Global warming, shortage of low-cost oil resources and the increasing
demand for energy are currently controlling the world's economic
expansion while often opposing desires for sustainable and peaceful
development. In this context, atomic energy satisfactorily fulfills the
criteria of low carbon gas production and high overall yield. However,
in the absence of industrial fast-breeders the use of nuclear fuel is
not optimal, and the production of high activity waste materials is at a
maximum. These are the principal reasons for the development of a new,
fourth generation of nuclear reactors, minimizing the undesirable
side-effects of current nuclear energy production technology while
increasing yields by increasing operation temperatures and opening the
way for the industrial production of hydrogen through the decomposition
of water.
The construction and use of such reactors is hindered by several
factors, including performance limitations of known structural
materials, particularly if the life of the projected systems had to
extend over the periods necessary to achieve low costs (at least 60
years).
This book collects lectures and seminars presented at the homonymous
NATO ASI held in autumn 2007 at the Institut d'Etudes Scientifiques in
Cargèse, France. The adopted approach aims at improving and coordinating
basic knowledge in materials science and engineering with specific areas
of condensed matter physics, the physics of particle/matter interaction
and of radiation damage. It is our belief that this methodology is
crucially conditioning the development and the industrial production of
new structural materials capable of coping with the requirements of
these future reactors.
