AN ABSTRACT OF THE THESIS OF Celia Oney for the degree of Master of Arts in History and Philosophy of Science presented on June 7, 2021. Title: Decaying in Storage: The Closures of Three Nuclear Reactors in the Pacific Northwest Abstract approved: ______________________________________________________ Jacob Darwin Hamblin People involved in a nuclear activity, whether they are developing it, benefiting from it, or opposing it, see inherent connections between various aspects of nuclear science and technology. This thesis investigates three nuclear sites: a university research reactor, a dual-purpose reactor that produced plutonium for the U.S. military and electricity for civilian use, and a commercial power reactor, all located in the Pacific Northwest. It examines the decisions that led to the closure and disposal of these reactors and the ways these decisions were influenced by factors that were more directly related to other forms of nuclear science and technology. Each site had both obvious nuclearity as an example of nuclear reactor technology and hidden nuclearity that came from the ways people connected these reactors with other kinds of nuclear activities. Oregon State University attempted to give its AGN-201 research reactor to several other institutions, but each arrangement was complicated by one of the factors that made it desirable: the AEC’s involvement in both promoting and regulating nuclear reactors, the possible ties between research reactors and nuclear weapons development, and the reactor’s utility as a training tool for future nuclear power industry workers. The N Reactor at the Hanford site closed down due to the nearly simultaneous occurrence of several factors: new public knowledge of the radioactive contamination that Hanford had released over several decades, increased scrutiny following the Chernobyl disaster, and a senator with moral objections to nuclear weapons in a position that gave him influence over Hanford’s budget. Activists who opposed the Trojan Nuclear Power Plant tended to oppose nuclear technology more broadly, including both nuclear power and nuclear weapons. While their strategies targeted the Trojan plant directly, their communications demonstrated a clear desire for a non-nuclear future. Thus, the eventual closure of the plant was not a complete victory, due to the spent nuclear fuel left behind at the reactor site. This thesis makes use of newspaper articles and publicly available interviews from several oral history projects. For the chapter on OSU’s AGN-201 reactor, extensive research was done from the reactor’s operating records and related correspondence, all of which remains in storage at the OSU Radiation Center. ©Copyright by Celia Oney June 7, 2021 All Rights Reserved Decaying in Storage: The Closures of Three Nuclear Reactors in the Pacific Northwest by Celia Oney A THESIS submitted to Oregon State University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts Presented June 7, 2021 Commencement June 2021 Master of Arts thesis of Celia Oney presented on June 7, 2021 APPROVED: Major Professor, representing History and Philosophy of Science Director of the School of History, Philosophy, and Religion Dean of the Graduate School I understand that my thesis will become part of the permanent collection of Oregon State University libraries. My signature below authorizes release of my thesis to any reader upon request. Celia Oney, Author ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I would like to thank my advisor, Jacob Hamblin, for his encouragement and support over the past two years. He has helped me learn to question my assumptions, improve as a researcher, and think beyond the goals I had when I first started in this program. Thank you to my committee members, Linda Richards, Marisa Chappell, and David Bernell. Thanks also to Trina Hogg for her advice and encouragement when I was first forming the ideas that became this thesis. I would like to thank my fellow graduate students for welcoming me into the department. I am grateful that we have been able to keep in touch over this past year despite remote classes and campus closures. I appreciate my colleagues at the Radiation Center, who helped me get access to records, supported me in balancing my work and class schedule, and shared my interest in the history of the old AGN core, which makes up the heart of this thesis. Finally, I would like to thank my family. My parents, for introducing me to the Chicago Manual of Style at a young age. My husband, Brenden, for supporting my goals no matter what other challenges life threw at us (and for having the patience for a hundred conversations that all started with, “I think I finally figured out what I’m trying to say in this chapter.”) And my daughter, Lyra, for being a constant source of joy in my life. TABLE OF CONTENTS Page Introduction ................................................................................................................... 1 1. Free to a Good Home: Efforts to Relocate an AGN-201 Research Reactor ............. 8 Introduction ........................................................................................................................... 8 Local Interest: Negotiations with Oregon Museum of Science and Industry ..................... 12 International Efforts: Negotiations with the Instituto Politécnico Nacional ....................... 15 Last Transfer Attempts and Final Decommissioning ......................................................... 23 Conclusion .......................................................................................................................... 29 2. Blowing in the Wind: Hanford’s Contamination, the Chernobyl Disaster, and the Closure of the N Reactor............................................................................................. 31 Introduction ......................................................................................................................... 31 The Hanford Site and the N Reactor ................................................................................... 33 Chernobyl’s Effects ............................................................................................................ 40 Legislative Action ............................................................................................................... 45 Conclusion .......................................................................................................................... 48 3. Oregon’s Anti-Nuclear Movement and the Trojan Nuclear Power Plant ............... 50 Introduction ......................................................................................................................... 50 The Beginnings of Opposition: The Trojan Decommissioning Alliance ............................ 54 Nuclear Issues at the Ballot Box ......................................................................................... 61 Monuments to Failure: Disposal of Trojan’s Core Vessel, Cooling Tower, and Fuel ........ 69 Conclusion .......................................................................................................................... 75 Conclusion .................................................................................................................. 77 Bibliography ............................................................................................................... 83 1 Introduction In the summer of 1980, Dr. Chih Wang, a professor of nuclear engineering, notified Oregon State University’s vice president that the university’s AGN-201 research reactor had been fully decommissioned. Wang mentioned that this event marked “the decommissioning of the first nuclear reactor in the state and, in fact, in the entire Pacific Northwest, inasmuch as the decommissioning task for production reactors at the Richland site has not been completed.”1 Wang was alluding to the plutonium production reactors at the Hanford site near Richland, Washington. Many of these reactors were no longer operating, but there was no plan in place yet for how to dismantle or dispose of the reactors, or for cleaning up the significant amount of radioactive contamination that had accumulated on and near the site over several decades. At this point, Oregon had a single nuclear power reactor, the Trojan Nuclear Power Plant, which had been operating since 1975.2 In the upcoming general election, Oregon’s voters would decide on a ballot measure that would restrict further nuclear development in the state. This ballot measure was the second in a long series of votes on nuclear issues, which would continue until Trojan’s eventual closure in 1993, more than twenty years before the expected end of the power plant’s operations. The history of nuclear issues in the Pacific Northwest is somewhat paradoxical. No nuclear weapons tests were carried out in the region, but the Hanford 1This wording is slightly confusing. The AGN-201 was in fact the first nuclear reactor in Oregon, but judging by the reference to the older reactors at the Richland site in Washington, it seems that Wang was emphasizing the fact that this was the first completed decommissioning. Chih Wang to Clifford Smith, 2 July 1980, Radiation Center Records, Oregon State University, Corvallis, OR. 2The state also had two TRIGA research reactors, one at Oregon State University in Corvallis, and one at Reed College in Portland. 2 site in Washington was the source of most of the plutonium produced in the United States during and after the Manhattan Project.