Jean-Pierre Mustelier

Jean-Pierre Mustelier is a graduate of the Ecole des Mines in Paris and has a research degree in solid physics from the Faculty of Sciences in Orsay. After a short period with Alstom he spent his whole career in the nuclear industry at the French Commissariat for Atomic Energy (CEA), then at the Compagnie Générale des Matières Atomiques (COGEMA).

At the CEA he was in charge successively of several research units in solid physics and nuclear metallurgy:

• in Saclay, the Hot Metallurgy Section (25 people).
• in Fontenay-aux-Roses, the Plutonium Service (150 people).
• in Cadarache, the Department for the Development of Fuel Elements (330 people). This department is in charge of the planning, the technical testing for irradiation and the production of plutonium fuels. From 1970 to 1978, the period when it was under the direction of J-P. Mustelier, the department planned, experimented and produced the fuels for the RAPSODIE and PHENIX reactors, then the first two loads for SUPERPHENIX.

In 1978, Jean-Pierre Mustelier was called up by the then Director General of the COGEMA, Georges Besse, to set up a new Fuels Branch, which he was to head until his retirement in 1992. In particular and in cooperation with EDF and FRAMATOME he started up the new programme for plutonium recycling in pressurised water reactors, in the form of uranium and plutonium mixed oxide (MOX) fuels. The first reloads were produced under his direction in the plutonium workshop of the Société Belgonucléaire and the plutonium workshop of Cadarache.

He was the project manager for large MOX production plant built from 1991 onwards on the site of the nuclear power station at Marcoule and which began production in 1995 and which is still in operation without any of its original decisions being challenged.

In addition, in the course of his work J.-P. Mustelier represented the interests of the CEA and the COGEMA in a number of wholly or jointly owned subsidiaries with industrial partners (SICN, Framatome, Novatome, Uranium Péchiney, Belgonucléaire, AGIP nucléaire, Babcock and Wilcox).

As a matter of interest he was for some time chairman of the board of directors of a subsidiary of the COGEMA that manufactured industrial diamonds.

He is the author of numerous reports, papers and publications, especially about plutonium fuels.

Since retiring he has taken on several unpaid positions for charitable organisations: official representative for the Chairman of the Paris Council of the Red Cross, acting director of  the Marguerite Fontaneille psychiatric day hospital for children and deputy director of the Polish Library in Paris.

Jean-Pierre Mustelier kindly agreed to give a lecture during the dinner-debate held on14 June 2003 on the subject  "The Future of Nuclear Power".

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