Putin’s French Venture Shows Russian Atomic Power Still Growing

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(Bloomberg) — Russia’s grip on the supply chain for nuclear power is strengthening, and its latest venture to feed Europe’s reactors is prompting outrage in a country that’s turned its back on the technology.

Thousands of Germans are crying foul at Kremlin-controlled Rosatom Corp.’s plans in their nation. The nuclear giant is partnering with France’s state-run Framatome SA to assemble fuel needed by reactors generating electricity for 100 million eastern Europeans. Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Hungary and Slovakia still use Russian technology.

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The gambit shows that the Kremlin’s heft in nuclear markets continues unabated two years after the invasion of Ukraine, with new data revealing record trade in 2023. Even as Russian President Vladimir Putin and French President Emmanuel Macron trade military threats, engineers from both countries jointly plot the future of their atomic industries.

“Putin is laughing up his sleeve,” said Vladimir Slivyak, co-chairman of the Russian environmental organization Ecodefense. “This would make Europe even more dependent on Russia in terms of energy policy and strengthen the Kremlin’s geopolitical influence.”

European heads of state, including Macron, meet March 21 at the International Atomic Energy Agency summit in Brussels, where they’ll discuss ways to strengthen nuclear-fuel supply chains. Earlier this month, IAEA Director General Rafael Mariano Grossi lauded Russia as the “No. 1 vendor of nuclear technology in the world.”

The proposed manufacturing would occur at a Framatome facility in Lingen, Germany — where more than 10,000 people registered their opposition with the local government. The French company formed a joint venture last year with Russia’s TVEL Fuel Co., and that new entity is seeking German government approval to transfer technologies to the city.

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Germany shuttered its last nuclear power plant in 2023 but continues manufacturing fuel for other countries.

Rosatom’s plan in Germany “raises questions over how effectively Western supply chains are managing to diversify away from Russia,” said Darya Dolzikova, a nuclear-trade researcher at Royal United Services Institute think tank in London.

Framatome is majority owned by Electricite de France SA, and TVEL is a subsidiary of Kremlin-controlled Rosatom, the world’s biggest supplier of nuclear fuel.

The venture would allow “Framatome to contribute to the development of a sovereign European fuel solution,” the company said in a reply to Bloomberg News. TVEL didn’t respond to requests for comment.

The new company — called European Hexagonal Fuel SAS — was formed to license Russian technologies necessary for making reactor fuel, according to minutes of a Jan. 18, 2023, shareholders meeting seen by Bloomberg. It was capitalized with €8 million ($8.8 million) amid French pledges to supply Ukraine with armor and missiles.

Earlier efforts to expand the Lingen operation prompted suspicions, triggering a review by German regulators in 2021. Framatome’s latest attempt raised public hackles after the site manager told local lawmakers that Russian engineers would supervise the factory work.

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Almost 11,000 people registered concern in writing with officials in Lower Saxony who oversee the required environmental permits. Those comments are being reviewed.

“We must reduce Russia’s influence on the energy sector,” local minister Christian Meyer said. He will consult with federal authorities in Berlin about potential security issues, he said.

Framatome’s factory in Lingen already produces fuel for non-Russian reactors, including Sizewell B in the UK, Doel in Belgium and Ringhals in Sweden. Under normal circumstances, the French application would be waived through. 

But a legal assessment commissioned by Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s government last year warned that the new venture constitutes a “special circumstance” that may open the door to spies or potential sabotage.

“This danger isn’t only hypothetical, but involves a foreign state-owned company, whose leader is not only waging a war of aggression in Europe against international law, but blatantly threatening the use of nuclear weapons,” reads the legal opinion of Gerhard Roller, a professor and environmental lawyer.

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Eastern European countries still relying on TVEL have searched for alternate suppliers since the invasion. But cutting ties prematurely may threaten operations at more than a dozen Soviet-designed VVER reactors generating carbon-free electricity.

Outside of Russia, there’s only one other VVER fuel manufacturer: Westinghouse Electric Co., which went through more than two decades of trial and error, engineering a new type of fuel with the help of Ukraine and funding from the US Department of Energy.

“We sent a big group of our engineers to work with Westinghouse in Sweden,” Ukraine Energy Minister German Galushchenko said in an interview earlier this month, referring to a factory north of Stockholm.

By partnering with Russia, Framatome expects to speed commercialization of VVER fuel because it will be identical to what Rosatom supplies in the Czech Republic, Bulgaria and Slovakia. That means it won’t require any new “technical or legal” approval from safety regulators, the company said.

Broader economic issues also are at play. United Nations data show France imported almost $1 billion of Russian low-enriched uranium during the past five years, and state-owned Orano SA sent uranium waste to a Siberian factory for recycling in 2021-2022.

France operates a fleet of 56 reactors, and EDF plans to build six more.

“The fact that Framatome sticks to its decision, even in the current political situation, probably means that there are not only technological reasons but also commercial interests of doing other business,” said Sebastian Stier, a nuclear-patent attorney at the Munich-based law firm Betten & Resch.

—With assistance from Francois de Beaupuy.

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