Reactors: Modern-Day Alchemy
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Dec. 2, 1962: President John Fitzgerald
Kennedy and Atomic Energy Chairman Glenn Seaborg celebrate the 20th anniversary
of the first controlled, self-sustaining nuclear reaction.
(Click the image to see a larger photo.) |
Once a nuclear chain reaction was achieved, the
role of the Met Lab shifted to development of peaceful uses for nuclear power,
especially electricity generation. Argonne National Laboratory, as the
successor to the Met Lab, led the research that supports every main nuclear
power system throughout the world.
Study of nuclear reactions continued to be of paramount importance in
the lab's early days -- properties of uranium, plutonium, and other nuclear
elements; structural materials and coolants; nuclei and other atoms. Scientists
from different disciplines worked to elucidate the process of fission --
chemists, physicists, reactor designers. Chicago Pile 3, the world's first
heavy-water-moderated reactor, was designed by Eugene Wigner. At Fermi's
request, Zinn directed its construction in Illinois; it achieved criticality in
1944. Zinn also studied fast neutron reactors and designed the Experimental
Breeder Reactor I -- originally called CP-4. Like the safety rod he devised for
CP-1, it was nicknamed ZIP (this time meaning "Zinn's Infernal Pile") and built
in Idaho at the National Reactor Testing Station.
Chicago Pile 2
Chicago Pile 3
Chicago Pile 5. (Click
the images to see larger photos.)
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Among the earliest reactors designed by Argonne scientists was a
pressurized-water submarine thermal reactor developed for Westinghouse in 1947.
They designed and developed the reactor core for the world's first
atomic-powered submarine and, in 1950, built and operated the first submarine
reactor prototype, the Zero Power Reactor I (ZPR-1). In January 1954, the
USS Nautilus, the first atomic submarine, was launched. Nautilus
introduced engines with virtually unlimited sources of power, allowing
submarines to remain under water for indefinitely long periods and to travel at
significantly increased speeds. The Argonne-designed reactor in the
Nautilus lasted for 62,500 miles including a dramatic crossing of the
Arctic Ocean in 1958. Its scientific mission determined that the ocean depth at
the North Pole, two-and-a-half miles, was far greater than previously
estimated.
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The Zero Power Physics Reactor.
(Click the image to see a larger photo.) |
In 1953, ZPR-2 experiments at Argonne demonstrated the design
feasibility of the Savannah River Production reactor in South Carolina. A
decade later, the ninth in the series of zero power reactors, built in 1964,
explored fundamental issues associated with full-size reactors. ZPR-9 provided
data for nuclear rocket reactors and on the use of aluminum as a neutron
reflector. The series of Zero Power Reactor experiments -- including the Zero
Power Plutonium Reactor, on which physics studies were conducted -- continued
until 1982 when ZPR-6 was shut down.
The first usable amount of electricity from nuclear power
was provided by Experimental Breeder Reactor I on Dec. 20, 1951. (Click
the image to see a larger photo.) |
On Aug. 26, 1966, President Lyndon Johnson and Glenn
Seaborg participated in ceremonies naming Experimental Breeder Reactor
I a National Historical Landmark. Johnson holds one of the original bulbs lighted
by EBR-I. (Click
the image to see a larger photo.) |
The Experimental Breeder Reactor I (EBR-I) achieved many benchmarks
during its 14 years of operation. It was the first nuclear reactor to produce
electric power when it lighted a string of four 150-watt bulbs on December 20,
1951; the next day 100 watts were generated. In 1953, it was the first reactor
to demonstrate the breeder principle -- generating, or "breeding," more nuclear
fuel than it consumed. It was the first, in November 1962, to achieve a chain
reaction with plutonium; and the first to demonstrate the feasibility of using
liquid metals at high temperatures as a reactor coolant. EBR-I gained National
Historic Landmark status in 1966.
On July 17, 1955, Argonne's BORAX III
reactor provided all the electricity for Arco, Idaho, the first time any
community's electricity was provided entirely by nuclear energy. (Click
the image to see a larger photo.) |
Benchmark research in boiling water reactors began with a series of
BORAX experiments in 1953, the year Argonne staff was fully established at the
laboratory's new site in DuPage County, Ill. In 1955, BORAX III produced enough
electricity to light up the town of Arco, Idaho -- the first time in history
that any town had all its electricity provided by nuclear energy. The last of
the BORAX series -- BORAX V, completed in 1964 -- allowed scientists to
evaluate and study nuclear heat concepts and to demonstrate actual nuclear
super-heat operation. The BORAX experiments led to the construction and
operation of the extremely stable Experimental Boiling Water Reactor (EBWR) in
1956. It proved that a direct cycle boiling water reactor system could operate,
even at power levels five times its rated heat output, without serious
radioactive contamination of the steam turbine.
The Experimental Boiling Water Reactor
operated with a largely plutonium core. (Click
the image to see a larger photo.) |
EBWR, operated with a largely plutonium core, provided valuable
information on plutonium recycle operation of water reactors -- it generated
plutonium-based electricity for Argonne's physical plant in 1966. When closed
down the following year, EBWR had established a reputation as the forerunner of
many commercial nuclear energy plants. One of those is the Commonwealth Edison
facility at Dresden, Ill., which in 1960, became the first privately operated
nuclear energy plant.
