Paris-based conglomerate Veolia Environment announced an agreement Tuesday with a French government agency to remediate nuclear sites.
Veolia had not counted nuclear waste cleanup among its subsidiaries' primary markets before 2011, when it partnered with Areva to help create a water treatment system for the severely damaged Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant in Japan. In a release, the company said its Asteralis subsidiary will assist the French Alternative Energies and Atomic Energy Commission in dismantling and remediating a plutonium reprocessing plant in Marcoule, France, and a laboratory in Cadarache. They will cooperate on radiological mapping of the facilities and their tools, with the agency sharing its remediation experience.
Bloomberg reported that the work at Fukushima has provided $40 million in revenue for Veolia. At a press conference, company executives described nuclear site remediation as a growing market, with 300 reactors worldwide anticipated to go offline in the next two decades.