alleged dependence on Russia for its uranium supplies presents accurate figures from customs. But their interpretation and the conclusions of the NGO are inaccurate. Sfen provides an update on the organization of the upstream fuel cycle markets. It points out that France has a diversified supply of uranium and is one of the few countries in the world to master the entire industrial chain.
>On March 11, Greenpeace published a report of nearly 100 pages, taken up by the press, on the links between the French nuclear industry and the Russian Rosatom. The organization claims, on the basis of customs statistics, that France is “bound hand and foot to Russia”. While Greenpeace has gathered a lot of information, the report contains omissions and errors of reasoning. It demonstrates a lack of understanding of the (complex) way nuclear fuel markets work.
>In reality, France is one of the only countries in the world to have a complete chain (conversion, enrichment, assembly) to manufacture its nuclear fuel on its soil. It is not under the “control” of anyone. The French industry is even working today to develop additional capacities through a project to extend its enrichment plant (Orano) and a project to recycle reprocessed uranium.
>Reminder: nuclear fuel is manufactured in four stages
>To understand the mistakes made by Greenpeace, it is first necessary to understand how the nuclear fuel markets work. It takes two to three years to go from the extraction of uranium ore to the loading of the reactor of a nuclear power plant. There are several intermediate steps: conversion, enrichment and assembly of nuclear fuel
> * 1st step: mining. After extraction, the ore is transformed on site into a concentrate that looks like a yellow powder – the “yellow cake[1]”. This is shipped by the mining company to the so-called “chemical conversion” plants chosen by its customer. In the jargon of the nuclear industry, this is called natural uranium (Unat).
> * Stage 2: chemical conversion. The natural uranium then undergoes two new stages of transformation, first into uranium tetrafluoride (UF4), then into uranium hexafluoride (UF6). In France, these stages are carried out by Orano at the Malvési plant (Aude) and by Philippe Coste at the Tricastin site (Drôme).
> * 3rd step: enrichment. In natural uranium, there are two isotopes in proportion: uranium 238 and uranium 235. Only uranium 235 (0.7% of Unat) is fissile. To operate in light water reactors (the most widespread in the world), the proportion of uranium 235 must be increased to 3% to 4% (enriched UF6). In France, this enrichment is carried out by centrifugation at the Georges Besse II plant on the Tricastin site. To obtain one ton of enriched U, approximately 5 to 6 tons of Unat are needed.
> * 4th step: fuel fabrication. The enriched UF6 is sent by the enrichment manufacturer to the fuel fabrication plant chosen by its customer. There, it is transformed into uranium oxide, packaged in small cylindrical pellets. These pellets are stacked in long metal tubes made of zirconium alloy to constitute the fuel itself. The manufacturer then ships this fuel to its customer’s power plants.
>There are three important points to note in this process in order to understand and interpret the customs statistics (used by Greenpeace) on imports into the country:
> * Uranium has only one owner: from the end of step 1 (extraction), the nuclear power plant operator (future user) has purchased the uranium from the mining company. He will remain the sole owner during the conversion stage, the enrichment stage, and the fuel fabrication stage. For these last three stages, the link between the company and the industrial suppliers takes the form of service contracts.
> * The uranium circulates: these four stages can be carried out in four different countries. Let’s take a fictitious example: uranium purchased by a Finnish nuclear operator can be mined in Kazakhstan (Kazatomprom), converted into UF6 in France (Orano), enriched in the United Kingdom (Urenco) and then assembled into fuel in Sweden (Westinghouse) before being delivered to Finland. Throughout the chain, the same uranium will have been recorded as import/export in the customs statistics of four different countries.
>**Customs statistics**
>All goods entering or leaving French territory are accounted for, whether or not the corresponding exchanges are paid for. Each commodity must be declared, classified in the customs nomenclature, and the country of origin or destination must be mentioned, as well as the value of the commodity.
>As Greenpeace explains in its report, imports and exports of natural uranium (stage 1) and enriched uranium (stage 3) are available in open data on the customs site, recorded according to customs codes. In addition, imports in the form of fuel are also available.
>[The figures for customs declarations are as follows:](https://www.sfen.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/FIGURE-2.jpg)
>**Why are Greenpeace’s arguments about a possible “Russian hold” on French supplies false?**
> * Greenpeace’s first argument: *uranium imports from Central Asia (and transported via Russia) represent half of the uranium imported into France each year.*
>[Greenpeace bases this on statistics on imports of natural uranium (code 28441090), which give the following breakdown by country of origin, with the main countries being Niger, Kazakhstan, Australia and Uzbekistan.](https://www.sfen.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/Figure-3.png)
>In fact, the figure given by Greenpeace concerns only imports of natural uranium, and includes both the uranium consumed in France and the uranium of Orano and Framatome’s customers, which is intended for re-export. The figures for natural uranium do not correspond to the figures for total imports. Enriched uranium and uranium delivered in the form of fuel must also be added. For the latter, it is impossible to know in which country the corresponding ore was extracted.
>In total, France imported about 21,000 tons of uranium last year [2]. However, the consumption of its power plants is estimated at 7,000 metric tons (data: EDF), or less than half of the imports. If one can imagine a possible increase in strategic stocks, it is clear that nearly two-thirds of uranium imports are made up of materials owned by Orano’s clients for conversion services (stage 2) or enrichment (stage 3), or by Framatome for fuel fabrication (stage 4).
>Orano is one of the four major uranium enrichers in the world, along with Rosatom (Russia), Urenco (United Kingdom) and Chinese manufacturers. If we look at the figures for exports of enriched uranium (which are not presented in the Greenpeace report), we see that in 2022 France exported 22,165 metric tons of enriched uranium, or 50 times more than it imported (464 metric tons). These exports are distributed internationally to countries that have nuclear fuel fabrication plants (step 4): Sweden (Westinghouse), the United Kingdom (Westinghouse), Germany (Framatome Gmbh), the United States, South Korea and Japan. It is not possible to know from the customs statistics which reactors the fuel was finally delivered to (after stage 4). But what is known is that the final recipient remained the owner of these materials throughout the period when they were in the French plants.
>[Main customer countries ](https://www.sfen.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/Figure-4.png)
> * Greenpeace’s second argument is that *”Rosatom has a stranglehold on a large part of the natural uranium imports from Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan. The report adds that “The French nuclear industry, far from being a guarantee of French energy sovereignty, is therefore dependent on the Russian nuclear industry at all stages of the uranium journey, with no credible alternative possible.”*
>This reasoning is inaccurate for two reasons. As we have seen, most of the uranium imported into France is not destined for French reactors. It is impossible, in the available statistics, to know the origin of the part of the uranium that is consumed in France and the part that belongs to foreign customers (and is only transiting on our soil before being re-exported).
>EDF has indicated that it has a policy of diversification among several countries, without specifying which ones, for reasons of business confidentiality. Also, according to the practice of the nuclear industry, the contracts for the purchase of uranium between the owners of nuclear power plants and the mine operators include the organization by the latter of delivery to the site of the conversion plant (for example Malvési in France).
>The transport contracts through Russia are signed by the mine operators, in this case the Kazakh and Uzbek operators, and therefore not by the uranium buyers or their contractors. Kazakhstan today, at the request of its customers, has stated that it is seeking to develop new routes. Although the southern route is not very voluminous, the country now exports via China, which is a major customer. Finally, since uranium occupies little volume, it can be transported by cargo plane if necessary.