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EBR-II Story by CATHERINE WESTFALL Instead of Becoming a Stepping Stone to EBR-III, EBR-II Followed an Unexpected HE EBR-II STORY Began in Spring 1944

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EBR-II Story by CATHERINE WESTFALL Instead of Becoming a Stepping Stone to EBR-III, EBR-II Followed an Unexpected HE EBR-II STORY Began in Spring 1944 Enrico Fermi and Walter Zinn (front row, left to right), along with the rest of the group that convened on the steps of Eckhart Hall at the University of Chicago, on December 2, 1946, for the fourth anniversary reunion of the first self-sustaining nuclear chain reaction at CP-1 (Chicago Pile-1). The CP-1 scientists are: back row (left to right): Norman Hilberry, Samuel Allison, Thomas Brill, Robert Nobles, Warren Nyer, and Marvin Wilkening. Middle row: Harold Agnew, William Sturm, Harold Lichtenberger, Leona W. Marshall, and Leo Szilard. Front row: Fermi, Zinn, Albert Wattenberg, and Herbert Anderson. (ANL) Vision and reality: The EBR-II story BY CATHERINE WESTFALL Instead of becoming a stepping stone to EBR-III, EBR-II followed an unexpected HE EBR-II STORY began in spring 1944. Work at Los Alamos, path in the 30 years after construction. T Oak Ridge, and Hanford to design, build, and provide fissionable material for scientists turned their attention to the post- upon a novel scheme: designing a civilian the first atomic bombs was shifting into high war possibilities for peaceful uses of nu- power reactor that produced more fissile gear. In stark contrast, initial bomb project clear energy. As part of this transition, on material than it consumed. Their plan was studies on the nuclear chain reaction and the morning of April 26, 1944, Enrico Fer- to place uranium-238 (or some other fertile plutonium were winding down at the Chica- mi, Leo Szilard, Eugene Wigner, Alvin material) near the reactor’s core to capture go Metallurgical Laboratory, Argonne Na- Weinberg and others gathered to discuss the the excess neutrons and thereby to breed tional Laboratory’s wartime predecessor. possibilities for using nuclear fission to heat new fissile fuel. They decided that such a Even as others zeroed in on the remain- and light cities. device, which was later called a breeder re- ing wartime technical challenges, Chicago The scarcity of fissile material was on actor, would have to use fast neutrons—that everyone’s mind—it was agonizingly un- is, neutrons would not be moderated as in Catherine Westfall is Laboratory Historian at clear at that time whether there was suffi- most of the weapons materials reactors then Argonne National Laboratory. ANL is managed cient fissile material for usable wartime in existence. by the University of Chicago for the U.S. De- bombs. Fermi and the others therefore cast According to their calculations, with fast partment of Energy under Contract No. W-31- around for ways to produce maximum civil- fission, enough neutrons would be created 109-ENG-38. ian power with minimal resources. They hit in the course of power production to hit the February 2004 NUCLEAR NEWS 25 Fuel elements ry, which by then had been reorganized and renamed Argonne National Laborato- Inner blanket rods ry. The next year, AEC Commissioners Structure tie rods unexpectedly decided to consolidate the entire AEC reactor program at Argonne. This decision drew Zinn into time-con- suming wrangling about the national pro- gram at just the time when he was strug- Reactor tank Outer blanket gling to organize Argonne’s postwar research program and move reactor work from the laboratory’s wartime sites to a new location in DuPage County, south- west of Chicago. Control rod Despite his many other responsibilities, Zinn remained zealous about the breeder project. He successfully convinced the AEC to give it a top priority and insisted on di- recting the small team himself. And he was not the only one with an unshakable inter- est in the breeder. As the breeder effort be- gan to grow, Fermi promoted it by giving Safety block lectures extolling the wonders of extracting Shield almost 100 percent of energy from natural uranium. He also continued to contribute to the project, at least in the opinion of Leonard Koch, an early member of the breeder team. According to Koch, Zinn would sometimes preface directions by making “a comment The core of EBR-I. The dark-shaded region shows the location of the fissile material. The such as, ‘Enrico thinks....’” EBR-I core was very small, about the size of a standard football. (ANL) From this interest, a long-term plan emerged. Initial work would culminate in fertile material and create extra fissionable tinides naturally stay together in electro- the construction of EBR-I, a small reactor material. Cities could be lit and heated, chemical pyroprocessing, making fuel pro- that would test the principle of breeding. while in the process, the reactor could cre- hibitively