Abstract

Energy perspectives for the current century are dominated by the anticipated significant increase of energy needs due to the population growth and the likely economic development of emerging countries. Particularly, electricity consumption is anticipated to increase by a factor higher than two before 2050. Furthermore, the global climate change has now been proven to be partially related to the release of greenhouse gases from anthropogenic activities, including energy production. Considering that about 80% of our current primary energy comes from fossil energies, we have to face in the near-future a challenging issue: meeting the increasing energy needs while curbing the GHG emissions. From this perspective, nuclear energy is considered as a potential contributor to the future energy portfolio to meet the energetic needs while preserving the climate but it also has to demonstrate that it can contribute safely and on a sustainable way. Its acceptance is closely associated to our capability to reduce the lifetime of the nuclear waste, to manage them safely and to propose options for a better use of the natural resources. This cannot be achieved only by optimizing industrial processes through engineering studies. It is of a primary importance to increase our fundamental knowledge in actinide sciences in order to build the future of nuclear energy on reliable and scientifically-founded results, and therefore meet the needs of the future fuel cycles in terms of fabrication and performance of fuels, reprocessing and waste management. Therefore, for its sixth edition and in the continuation of the series, the organisers propose to focus the ATALANTE Conference on the nuclear chemistry issues for all the fuel cycles and waste management options by giving the floor the international nuclear chemistry community through more than 150 oral contributions. In addition, a poster session will be the opportunity to enlarge this number of contributions. Oral and poster presentations will be invited on subjects and issues that cover almost all the fields of the nuclear chemistry related to current and future nuclear fuel cycles including molten salt reactors.