The Committee of Experts

An engineer from the Ecole Nationale Supérieure de Géologie Appliquée in Nancy and holder of a DEA (post-graduate diploma) in mechanics and hydraulics, Frédéric PLAS began his career in the 1980s at the CEA in a research laboratory on materials for radioactive waste repositories at the Institut de Recherche et de Développement Industriel.
He joined Andra in the 90s to take charge of research programmes on engineered materials and the integration of scientific knowledge into the design and safety assessment of repositories. He was involved in the deep geological disposal project (Cigéo project) under the 1991 law, then the 2006 law.
As head of various departments in Andra’s Scientific Division, he has covered a wide range of scientific disciplines (geosciences, materials science, applied mathematics, etc.).
For 10 years, he headed the departments responsible for integrating scientific data, describing how repositories operate over time and carrying out quantitative and qualitative assessments of repository performance and safety, using digital simulation in particular.

Director of Andra’s Research and Development Department since 2013, he is in charge of Andra’s scientific research programme, in conjunction with French research bodies, in particular the CEA. With a staff of around one hundred, this department relies on a set of remarkable research tools, the Underground Research Laboratory (LS) and the Perennial Environment Observatory (OPE) in Meuse/Haute Marne, which hosts numerous research teams to carry out experiments in the service of Cigéo as well as academic research. It also helps to promote the work of Andra and the external research teams involved, for the benefit of higher education in France.

Frédéric Plas is a member of the Technical Advisory Panel of the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority (NDA – UK), a group of independent experts responsible for evaluating the NDA’s R&D strategy, programmes and activities (2013 – ) and of the Euratom IGD-TP technology platform, which brings together the European organisations responsible for implementing geological disposal of radioactive waste and is responsible for defining the priority areas of R&D in the field of geological disposal.