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Our Nuclear Forum at the RSA, part of our final weekend for the Nuclear: art & radioactivity exhibition, saw the return of the inimitable James Acord, the "nuclear sculptor", to the UK after 10 years and, as always, winning everyone over with his extraordinary storytelling - and his astonishing story. Acord is the world’s only known individual to possess a radioactive materials license. And among his peer corporate license holders, he is probably the only Radiation Safety Officer to have the license number tattooed on the back of his neck (Washington State Radioactive Materials License # WN-10407-1). For 15 years, Acord lived on the Hanford Nuclear Reservation in Washington state, where he tried to persuade the authorities to allow him access to the Fast Flux Test Facility to transmute radioactive technesium into shiny non-radioactive ruthenium, and pursued his ambition to build a vast warning marker sculpture on the most contaminated part of Hanford. Acord left Hanford in 1998, after his residency at Imperial College London, which was organised by The Arts Catalyst, and his part in the Atomic exhibition.  Since then he has been living in Seattle.  We were all fascinated to hear that far from shelving his his alchemist's dreams, he is making plutonium in his studio.

We are planning to podcast recordings of the forum, at which artists, writers and experts discuss their work and engagement with the issues around nuclear energy. The day ended with a moving talk by Gustav Metzger, who called for an end to our pursuit of extremes.