“Happy Atomic Energy Day!” on May 31stcommemorates in Argentine the creation date of the National Atomic Energy Commission (CNEA). That day in 1950, the National Executive authority created the CNEA by the Decree No. 10.936.
“The progress of atomic energy cannot be ignored by the State, because of the multiple derivations of public order, that its practical applications determine or may determine in the future”. “Public health can receive enormous benefits from the correct application of radioactivity”. “Atomic energy can replace current forms of energy and that (…) it is convenient for the State to take the corresponding forecast measures “. “the Argentine Republic can work in this order of things on a high sense of peace for the benefit of humanity”.
By this decree, the National State at that time clearly established the leading role of the CNEA in the Argentine nuclear program. The CNEA was able to deploy a broad and successful activity in the fulfillment of its specific objectives, being the main engine in the development, construction and operation of nuclear facilities, in the development of applications of radioisotopes and ionizing radiation in the field of biology, health, agriculture and industry. It has had a relevant role in Argentinian scientific development, generating advanced laboratories and high level research groups that made outstanding contributions in the basic and applied sciences.
In an interview in 2016, the then-new Undersecretary of Nuclear Energy declared: “The Argentinian nuclear system is the most sophisticated technological cluster in the country. Argentine has had very important achievements in this regard, because the nuclear system impacts not only the electricity production, but also medicine, nanotechnology, oil, agronomy, among others. Argentine has a lot of development, much more than any other country in the region, in the two fields in which nuclear has made great contributions: the industrial and the medical. It is a technological system in which the Argentine State is very present”.
But now, in a remarkable change of vision about the role and meaning of the CNEA, the Gadano Sociology graduate was proposing to Minister Iguacel: “A structural reform to put the focus on research, development and innovation at the nuclear power policy “, and thus” convert CNEA into a structure more associated with a private institute, but state-owned”.
Also, from the Ministry of Energy now under the leadership of Ing. Iguacel, expressed that the CNEA ceases to be exclusively nuclear, but “must become the public institution focused on science and technology applied to energy. Argentine has the opportunity to be one of the protagonists of the energy revolution of the 21st century and the CNEA must accompany that”.
The CNEA would become a piece of CONICET, and that the country throws away the extraordinary progress made over seven decades which positioned it as one of the dozen countries in the world that manages the complete cycle of the science and nuclear technology.
