Title: "Nuclear Energy Challenges in Europe and the Transmutation Promise"

Abstract: The role of nuclear energy in Europe will be evolving in the coming decades. In this framework, the European Commission plays an important role in shaping European energy policies and providing science-based results as generated by the Joint Research Centre (JRC). Indeed, the JRC has a full directorate dedicated to Nuclear Safety and Security. That directorate has been recently organised into three departments and has issued a new vision and strategy taking also into account societal aspects. One of these departments, the Nuclear Safety department, addresses both the reactors and the associated fuels, and includes nuclear waste transmutation studies. Key research in that area is the development and validation of the fuel elements. The main issues of the minor Actinides bearing fuels and their claddings will be addressed in terms of design requirements, basic properties assessment and validation. Examples of current research programs and preliminary results will be presented. In this context, the availability of irradiation facilities to investigate appropriate boundary conditions as defined by the requirements is of paramount importance and the status and future perspectives will be shortly addressed. Finally, the aspect that is becoming more and more important in the European arena for nuclear energy research is the assessment of societal impacts the outcome of a social study performed on a specific case will also be presented.

Bio: Concetta Fazio is deputy Head of the Nuclear Fuel Safety Unit of the European Commission Joint Research Centre. After getting her PhD in Metallurgical Engineering at the Politecnico of Turin, she has started her research work at the Italian Research Centre ENEA on materials studies for fusion devices, accelerator driven systems and concentrated solar power. Successively, she moved to the German Research Institution KIT, where she was in charge both of the “Partitioning and Transmutation” and “Safety of New Nuclear Systems” programs. She has lead the R&D activities of several international initiatives as for instance the 1MW Liquid Metal Spallation Target (MEGAPIE) international project that has been successfully completed. Successively she has been appointed as initiator, negotiator and coordinator of the European Joint Program on Nuclear Materials. Its objective was to develop and assess structural and fuel element materials for innovative reactor systems as well as to perform multiscale modelling. At JRC after a first period spent on defining Nuclear Education and Training programs for MSc and PhD students and professional development, she became scientific assistant to the director of the JRC directorate on nuclear safety and security.