Thursday, 5 June 2025
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The agreement to establish the Centre for Development of Spent Nuclear Fuel Utilisation (CVP) as a joint venture company was signed in Rome on 3 June by Newcleo CEO Stefano Buono and JAVYS Chairman Peter Gerhart. The signing was witnessed by Slovak Prime Minister Róbert Fico, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Economy of Slovakia, Denisa Saková, and Italy’s Minister of Environment and Energy Security, Gilberto Pichetto Fratino.
The signing of the agreement follows Paris-headquartered Newcleo’s signing of framework cooperation agreements with JAVYS and Slovak engineering company VUJE in January this year.
The newly established joint venture – of which JAVYS will own 51% and Newcleo 49% – will focus on developing a project to build up to four LFR-AS-200 reactors with a total output of 800 MWe on the site of the decommissioned Bohunice nuclear power plant in Slovakia. The units are to be powered with mixed uranium/plutonium oxide (MOX) fuel fabricated from existing Slovakian used nuclear fuel extracted from the country’s current reactor fleet.
The aim is to reprocess the used fuel in France and assemble new fuel rods at Newcleo’s planned French MOX facility which would then be used to power the LFR-AS-200 units creating a closed nuclear fuel cycle for the operation.
“This new operating model aims at shaping the future of the nuclear industry by establishing a complementary industrial synergy between thermal and fast reactors, by leveraging the latter’s potential to utilise spent nuclear fuel and closing the fuel cycle,” Newcleo said. “Newcleo intends to use this model as a blueprint for operations in other countries who have an existing nuclear fleet or legacy spent fuel as a way of managing what might otherwise be considered a waste product in a sustainable manner.”
The first phase of the project is a feasibility study, which will be prepared over the next 12 months. After its completion, a feasibility decision will be made based on expert arguments, confirming or not the overall technical and economic feasibility of the project, including its financing, conceptual design, timetable and total costs. The following phases include site preparation, construction of the non-nuclear and subsequently the nuclear part, system tests and the actual operation of the reactors.
In parallel, Newcleo and JAVYS will continue cooperating with the French government and nuclear fuel supply chain to develop and deploy used nuclear fuel transportation and reprocessing solutions, as well as continuing to advance Newcleo’s fuel manufacturing facility in France.
“Today we are at the dawn of a new model for the nuclear energy industry, where public and private firms collaborate to close the fuel cycle,” Buono said. “This project demonstrates that the future of nuclear energy lies in the intelligent utilisation of existing resources. Spent nuclear fuel ceases to be a problem and instead becomes a solution for improving Europe’s energy security and independence. Slovakia is thus becoming a pioneer in the field of closed nuclear fuel cycle.”
Gerhart added: “Our goal is to create a solution that will not only strengthen Slovakia energetically but will also be a model for the entire European region in the field of safe and efficient use of spent nuclear fuel.”
According to Newcleo’s delivery roadmap, the first non-nuclear pre-cursor prototype of its lead-cooled fast reactor (LFR) is expected to be ready by 2026 in Italy, the first reactor operational in France by the end of 2031, while the final investment decision for the first commercial power plant is expected around 2029.