In the early 1960s, two major programs were underway -- construction of
Experimental Breeder Reactor II (EBR-II) in Idaho, and fast breeder reactor
studies. EBR-II, an experimental fast breeder reactor power station of 20
Megawatt capacity, produced electricity and proved the feasibility of
the closed fuel cycle. It thus demonstrated the potential advantages of using
fast reactors for central station power plants.
The scientists' concept was a bold departure from traditional reactor
design. Experimental Breeder Reactor II and its primary system components --
including pumps, heat exchanger, instrumentation, and fuel handling system --
were submerged in a large tank of sodium during operation. This pool, or pot,
concept gained wide acceptance. The closed fuel cycle was also unusual.
Experimental Breeder Reactor II was the first reactor to contain, as an
integral part, a fuel reprocessing system that allowed spent uranium fuel to be
removed from the sodium-cooled reactor, purified and made into new fuel
elements, and then replaced into the reactor -- the ultimate recycling,
energy-saving, and waste management system.
"Master-slave manipulators," operational
in 1949, were developed by Argonne to handle reactor components remotely. (Click
the image to see a larger photo.) |
All this modern-day alchemy was done by remote control from behind
five-foot thick walls. The multi-disciplinary effort included chemical
engineers who devised new chemical treatment methods, metallurgists who
developed tools and techniques for making fuel pins, and engineers who designed
and built remote viewing and handling devices. An early device, operational in
1949, was the "master-slave manipulator." A mechanism of bars, semi-universal
joints, and claw-like hands for handling "hot" isotopes by remote control, it
provided many applications for industries in which dangerous and corrosive
chemicals were used. It also provided basic research into robotics.
Experimental Breeder Reactor II began operation in 1964. The turbine
generator was synchronized and first delivered power to the Idaho test loop at
Argonne-West on August 7. One-third of the core was filled with experimental
subassemblies. Plutonium-uranium oxides, carbides and nitrides were among fuels
tested to evaluate their performance after long exposure. The highest burnup
attained was 13.8 percent in an oxide-type fuel, significantly higher than the
usual 10 percent. By the end of 1970, the reactor had generated more than 250
million kilowatt-hours of electricity. During the first five years, the
reactor's Fuel Cycle Facility processed 38,000 fuel elements, produced 366
subassemblies, and assembled 66 control and safety rods. In 1970 alone, nearly
20 reactor manufacturers and research organizations designed experiments based
on EBR-II tests.
In the 1960s, the reactor program was reoriented from water reactors to
liquid-metal-cooled reactors. As the civilian power reactor program began to
focus on the liquid-metal fast-breeder reactor (LMFBR), EBR-II's role changed
to that of a fast-neutron irradiation facility. This was highly unusual -- the
reactor was converted from one mission to another not visualized in its
original design. In essence, the success of the LMFBR was shaped by information
garnered from the converted EBR-II. Ten laboratory units were virtually devoted
to the liquid-metal fast-breeder reactor -- including fast reactor physics,
development and testing of new fuels, irradiation testing, post-irradiation
studies, and fast-reactor safety. In 1965, the testing facility confirmed their
predictions with an initial output of 250 watts of power. Four years later,
1,000 Megawatt studies on LMFBRs had been completed.
By the end of the 1970s, Argonne was geared for fast reactor
development. At Argonne-West, support facilities included, in addition to
EBR-II, the Zero Power Plutonium Reactor; the Transient Reactor Test Facility,
a versatile irradiation tool for producing extreme pulses of nuclear energy
with resulting high temperatures; and the Hot Fuels Examination Facility, which
began operation in 1975 to examine highly radioactive experimental reactor fuel
elements and other components all by remote control.
EBR-II was converted again, beginning in 1982. The next generation
reactor, the Integral Fast Reactor (IFR), was a major initiative in advanced
reactor concepts. The IFR was designed to reprocess its own fuel and to burn up
its own long-lived atomic wastes. The design allowed creation of energy from
waste -- not only its own waste, but also that produced in commercial reactors,
as well as plutonium from dismantled nuclear weapons. The passive safety
characteristics of metal fueled liquid metal reactors (LMRs) were clearly
demonstrated and confirmed in 1986 with the conclusion of the Experimental
Breeder Reactor II landmark testing program. Other technical accomplishments
included: development of metal fuels for LMRs capable of very high burnup -- up
to 20 percent; development of electro-metallurgical technology for possible
applications to spent nuclear fuels, weapons plutonium, and LMR fuels; and
performance of a series of safety-related transient reactor experiments which
established the failure mechanisms, failure limits, and post-failure behavior
of oxide and metal LMR fuels.
Work on this next generation of fast reactors -- clean,
resource-efficient, waste-reducing reactors -- was halted by Congress in
September 1994 as the laboratory's mission was redirected by the Department of
Energy into the development of electrometallurgical technology for DOE spent
fuel treatment, reactor and fuel cycle safety, and decontamination and
decommissioning technology. By then, Argonne's original mission -- to provide
safe nuclear energy for civilian purposes -- had been achieved.
Next: Evolving Mission – The Synchrotron Era
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