![]() For example, nuclear-powered rocket engines, which also being developed at the time, were tested at the Nevada Test Site. It was not uncommon at that time for engineers to test equipment to failure. A facility was planned at Idaho to test such an accident. Although losing the moderator would end the fission reactions, the heat generated by fission products might melt the core. The most damaging accident thought to be possible (“maximum credible accident”) was losing reactor water coolant when a pipe broke. Safety studies were duly carried out at the national labs on containment vessels as an alternative safety mechanism. Though an earlier safety standard required that reactors be kept in desolate areas away from large population centers in case of an accident, reactors would be uncompetitive with other forms of power production if they were sited too far from their energy market. To serve their purpose, they would need to be sited close to populated areas. The water also shielded the crew from radiation.Īs more commercial reactors were built for power plants, their size and operating temperatures were increased. Although the first reactors had been carbon-moderated and gas-cooled, water served both purposes in the naval reactors. However, nearly all the main reactor research was being conducted at the US national laboratories.Īrgonne and Oak Ridge national labs were involved with the design of the first submarine reactor, which was built by Westinghouse Bettis Laboratory (now owned by Bechtel) and tested at the Idaho National Reactor Testing Station (now Idaho National Laboratory). Commercial firms were getting into the reactor business, extending the navy’s pressurized light-water reactor (PWR) design to larger sizes. In 1964 he was made director of the RDTD. The success at Shippingport, and other civilian reactors, raised Shaw’s visibility. Rickover and his team were considered effective, although there were stories about bullying and dictatorial management practices. These were impressive engineering and patriotic successes at a time when the US felt the Cold War pressure of competing with the Soviet Union. Less than four years later, the plant was operational. Within months, ground was broken for the first nuclear electrical generating plant at Shippingport, Pennsylvania. The fastest way to implement his vision was for Rickover’s team to adapt the navy’s USS Enterprise reactor design for civilian use. Eisenhower focused on peaceful uses of nuclear power in his “Atoms for Peace” speech at the United Nations in New York City. The plant was commissioned two years later. The reactor pressure vessel of the Shippingport Atomic Power Station during construction in 1956. The aircraft carrier USS Enterprise was authorized in 1954 and commissioned in 1958, less than four years later. The first nuclear submarine, USS Nautilus, was authorized by Congress in July 1951 and was launched January 1954, two and a half years later. Rickover and his team successfully developed nuclear reactors for submarines and then aircraft carriers, releasing them from the need for fossil fuels as the main source of propulsion. Shaw was a protégé of Admiral Hyman Rickover, known as the father of the US nuclear navy. Shaw refocused the US civil nuclear program toward a single goal of the liquid-metal fast breeder reactor, making a number of strategic mistakes that have had long-term safety consequences for the industry. ![]() The key player was Milton Shaw, who directed the Atomic Energy Commission’s (AEC) Reactor Development and Testing Division (RDTD) at that time. Recently, I decided to research that decision using publicly available sources. Now that we are again considering alternatives to light-water reactors, several narratives have sprung up to explain why these alternatives were abandoned. As a young employee of the reactor division at the Los Alamos Scientific Laboratory at that time, I was shocked and confused when the division was suddenly dissolved. Sometime in the late 1960s, a great shakeup occurred in nuclear reactor research.
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