National debate on energies. From the transmutation side

The French national debate on energies aims at defining the main lines of the French energy policy for the 30 coming years which will lead to a project of orientation law submitted to the European Parliament by the end of 2003. This dossier comprises two digest articles about the contribution of the French atomic energy commission (CEA) to the energies of the future. The first article makes a status of the researches carried out at the CEA-Marcoule and CEA-Cadarache on radioactive wastes and on transmutation as a possible solution to the elimination of long living radionuclides. This article is followed by a presentation of the researches carried out at the CEA-Le Ripault centre on high temperature solid oxide fuel cells (SOFC) with the development of specific ceramic and metal materials. (J.S.)