Plutonium Conference Illuminates Aspects of Unique Element

The second international "Plutonium Futures-The Science" conference opened Sunday afternoon, July 9, at La Fonda, on the historic Santa Fe plaza. Sponsored by the Laboratory in cooperation with the American Nuclear Society, the three-and-a-half-day conference, plus tutorial, drew 410 participants from 15 countries and included some 50 post-doctoral researchers and graduate and undergraduate students, not including those from the Laboratory. Attendance for many of these students was sponsored by the conference.

The conference provided those in attendance with an opportunity to participate in an assessment of the current understanding of plutonium and actinide sciences and to focus on the science needed to solve important national and international issues associated with plutonium. It placed an emphasis on involving students who will carry on the task of solving nuclear issues into the next century. The conference pursued the science of plutonium with noted plenary speakers discussing policy and management issues, followed by 35 selected oral presentations given by speakers from a dozen countries and 140 posters addressing topics in materials science and nuclear fuels, condensed matter physics, actinides and processing, actinides in the environment, and actinides and transuranic wastes.

In Sunday's preconference tutorial session, David Clark, head of the Glenn T. Seaborg Institute for Transactinium Science at Los Alamos, voiced a theme woven throughout the conference, "Plutonium is absolutely unique among all of the elements. After some 50 years of research into the characteristics of Plutonium, something as simple as the number of phases the element can take and the phase diagram of Pu-Ga alloy are still undetermined." Other speakers in the overflow tutorial session gave the history of the discovery and studies of plutonium, Pu surface science, and studies of Pu oxides.

Plenary speakers on the opening day of the conference highlighted both scientific and international policy discussions of plutonium. Darleane Hoffman, UC Berkeley, reprised the talk she gave as a recipient of the coveted Priestly Medal, highest award of the American Chemical Society for lifetime achievement, in April this year. She talked about the continuing search for super-heavy elements.

Nikolai Ponomarev-Stepnoi of the Russian Kurchatov Institute showed a video with English narration on past, present, and future uses of plutonium in Russia. His vision of the future is "clear, cloudless skies without any greenhouse effects" through the use of advanced, nuclear-fueled thermal reactors for power generation.

Thomas Cochran of the Natural Resources Defense Council says his vision is for "complete disarmament under strict and effective international controls" with specific suggestions for bilateral efforts to do so. He believes such efforts should result in a complete ban on weapons-usable materials, moving them into unclassified forms for long-term storage. Breaking from his fellow environmentalists, he does favor radioactive sources for use in space.

Leo Brewer, UC Berkeley professor (Emeritus), challenges scientists to be innovative and to be willing to follow in whatever direction their research takes them. Using himself as an example, he says, "My ideas are rejected, then ten years later my ideas are confirmed and I get an award!" In another theme that echoed throughout the conference, Brewer challenged the audience to educate the public on radioactivity. "Use the example of potassium," he urged. "Tell them if they didn't get their potassium, they would die."

Vladimir Onoufriev of the International Atomic Energy Agency gave his vision for nuclear power of the future. "In the long term," he said, "we will see fast reactors using technologies specifically designed for MOX (mixed-oxide) fuels." However, he feels that if plutonium fuels do not become commercially attractive to utilities, plutonium and other actinides will still be reprocessed in international fuel-cycle centers for future needs. In any case, he predicts that advanced processes will make nuclear reactors low-cost and environmentally safe.

Former Lab Director Siegfried Hecker returned to the question of why plutonium is such an unusual metal. "It is the f electrons, and specific aspects of the f electrons that make plutonium so peculiar from a metallurgist's point of view," he stated. He echoed the tutorial session as he talked about plutonium's thermal instability, pressure instability, and unexpected alloying behavior. "Some see plutonium as the 'scourge of mankind,'" he concluded, "Others see it as the savior of mankind. But what it is is the most fascinating element we know of."

A spirited exchange of views on these topics continued in the evening panel discussion. There was a broad consensus on the panel that plutonium separated from weapons should be rapidly moved toward the spent fuel standard (SFS), where reuse, especially clandestine reuse, is difficult. The active debate centered on the means of achieving the SFS and the role of nuclear power, especially plutonium, in meeting future global energy needs. Finally, political and technical statements were braided together by the panelists in answer to audience questions. Those panelists who see nuclear power generation in the future avowed that science and technology will provide technical solutions to the political questions.

The conference poster session provided a surprisingly large and diverse collection of papers from many countries. Awards were given to the ten best posters. The articles following in this issue of Actinide Research Quarterly are based on two of these posters. The award-winning posters may be seen on the conference Web site at http://www.lanl.gov/pu2000.html.

Financial support for the conference was provided by the Associate Laboratory Directorate for Weapons Programs and the Associate Laboratory Directorate for Threat Reduction. The Office of Basic Energy Sciences/US Department of Energy sponsored student attendance at the conference. Plutonium-related exhibits were provided by Westinghouse Savannah River Company, Argonne National Laboratory, Lovelace Respiratory Research Institute, and Los Alamos National Laboratory.

Conference proceedings were distributed to all participants and are available from the American Institute of Physics (AIP Conference Proceedings 532). Participants also received a preview of the upcoming Los Alamos Science issue "Challenges in Plutonium Science," (Number 26, 2000) on CD. Hard copies and CDs of the entire issue will be available by mid-October. People are welcome to request copies (see http://www.lanl.gov/worldview/science/lascience/). The conference Web site including photos and the final conference program will be maintained until the next conference, tentatively scheduled for summer 2003. Comments and suggestions for that conference are welcome.

Ann Mauzy (IM-1)contributed this article, and Mick Greenbank was the photographer.

NMT | LANL | DOE
Phone Book | Search | Help/Info

L O S  A L A M O S  N A T I O N A L   L A B O R A T O R Y
Operated by the University of California for the US Department of Energy