contents

Plutonium: Whether boon or risk, both viewpoints must be respected

"Plutonium evokes the entire gamut of human emotions, from good to evil, from hope to despair, from the salvation of humanity to its utter destruction." With typical dramatic flair, former Los Alamos Laboratory director Sig Hecker cut the ribbon on the opening morning of the conference.

Adding the obvious, that "there's no other element in the periodic table that shares such a burden," Hecker then surged into a historical perspective. Its backdrop was the dual-use scenario of domestic power and nuclear weapons-drawing energy from an atomic nucleus that can be tapped for "a factor of increase in millions of energy production."

Beginning with President Eisenhower's 1953 Atoms for Peace initiative, Hecker outlined the period of intense international collaboration on the peaceful uses of atomic energy that spanned the period from the 1955 First International Congress in Geneva through the end of the Cold War. In Hecker's view, the late 1980s marked a period of diminished collaboration, while the first Plutonium Futures Conference in 1997 symbolized the "attempt to regenerate" the spirit of international collaboration in plutonium science.

Hecker's post-1997 review adopted a sociopolitical angle, citing the cooperative endeavors whereby the United States and Russia continue to reduce their arsenals of nuclear weapons. He reviewed such initiatives as burning excess weapons plutonium for peaceful energy production and blending-down Russia's declared 500-ton excess of highly enriched uranium to low-enriched uranium. Some of the latter has already been purchased by the United States for its light-water electricity-generating reactors. In addition, Hecker discussed what he characterized as significant enhancements in the security of nuclear materials and a reduction in the level of nuclear-materials trafficking.

On the flip side, Hecker raised concerns deriving from the "horizontal proliferation" of nuclear weapons in Asia, including radiological-terrorism concerns following the events of 9/11/01, which "indicate that we do not live in a very peaceful world." He also commented on the challenges of dealing with the legacy waste of the nuclear era, citing specific instances in both the United States and Russia and including the decommissioning and dismantlement of the latter's nuclear submarine fleet.

Never one to end on a sour note, Hecker noted the resurgence in nuclear-power research in the United States, mentioning both fuel-cycle initiatives and the positive connotations of "discussions about the construction of nuclear power plants . . . for the first time in a couple of decades."

Referring to opinions that plutonium is either our greatest boon or our greatest risk, Hecker cautioned that "we must respect both points of view." He then rolled into the day's events by declaring that "no matter what you believe about the political challenges, scientifically, plutonium is without question the most complex and fascinating element . . . and that's, after all, why we're here this week."

Finally, in calling for a continued international collaboration to solve scientific and sociopolitical challenges, Hecker concluded by expressing the hope that "this conference will, in particular, stimulate interest in the younger generation in carrying on the challenges and all those things that we have yet to learn associated with plutonium and the other actinides."

-Vin LoPresti


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