Free Articles: French CEA

The Commissariat à l'énergie atomique et aux énergies alternatives (English: Atomic and Alternative Energies Commission) or CEA, is a French “public establishment related to industrial and commercial activities” whose mission is to develop all applications of nuclear power, both civilian and military. CEA is headed by a board headed by the general administrator (currently ), advised by the high-commissioner for atomic energy (currently Catherine Cesarsky). The missions of the CEA are equivalent to those of the United States Department of Energy. Its yearly budget amounts to 3.9 billion euros and its permanent staff is over 15,000 persons.

CEA was created in 1945; since then, the successive high-commissioners have been Frédéric Joliot-Curie, Francis Perrin, , , Raoul Dautry, , and the incumbent.

It conducts fundamental and applied research into many areas, including the design of nuclear reactors, the manufacturing of integrated circuits, the use of radionucleides for curing illnesses, seismology and tsunami propagation, the safety of computerized systems, etc.

It has one of the top 10 supercomputers in the world, the Tera-100.

It is divided into 5 directions, or divisions:

In December 2009 French President Nicolas Sarkozy declared that CEA should change its name to Commissariat à l’énergie atomique et aux énergies alternatives (English: Commission for Atomic Energy and Alternative Energies).

Facilities

Civilian research centres

Civilian emergency organizations

Research centres for military applications

External links

CEA official website (in English)
CEA official website (main page, in French)
Facebook

References

See Les Echos in French

Retrieved from : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commissariat_%C3%A0_l%27%C3%A9nergie_atomique