GOVERNMENT & POLICY nanoscale science, Stevens notes, and is funding five nanoscience research centers located near the national labs. However, he says his division would like to put $3 million to $5 million more in theory, modeling, and simulation in nanoscale science. He adds that the division's nanoscience work is likely to be coupled with DOE's Advanced Scientific Computing Research Office. In the long term, Stevens predicts research in the division will grow at the interface between physical and biological sciences. And he also expects greater reliance on and spending for computational chemistry and modeling. "I think a lot of scientific discoveries will be coming out of computational chemistry," he says. "In the future, it will drive scientific discovery at the same level as experimentation, and BES will invest more heavily in the years ahead." AS THE MAIN contact for homeland security in DOE's Science Office, Stevens says it has been exciting to see the creation of a new federal department. T h e future, however, remains quite blurred as Congress wrestles with legislation for a Department of Homeland Security. "There is no clear statement now," he says, but when pressed, he predicts that there will be some sort of partnership between D O E and the new department and that some parts of D O E may be transferred to the Homeland Security Department. He believes that intramural government research is likely to be classified and conducted at D O E labs, although not in one specific lab. Rather, an agreement may be reached to allow the new department to use any of the labs. "We at D O E are maintaining an awareness ofwhat the new department will need and where scientific knowledge gaps should be filled. We are beginning by looking at our national lab infrastructure. We have designated at each lab a single point of contact who is keeping an eye on the situation as it evolves." Stevens stresses that the discussions are in flux and highly uncertain, both for government and nongovernment university research. All in all, he says, "this is an extremely exciting time to be a chemist." "Chemistry is so exciting that everybody is doing it: biologists, materials scientists, chemical engineers. My new position comes at one of the most exciting periods I can remember in my 30 years in the field." • 24
C&EN
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OCTOBER
7.
2002
NEW NUCLEAR WEAPONS PLANT BEING PLANNED DOE starts process that may lead to new nuclear weapons plant to make Pu triggers by 2020
T
HE U.S. GOVERNMENT LAST WEEK
began a legally mandated review that could lead to construction of a factory to manufacture nuclear weapon "pits," softball-sized spheres of plutonium needed to supply fission energy to trigger a thermonuclear hydrogen bomb. In a notice in the Sept. 23 Federal Register, the Department of Energy's National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) laid out its justification for the plant and its intention to file a programmatic environmental impact statement. Hearings will be held at five nuclear weapons facilities that are being considered for the plant's home and in Washington, D C . The public has 60 days to comment on the plan, NNSA says. The U.S. has lacked adequate capability to manufacture pits since 1989, N N S A notes, when the D O E Rocky Flats facility in Colorado was shut down. The plant was closed because of a plethora of environmental problems that led to enforcement actions by the Environmental Protection Agency, the state, and the Department of Justice and finally to a raid by the Federal Bureau of Investigation. The decision to build the facility was the result of a recommendation late last year by the Bush Administration's Nuclear Posture Review, NNSA notes. Although NNSA currently has an interim pit-manufacturing facility at Los Alamos National Laboratory, D O E plans to expand that facility to be able to manufacture up to 80 pits per year by 2 0 0 7 However, N N S A says in its notice t h a t classified documents show this level to be inadequate. W h e n D O E attempted to begin planning a new facility in 1996, it was sued by several citizens groups over the adequacy of its justification. Under a 1998 court settlement, D O E is required to move ahead with the public announcement and process required
by preparing an environmental impact statement in order to justify the plant. In its notice, NNSA says the Los Alamos facility can't provide the projected nuclear weapons capacity needed for the future, nor does it have the ability to rapidly change from production of one pit type to another. The interim facility also lacks the ability to simultaneously produce multiple pit types or the flexibility to produce pits of a new design quickly enough, according to the notice. NNSA adds that "any systemic problems" that might be found in the future, including pit aging, could not be addressed by the Los Alamos facility. But the notice goes on to say that "no such problems have been identified," yet the notice says "the potential for such {unidentified} problems increases as the pits age." Groups such as Greenpeace and critics living near the current sites have voiced opposition to NNSA's plans, and some have objected to t h e $3 billion price tag. Greenpeace's international nuclear campaigner Tom Clements argues that the plant's capacity could reach 500 pits per year and that the plan is a signal that "the Bush Administration intends to retain far into the future the capacity to ramp up the nuclear weapons stockpile to Cold War levels." NNSA counters that the U.S. is the only nuclear power without the capability to manufacture a plutonium pit. The most probable location for the new facility would be DOE's Savannah River Site in South Carolina, where surplus plutonium and thousands of pits from retired nuclear warheads that are being put out of service as a result of international agreements are heading. Savannah River is one site where hearings will be held. Hearings will also take place at Los Alamos, the NevadaTest Site, the Pantex Plant in Texas, the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant in New Mexico, and Washington, D C - J E F F JOHNSON
"The Los Alamos facility can't provide the projected nuclear weapons capacity needed for the future/'
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