Associate – Senior Expert Nuclear Fuel & Fuel Cycle
Didier Haas has a master degree in nuclear engineering from the Liège University and is a Fellow of the Belgian Nuclear Society. He has over 40 years of nuclear sector experience, including MOX fuels design and fabrication, laboratory-scale Plutonium plant design and construction, and research and policy analysis. Didier has detailed experience in all aspects of the LWR and fast reactor nuclear cycle and technologies.
Most relevant technical direct experience of Didier Haas is his past (1972-1980) contribution to materials research and design related to the SNR-300 sodium fast reactor (SFR) in Germany. He acted as responsible engineer for the follow-up of irradiation and post-irradiation research programs conducted in test reactors in France (RAPSODIE), UK (DFR), Germany (KNK-II) and Belgium (BR2 with sodium in-pile sections). The main research areas were fuels (MOX) and structural materials (pin cladding, bundle structure). During the following period (1982-1998), he mainly worked on MOX fuel LWR R&D programs and industrial fabrication at BELGONUCLEAIRE (R&D project manager, commercial Director) and he continued to cultivate his international experience (mainly in Japan, France and Germany).
During his stay in Karlsruhe (1998-2007) and Brussels (2007-2013), as civil servant for the EC (at the Joint Research Centre, JRC) he became Head of Unit for Nuclear Fuels. There, he broadened his experience in relation to advanced reactors fuels fabrication and R&D Pu-bearing fuels plant design, construction and operation. At the JRC in Brussels, he became Senior Adviser to the Director General, mainly in charge of international relations and as representative of EURATOM in the Generation IV International Forum.
