Urenco commissions its Gronau uranium oxide store, a building finished in 2014
Serguey Asael Shinder1 min readUrenco has formally commissioned the uranium oxide (U3O8) storage facility at its enrichment plant in Gronau, Germany, World Nuclear News reported on 7 October. The building itself was completed in 2014 under the existing licence; with commissioning, all legal and operational requirements for storing U3O8 on site are now met.
Why it exists. Enrichment leaves behind depleted uranium, known as tails. Over the coming years, material from Gronau will go for processing to Orano's Pierrelatte site in France and to Urenco's Tails Management Facility at Capenhurst in the UK, where it is deconverted into U3O8. That oxide can then be returned to Gronau for long-term storage.
Why that form. U3O8 is considered particularly suitable for long-term storage: it is insoluble in water, non-combustible, chemically highly stable and non-volatile even at high temperatures.
Waste or resource. Under current German law depleted uranium is classed as a potentially reusable material. A 2002 safety report for the plant's final expansion noted that it still contains a significant share of the original uranium-235, so future uses remain possible, though no specific reuse route is current. "At the same time, we are preserving depleted uranium" as a resource, said Jörg Harren, managing director of Urenco Deutschland.
Context. The store is part of the plant's expansion licence granted in 2005 by North Rhine-Westphalia, which allows up to 4.5 million separative work units a year. Urenco is owned one-third each by the UK government, the Netherlands, and the German utilities RWE and E.ON.