A Letter to our Grandchildren – Nuclear Power   by DR Riley 10Oct03

 

 

In the late 1970s your grandfathers were dedicated to the success of designing, obtaining regulatory approval, and constructing the first large breeder reactor in this country, the Clinch River Breeder Reactor. The design was approached with the discipline utilized effectively by Admiral Rickover in the Naval Reactors program. The design was not only disciplined, documented and controlled (change control and design reviews for releases, Ref. 1.), but incorporated testing prior to plant component construction for any new and critical components. Even with this dedication we were within 10% of the original cost estimates after 6 years of work, while the industry in general, working on conventional nuclear power plants, was running 300-400 to 500% over their cost estimates.  

 

Our dedication was to insure that we evolved an outstanding design that was safe and operable in the utility environment. We were dedicated to the immediate job, and didn’t have time for understanding what the politicians and special interests were doing in Washington D.C., we had our job and families to attend to.

 

However we did not have complete blinders on. When solar, wind and geothermal technologies came on the scene the work force on Clinch River were turned loose to evaluate these new-comers. Result – with secretaries and engineers participating in the group studies – was an overwhelming support for our work on the breeder. Our efforts, did not reach far off Washington, D.C., but set us on a course to have our work force=  speak to all communities of 100 or more population within 100 miles of the site. We explained what we were doing at Clinch River and answered any questions that the local community had in mind.

 

Yes, we were dedicated to attacking all aspects of our work in designing, obtaining regulatory approval and constructing the first large breeder reactor in the US. France already had an operating breeder reactor and Russia, Germany and Japan were in various stages of breeder reactor development.

In the late 1970s, primarily as a result of our outstanding work on the Heterogeneous Core (Ref. 2), the head of the French nuclear program at the time declared, “The Clinch River Breeder Reactor is France’s second Waterloo.” This statement was made when we were only ¾ of the way through design and regulatory approval and had about 60% of all components under construction or completed.

 

 

Let’s step back and see what was going through our minds at that time. Following is a reproduction of hand-written notes (Ref. 3) made by the Clinch River Breeder Reactor Assistant Manager for Engineering during the late 1970s (recently confirmed):

  1. Mining – Number of Acres of land disturbed per year for a 1000 MWe power plant:
    1. Coal – 200 A.
    2. Light Water Reactor – 5-7 A.
    3. Breeder Reactor – 0.05 A.
  2. Your Yearly Dosage: (one jet trip accumulates 5 mRem)
    1. Breathing Cigarette Smoke                                                       25 mRem
    2. Food                                                                                        25 mRem
    3. Soil                                                                                          45 mRem
    4. Cosmic Rays (Sun)                                                                   50 mRem
    5. Industrial Exposure                                                                   48 mRem
    6. Brick and Concrete House                                                        25 mRem
    7. Diagnosis and Treatment                                                           100 mRem
    8. Television                                                                                 5 mRem
    9. Nuclear Plant Vicinity                                                               1 mRem
    10. Senate Office Building                                                   250 mRem
    11. TMI (Equivalent to 1 year in NYC or Denver. The media

 fanned ‘potential explosion’ did not exist!)                          100 mRem

  1. Transportation Required to Supply a 1000 MWe Power Plant
    1. Coal – one train per day
    2. Nuclear – one train per year
  2. Atmospheric Pollution from a 1000 MWe Power Plant
    1. Coal – 352,000 tons per year
    2. Nuclear – 0
  3. Quantity of Waste per Year for a 1000 MWe Power Plant
    1. Coal – (No number was in the notes – probably ~ 1 train per day)
    2. Nuclear – Three - four drawer file cabinets per year
  4. US Energy Resources (1977 Electrical Consumption 22.6Q or about 30% of total energy consumption)
    1. Coal – 21,400 Q
    2. Light Water Reactor – 1570 Q
    3. Breeder Reactor – 160,000 Q
    4. Oil Estimated – World 8-12,000 Q, US 600-1170 Q
  5. Breeder Reactor – Only method of generating electricity that is projected to provide power at a reasonable cost in the future. In the 1970’s UF6 tailings from the Gaseous Diffusion Process, already mined and milled, if used in the Breeder could supply 700 years of US electric power needs at 1975 usage rates.

