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Abstract
The Commissariat à l'Énergie Atomique et aux Énergies Alternatives (French Alternative Energies and Atomic Energy Commission; CEA) occupies a unique position in the French research landscape works, where it is now the major actor in conducting scientific research on low carbon energy technologies, in addition to the range of missions that had already been assigned to it in the past. The CEA constantly supports the French nuclear industry through its efforts to optimise existing nuclear reactors and fuel cycles. At the back end, it develops technical solutions for managing radioactive waste. The CEA is responsible for cleaning up and dismantling its own nuclear facilities. Since 2005, the CEA has initiated a strategy for recovery of radioactive sources located in its different sites in France. Part of this programme has focused on the possibility to return the old sources of plutonium–beryllium to the US supplier through the ‘Off Site Source Recovery Project’. This project has provided a solution to the French legal issue for the source recovery strategy. The CEA's experience in the transport of Pu–Be materials used since the 1960s as radioactive sources for research programmes is described. In particular, the definition of the need, the specification of the conditioning aspects, of the packaging choices for the multimodal transport, the licensing process to obtain the certifications and the off site transfers from the CEA's sites to the Los Alamos National Laboratory nuclear facility in the United States are detailed. Finally, the significant experience and feedback gained are reported on topics including the preparation of the sources, the organisation of operations to gather the radioactive materials in the CEA sites (in site and off site transfers), the packaging transport, the logistics for the shipments including many interfaces and the contributions to comply with all the regulatory requirements.