Take action on transitions
Innover @Orano is about starting now to prepare the group of the future, tomorrow, an actor in industrial, environmental, energy, societal, and social transitions.
As a worldclass leader across the entire fuel cycle, from uranium mining through to the recycling of used fuels, Orano is committed to the future of society with a sustainable development strategy. We protect the climate and preserve resources by contributing to the generation of low-carbon energy that is dense and controllable and uses few mineral resources. The group develops domains of expertise and technologies that are unique in the world so it can build tomorrow’s nuclear industry, boost other sectors of activity, and address other markets, all to make the world a more sustainable place.
The group draws support from solid fundamentals:
- control of nuclear fuel recycling, according to a circular economy and resource savings approach;
- deployment of industry 4.0 technologies in its operating plants of various kinds;
- investment and support for industrial actors in the regions where Orano is located and the creation of qualified jobs;
- development of new activities that enhance its unique skills, its cutting-edge technologies, and fuel cycle materials;
- reduction of its own carbon and environmental footprint.
Innovation applied to the industrial transition
Orano, an industry 4.0 actor, is already envisioning tomorrow’s plant, taking advantage the cutting-edge technologies to:
- Improve the productivity of plants, the competitiveness of services, and the safety of operators
- Accelerate deployment of a services approach, attentive to its customers
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For more information on projects related to I4.0Find out more
Innovation: driving the energy and environmental transition
The group achieves its commitments through concrete worksites and projects: preserving resources, developing a circular economy, bringing about a more sustainable nuclear sector, and contributing undeniably to carbon neutrality by 2050.
Circular economy around CO2 - Circular economy around CO2
Our ambition: Accelerate the development of Deep Tech start-ups through active collaborations with Orano by giving them access, for example, to our unique expertise, our testing equipment, and our industrial facilities to validate their innovative solutions.Orano has partnered with Global Challenge Hello Tomorrow, the annual competition for Deep Tech start-ups, with the aim of facing the major challenges of tomorrow.
One of the objectives: Identify solutions based on science or cutting-edge technologies that help develop a circular economy around CO2, drawing on capture, regeneration, storage, and recovery of CO2 as a raw material.
Innovation applied to the societal transition
Committed to the future of society, Orano is developing innovative solutions to explore new growth opportunities applied to a sustainable future. For example, Orano is committed to health through its subsidiary Orano Med. The group has also surrounded itself with an ultra-innovative and agile partner ecosystem, that of Deep Tech start-ups, and activates various modes of cooperation using a “win-win” strategy.
Targeted alphatherapy
Alliance of biotechnologies and nuclear technologies to fight cancer.
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Stable isotopes
A dedicated laboratory for producing non-radioactive forms of atoms with specific properties.
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Start-up generation
Initiatives favoring the emergence and growth of new Deep Tech actors.
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- Inventing a sustainable future Orano innovates for the climate, for a world that saves resources and for health by enhancing its know-how in transforming and controlling nuclear materials.
- Accelerating what drives progress forward Innover @Orano is about developing and bringing together new skills, connecting with ultra-innovative and dynamic ecosystems, and multiplying cooperations with start-ups to deploy breakthrough solutions and take on the challenges of tomorrow.
udd@Orano
Coordinated by Orano, this project brings together 12 industrial and academic partners during a 3-year period. The partners share their expertise to develop and implement new technological solutions applicable
to the nuclear industry along with other industries.
Paving the way toward a triple objective for Orano and its partners:
- Continue to maintain its industrial sites at the highest technological level;
- Develop new knowledge and differentiating technological building blocks;
- Enhance and favor the development and growth of 8 very small and SME partners.
MoTRaP
Radiation protection is a discipline anchored in Orano’s baselines. It concerns more than 900 people in the group.With MoTRaP, Orano commits to the modernization and transformation of the radiation protection disciplines, a cross-cutting initiative conducted in partnership with the Strate design school and co-built with radiation protection specialists and Orano’s various entities.
MoTRaP draws on an intelligent and connected set of tools, equipment, and systems to improve the preparation, production, and control of radiation protection operations.
Oxilio
Oxilio is the Orano service offered to all users of radioactivity for non-electronuclear applications (hospitals, radiotherapy centers, research institutes, etc.).It makes Orano’s tested and recognized expertise available in the areas of dismantling, clean-up, radiation protection, maintenance, and radioactive waste management.
Oxilio is a sharing community as well as digital and practical services and tools, enabling as many users as possible to use nuclear technologies while controlling its requirements.
Targeted alphatherapy
Through its medical subsidiary Orano Med, Orano is innovating in the development of targeted treatments against cancer, using the unique properties of lead-212 (212Pb), a very rare radioactive isotope that comes from thorium.
Its work gives hope to the international medical community that it will be able to move toward treatments that are less toxic and more effective.
Targeted alphatherapy is an innovative technology that combines lead-212 with biological molecules (peptides, antibodies) to target receptors and antigens in cancerous cells.
It recognizes and destroys cancer cells in a selective way while limiting the impact on the surrounding healthy cells.
Stable isotopes
Drawing on its know-how and its control of cutting-edge technologies in uranium transformation, conversion, and enrichment, Orano, in a one-of-its kind laboratory in France, is developing the production of stable isotopes, such as silicium-28 and xenon-136.
Because of their specific properties, these non-radioactive forms of atoms are used in many applications, notably in the health field (raw material for medications for diagnosing and treating cancers, improvement of magnetic resonance imaging), in the industrial sector and in the field of basic research (quantum computing, research on neutrinos, etc.).
Start-up generation
Our ambition: Develop the industrial, economic, and entrepreneurial ecosystem in the regions in which Orano is located or in relevant sectors of activity.Orano is focused on accelerating the development and industrialization of innovative solutions from Deep Tech
actors by providing them with all our unique expertise together with test equipment and experimentation spaces at the industrial facilities of the group or its partners.
The group’s plants thus become spaces of testing and validation, at the industrial scale, for innovative technologies developed by these Deep Tech actors, which thereby strengthen their positioning or give them access to new markets in energy & environmental transition and to the circular economy, the aerospace industry, healthcare, and industry 4.0.
Future nuclear industry
Our ambition: Favor the emergence of a new promising sector around developing designs for molten salt reactors to make the nuclear industry more sustainable.Orano is exploring new positioning opportunities and is contributing to the emergence of this promising sector with sets itself apart by using a liquid combustible in the form of a high-temperature molten salt, drawing on its control of all steps of the fuel cycle and the associated nuclear facilities.
Orano is collaborating with several start-ups that design molten salt reactors. These new reactor designs present a high energy yield, are very flexible, and can use minor actinides as fuel (they are currently considered as waste). They open promising avenues for reducing the volume and radiotoxicity of nuclear waste.