| Atomic Energy and Alternative Energies Commission | |
|---|---|
| Commissariat à l'énergie atomique et aux énergies alternatives |
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| Agency overview | |
| Formed | October 18, 1945 |
| Preceding agency | Commissariat à l'énergie atomique |
| Headquarters | Gif-sur-Yvette |
| Employees | 15,989 (2010)[1] |
| Annual budget | 4.7 billion € (2009) |
| Agency executives | Bernard Bigot, General administrator Catherine Cesarsky, High Commissioner for Atomic Energy |
| Website | |
| www.cea.fr (in English) | |
The Commissariat à l'énergie atomique et aux énergies alternatives (English: Atomic Energy 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 Bernard Bigot), 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, Jacques Yvon, Jean Teillac, Raoul Dautry, René Pellat, Bernard Bigot 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 [2] that CEA, at this time named Commissariat à l’énergie atomique (English: Commission for Atomic Energy)should change its name to Commissariat à l’énergie atomique et aux énergies alternatives (English: Commission for Atomic Energy and Alternative Energies); this change took effect on March 10th 2010, when the decision was published in the Journal officiel.
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