If you steal information from only one source,
It is called plagiarism; however,
If you steal lots of information
From many sources all the time,
This is then called research.

Following this logic, a research institute can be seen in following terms:

A research institute,
Is really a den of brilliant thieves,
Who know when, where and how
To steal information,
And steal what they need as much as possible
And as quickly as possible,
And yet are so talented
As to never get caught red-handed,
And on no account be accused of plagiarism,
No matter what.

It appears to me that many of you at this Symposium are in the research sector or academia, so you and I are accomplices engaged in the same information-stealing business. Truth be told, a researcher and a burglar are professional comrades in more ways than one. In addition to their kleptomanic tendencies, they both work in the deep of the night. These professionals toil and moil at an arena that is rich with something: rich with software (information) in the one case, and rich with hardware (money) in the other. However, information thieves tend to work in brightly-lit spaces rather than in the shadowy darkness preferred by the mobile thieves of tangible goods.

And, yes, our research work is not dissimilar to the nectar-collecting activity of a bee or a butterfly:

If a bee or butterfly picks up all its needed nectar
From just one single flower,
It will be blamed as a plagiarist; however,
If it takes nectar from many flowers over time,
It will then be praised as a beneficial being,
Doing creative work of carrying pollen
From one flower to another,
And making floral fertility possible.

Plutonium

Plutonium disposition becomes a complicated and tricky issue, especially when non-technical, politico-diplomatic aspects enter into the equation.

Many anti-nuclear radicals paint a dark picture of plutonium (Pu) as inherently evil and intrinsically unnatural. To them, this element represents death, destruction, and tampering with nature. Some fanatics among them highlight the alleged claim that Pu did not exist on planet Earth at its birth, since Pu is not a material hand-crafted by God but fabricated only in this century by the descendants of Cain, the guy with the blood-stained hands. Pu, therefore, militates against nature, and it goes against the very grain of the natural order of things, according to them.

We know that the Latin word "Pluto" refers to the Roman god of the dead and ruler of the underworld. In other words, by its very name, Pu conjures up images of ruin and bad luck suggested by number 13 in the Western world or by number 4 in East Asia.

When Glenn Seaborg first discovered this man-made element, he named it "plutonium", following the suggestion of an astronomer who had discovered the planet Pluto not many years before then. The Chinese characters used for Pluto are "Myung Wang Sung", meaning "Darkness King Planet" or "Purblind Royal Star". So, by its very name, plutonium hints at darkness and the subterranean underworld, at least according to the Latin/Roman interpretation.

Plutonium is but a common chemical element, a heavy metal with fissionable and radioactive characteristics. Yet this physical substance came under heavy and emotionally charged attack during the political turmoil of the 1970s. All the political manoeuvring in this techno-nuclear game put a deep chill upon the fate of plutonium utilisation. If we may speak metaphorically, Mr Plutonium was cast out into a chilly stormy sea by self-righteous, naive anti-nuclear environmentalists, especially during the Carter Administration in the United States. Figure 1 depicts poor Mr Plutonium suffering his unenviable fate.

We all know that without the activation of its back-end aspects, the nuclear fuel cycle became hemiplegic, and plutonium utilisation was increasingly abandoned. On the other hand, the flip side of the coin was that this attack on plutonium prevented a horizontal proliferation of nuclear weapons technology and arsenals among threshold nations.

When I was a student, I found that many colleagues of mine were reading the Bible in English, German, French or some other contemporary language. Not to be outdone, and having fallen into some kind of academic vanity, I developed a habit of reading the Bible in its original Koinos Greek version, with the help of a Greek lexicon of course. Over time I have forgotten most of it, except for the Lord's Prayer.

However, because of that background, I can speak a bit about the etymological roots of some ancient Greek words. In the New Testament, ploutos means riches, wealth or materialistic abundance. This word is used, for example, in such passages as Mathew 13:22, Luke 8:14, Ephesians 3:8, Philippians 4:19, Romans 2:4, and Corinthians 8:2. If we look at Romans 11:33, we find the following line: "O, the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God!" Thus in the Hellenistic tradition, the expressions having to do with "ploutos" all connote riches, wealth or abundance.

We see, then, that there are two schools of thought in dealing with plutonium. According to the Latin tradition, Pluto is the god of the dead and ruler of the nether-world. In sharp contrast, in the Hellenic or Greek world view, Ploutos signifies riches, wealth, prosperity and materialistic abundance, implying a bright future.

To our extreme regret, it seems to me that much of contemporary thinking has fallen under the spell of the gloomy Latin view rather than the rosier Greek perspective when it comes to plutonium, and the general public has been misleadingly indoctrinated on the true nature of plutonium. The Carter Administration was certainly evangelised by the Latinists in this sense, and pursued a misinformed long-term nuclear strategy.

In my view, Pu is akin to gold, the precious metal, in that it possesses material value and is able to deliver on its promise of enhancing our well-being and prosperity, in keeping with its Greek nomenclature. In fact, the value of plutonium resides not so much in its intrinsic characteristics as a physical substance but in what lies latent within it which highly elaborated technology can bring out.

The discovery of Pu opened, in Glenn Seaborg's words, "the dawn of a new era", and prefigured man's ability to control nature in a profound way, at the level of the very constitution of matter itself. The transmutation of uranium into plutonium was a resounding final chapter to the elusive but perennial alchemic quest that had beguiled men of science from Medieval times, only this time the man-made gold of the nuclear age was infinitely more valuable and potent than any metallic gold of bankers that alchemists had aimed for.