radioactive. Next, Argonne engineers would build EBR- ate some fraction of its future fuel. 6. Demonstrated inherent safety—that is, II, a pilot plant to check the feasibility of To minimize these needs for replacement that the reactor regulated its own tempera- the breeder. Finally, the full-scale power fissile fuel, the power-per-unit fissile fuel, ture and power with loss of coolant flow plant, EBR-III, would be built by industry. loading in the reactor needed to be maxi- and no reactor scram. In fall 1947, Zinn presented a preliminary mized. The scientists discussed the possi- But what happened in the 20 years sepa- plan for EBR-I to the AEC. In the next few bility of using sodium coolant because such rating wartime conception and operation of years, the EBR-I team members refined a reactor would have a high power density, EBR-II? And what happened during the 30- their ideas, and by late 1949 they had de- which would require effective heat re- year lifetime of the reactor—did the vision veloped a feasibility report for the reactor. moval. Sodium coolant was an attractive of Fermi and the others become a reality? The EBR-I team had conceived a reactor choice because it is an excellent heat re- with a core of U-235 surrounded by a “blan- moval fluid having minimal interaction First, EBR-I ket” of U-238. with neutrons. Consideration of the new type of reactor After carefully considering a number of Nearly 20 years later, in August 1964, a did not end with the April 1944 meeting. possibilities, the EBR-I team decided to reactor much like the one described by the Walter Zinn, one of the nation’s few reac- cool the reactor vessel with a sodium-potas- Chicago scientists began operation at Ar- tor experts and a close colleague of Fermi, sium (NaK) alloy, which had excellent heat gonne’s Idaho reactor test site. The liquid- was soon recruited to the cause. Zinn was transfer properties. Since they knew little metal fast breeder racked up many accom- full of enthusiasm for the project. By sum- about the effect of this liquid-metal coolant plishments. Before it was shut down in mer he had begun a more detailed investi- on materials and worried that the control 1994, EBR-II: gation of breeder reactor designs. When the rods might stick or corrode, they decided to 1. Successfully demonstrated that a pilot- war ended, he did not wait for the postwar cool the rest of the reactor with air, which scale breeder reactor could be built. framework for administering nuclear ener- introduced the complexity of designing two 2. Operated for 30 years, the longest for any gy research to form, instead obtaining per- completely separate cooling systems. De- liquid metal–cooled reactor. mission from the Army to make initial signing the reactor was also harder because 3. Achieved a capacity factor of 80 percent tests. By the end of 1945, he had aban- the chemical reactivity of the sodium-potas- during its last decade even while operating doned the idea of breeding U-233 in thori- sium coolant (it reacts with water and burns as a test reactor, showing that fast-neutron um and confirmed the original plan of quickly in air) meant that there could be no sodium-cooled reactors can compete with breeding plutonium-239 with U-238 using fluid leakage. thermal reactors. fast fission. The breeder project brought other diffi- 4. Ushered in the development of electro- By 1947, Zinn might well have lost in- culties as well. From the beginning, ques- chemical pyroprocessing, which takes the terest in spearheading the breeder project. tions had been raised about whether it was higher actinides out of waste so that they In fall 1946, the newly formed Atomic En- safe to build the reactor in the Chicago can be recycled into the fuel. ergy Commission took control of the na- area. By summer 1948, Zinn was con- 5. Produced proliferation-resistant fuel, tion’s nuclear research facilities and vinced the project needed to be built at a since fissionable plutonium and higher ac- tapped Zinn to head the Chicago laborato- remote site and asked the AEC to find one. 26 NUCLEAR NEWS February 2004 VISION AND REALITY: THE EBR- II STORY ly. EBR-I was a simple mit breeding gain determinations. In June, affair housed in a single the first samples—uranium slugs from the brick building with inside of the reactor—were sent to the three elevations. The Chemical Engineering Division at the basement level had cells Chicago site. By February, the numbers in- and equipment rooms, dicated that EBR-I was a breeding reactor. while the middle floor A few months later, it became official. On housed the reactor in the June 4, AEC Chairman Gordon Dean an- middle of a thick con- nounced that in the process of operation, crete structure to pro- EBR-I changed nonfissionable uranium into vide radiation shielding. fissile Pu-239 at a rate that at least equaled The reactor’s top was at the rate it consumed U-235.
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