Figure 1. Tim Nelson (right) explains the ARIES concept to Senator Pete Domenici.
On Monday, December 7, Senator Pete Domenici led members of the Senate Task Force on Plutonium Disposition, which he chairs, on a tour of the ARIES demonstration line. The staff specialists are in the process of becoming more familiar with the US approach to the plutonium disposition issue.
Domenici used the occasion to prod the Clinton administration once more to appoint a special envoy who can facilitate a protocol signed in Moscow this summer in which the US and Russia each agreed to dispose of 50 tons of surplus weapons-grade plutonium.
"This issue is so important to our national interests and global security that we cannot sit idle. I believe our window of opportunity is limited. So far, progress on the plutonium disposition protocol has been slow. The President should act now to appoint a special American envoy to coordinate this bilateral plutonium accord," Domenici said.
Planning for the Plutonium Futures-The Science conference in the year 2000 is well underway. It will be held at La Fonda on the Plaza in Santa Fe, New Mexico (USA) during the week of July 1013. The first conference in the series (in 1997) had over 300 participants representing 14 countries as well as Department of Energy national laboratories and other federal and international institutions, universities, and industries.
The conference is sponsored by the Los Alamos National Laboratory in cooperation with the American Nuclear Society. The Program Committee comprises the following members: Richard A. Bartsch (Texas Tech University); Rodney C. Ewing (University of Michigan); Gregory Choppin (Florida State University); Darleane Hoffman (University of California); Douglas C. Crawford (Argonne National Laboratory); Harold McFarlane (Argonne National Laboratory West); Charles W. Forseberg (Oak Ridge National Laboratory); Gordon Brown (Stanford University); Kenneth L. Peddicord (Texas A&M University); William G. Sutcliffe (Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory); Mal M. McKibben (Westinghouse Savannah River Company); Gerd Rosenblatt (Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory); and from Los Alamos National Laboratory-Allen Hartford, Jr., Paul T. Cunningham, David L. Clark, Sandra Mecklenburg, K. K. S. Pillay (Co-Chair) and K. C. Kim (Co-Chair). The last seven members also serve on the Conference Organizing Committee.
The conference email address is puconf2000@lanl.gov. Write to us with
your comments, suggestions, and inquiries. Also visit the conference Web
page at
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