In reality, wealth is a mixed blessing. Material wealth and technical capability coupled with public morality can work synergistically to drive the wheels of civilisation and enhance societal well-being. Abuse, however, can lead to ruin. We may ask ourselves the question of why the beneficent connotations of Ploutos of the Greek era gave way to the degraded meaning of Pluto during the later Roman times.

Since I am neither a comparative linguist nor a competent classicist, it is really beyond my scope or training to properly analyse the subtle changes of meaning of now forgotten words over the ancient centuries.

However, if I may presume to speculate a little, the terminological degradation may have reflected a general collapse in public morals as the Roman Empire fell into decline and the well-to-do Romans pursued a corrupt and debauched lifestyle, shirking public duty and chasing only narrowly personal pleasures. For instance, in the heyday of the Roman Empire, a political candidate for the senate or the tribunate would stroll the streets of Rome in a white toga so that he could be seen and verified as to his qualifications to serve capably and, above all, honestly as a public servant. The white of the toga (the loose-fitting robe) signified the clean-handedness of the candidate in his life and thinking.

In fact, the English work "candidate" is derived from the Latin word candidatus, a white-robed person applying for a high-ranking post in the Roman empire. The word candidate shares a common root with affiliated words like candor and candid, all signifying the very qualities sought for, and necessary to, a high-ranking public post: integrity, openness and incorruptibility.

With the decline of the Roman Empire came the reign of total corruption. The youth of the ruling classes no longer served in its armies, evading the military obligation through sending proxies in their stead. The proxies pressed into military duty in their places were their servants or slaves, many of whom were Vikings and black Africans. And this common practice was just the tip of an iceberg. The debauched lifestyles of the latter Romans are well-documented and we have all read about them.

To make the long story short, the Roman Empire enjoyed a continued leadership and prosperity in the classical world so long as its affluent ruling class fulfilled its moral obligations and led a life of noblesse oblige. In this period, the Ploutos of the Greeks continued to signify for the Romans the riches and wealth. The great empire, however, fell into disarray and ruin with the corruption of the wealthy upper classes whose abuse of their power and prerogatives spelled the end of the classical era. The time of evil Pluto had indeed arrived.

As for plutonium in our day, the global nuclear community is drowning in the chilly Latin sea under the prevailing wind or Boreas, by which Pluto is interpreted as the god of the dead and the ruler of the underworld (Hades), as shown in Figure 2.

What we need now is a grand revival. Just as the Italian Renaissance sprung anew the humanistic traditions of ancient Greece, and just as Baron Pierre de Coubertin of France single-handedly revived in modern times the Olympic traditions, so must we restore the original and uncorrupted glitter of Ploutos. It is a historical mandate for us not to direct plutonium down the ruinous path of nuclear warfare and mass destruction, but rather work towards enhancing its wealth-generating properties, towards using plutonium as a reliable supply of energy that is free from air pollution. And above all, we must save Mr Pu from perishing in the Latin sea, and put him to work under the new Hellenic banner. Surely plutonium can serve mankind for years to come until such time as commercial fusion energy becomes viable.

It will serve us well to remember the two prerequisites for plutonium use, however. First, all involved must faithfully comply with the terms and conditions specified in the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) and the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT). Second, we must exercise extreme care in physical protection of the material so that "accidents" such as seizure, pilferage, or illicit trafficking by radical sub-national groups or fanatical fringe elements will never occur. At the same time, we must in no way aid and abet rogue states with their dangerous appetites for nuclear weapons. And all parties must abide by the enforcement rules of the safeguards inspection.

And lastly, the international unclear community should do all it can to block proliferation to other countries from India and Pakistan, especially via the "Islamic route" which may prove after all that religion can serve as a super-conductor in this context. Also very worrisome to us is possible nuclear and missile collaboration between Pakistan and North Korea.

Effective Nuclear Fuel Utilisation by DUPIC Cycle

A PWR is charged with fresh fuel of about 3.5% enrichment, which is burned down to about 1.5% fissile content (0.9% U-235 and 0.6% Pu). It is then discharged from the core at its end-of-life. The 0.9% residual U-235 enrichment is still higher than the natural U-235 concentration of 0.71%.

A normal CANDU reactor is loaded with natural uranium fuel, in which the U-235 concentration is 0.71%. In contrast, the U-235 enrichment concentration in PWR spent fuel is 0.9%, in addition to 0.6% newly generated plutonium. Needless to say, we are also dealing with considerable amounts of fission products, which are detrimental to reactivity maintenance and radiation control.

Research is, therefore, being directed at making use of this valuable unburnt fissile material in PWR spent fuel, by linking it with the CANDU reactor system. This research is entitled DUPIC, which is an acronym for Direct Use of PWR spent fuel In CANDU. The project is being conducted by a tripartite group consisting of US, Canadian and Korean partners.

In Japan, there is a saying associated with business administration, that is used to convey a desire to improve overall productivity: "Further squeeze the dry floorcloth until you get the last drop out of it." One could say that DUPIC resembles this dry floorcloth-squeezing endeavour. One main difference, of course, is that LWR spent fuel is not dry, but very wet, with lots of fissile nuclides in it. There is a lot of juice to extract.

As you can see in Figure 3, the nuclide composition of fissionable materials in CANDU spent fuel is 0.2% U-235 and 0.3% Pu. This represents a significant squeeze of the fissile nuclides from PWR spent fuel, that at the outset contained 0.9% U-235 and 0.6% Pu. The advantages of the DUPIC fuel cycle include the following:

• There will be no need to dispose of LWR spent fuel.
• The volume of CANDU spent fuel arisings resulting from DUPIC adoption will be reduced to only about one-third of the once-through fuel cycle of a normal CANDU reactor system.
• There will be savings in natural uranium for the CANDU reactor system, if all CANDU reactors are charged with DUPIC fuel.