 

With such a clear advantage over any other electrical supply source on the horizon, looking at these notes 20 years later raised the question: What happened during those 20 years that turned the public against nuclear power and allowed our politicians and government to completely ignore the potential of nuclear power and the breeder reactor? We can only speculate at what transpired during that 20 year interval:

 

  1. Three Mile Island (TMI) Accident – Contrary to media and NRC fanned ‘potential explosion’, such a potential did not exist. However the media’s messages were so strong that people 80 miles east of TMI called to ask if they should evacuate with their families. As the noted nuclear physicist Dr. Edward Teller indicated, “I’m the only person hurt in the TMI accident, I had a heart attack.’ There were no significant health or environmental effects whatsoever, resulting from the TMI accident, even to plant workers. Ref. 4.
  2. Chernobyl Accident – Chernobyl, without normal U.S. design considerations including containment and without evacuation, the UN scientific report (UNSCEAR 2000) reports no deaths other than the 30 plant workers and firemen in the plant. The reported thyroid cancers were 97% curable and probably resulted from intensive screening, since they do not correlate with radiation dose. Ref. 5
  3. Regulating Harmless Low-Level Radiation – Does low-dose radiation present a health hazard against which we must mount a multi-million dollar defense? Policy and regulatory practice are firmly based on an unsubstantiated premise. The “massive body of evidence has never been seriously challenged in any specific detail. Those of us who believe in the future of nuclear technology … must insist that this evidence be properly examined and evaluated, and then applied to revising our regulations and guidelines accordingly … then those dealing with nuclear technologies must open their minds, roll up their sleeves, and, on an entirely new basis, create nuclear facilities worthy of the new millennium.” Ref. 6
  4. Breeder Reactor Fuel Supplies – In the late 1970s the depleted UF6, already mined and milled, stored in cylinders in Oak Ridge (K-25), was estimated to be sufficient to supply electrical power for the U.S. if used in breeder reactors (US proven technology) for approximately 700 years.  Where do we stand in that 700 year energy supply already mined and milled and stored as depleted Uranium-hexafloride (DUF6) form at Oak Ridge? DOE is in the process of disposing of what DUF6 is left, without mention of a potential long term energy supply or any comment that the material would be retrievable in a form to use as breeder reactor fuel (See US DOE report ORNL-6968 and its appendix report, DUF6 MATERIALS USE ROADMAP, also the chart is taken from the 1995 report DOE/EIA-048(95) - References 7 and 8).

 

 

As a final note, after sending an e-mail to several retired nuclear engineers, a response was that the U.S. did not have the manufacturing capacity to build a new nuclear plant. This was told to a retired CEO of a large French firm, who responded, “How could the U.S. allow this to happen?”

 

We tried our best to bring you, our grandchildren, almost unlimited electrical power supply. Our dedication to technical accomplishment left open one area that created a failure, allowing the unknowledgeable public officials and the media to influence the public negatively on nuclear power. Maybe this expose will enable you to be successful in your adventures in this new millennium to regain for the U.S. an advantageous electrical power supply position.

 

 

References:

  1. “Technical Management Discipline in the Clinch River Breeder Reactor Plant Project”, by DR Riley & WR Self, October 1981. ASME Paper No. 82-DE-2.
  2. Clinch River Breeder Reactor Plant – Technical Review – Spring 1980, “Clinch River Breeder Reactor Plant Core Flexibility,” published by Project Management Corporation, April 1, 1980.
  3. Handwritten notes by the Clinch River Breeder Reactor Project Assistant Manager for Engineering, in possession of DR Riley as of 10Oct03.
  4. “Creating a New World,” by T. Rockwell, 2003. Publisher, 1st Books Library.
  5. Ibid.
  6. Paper, ”Lets Stop Regulating Harmless Low-Level Radiation,” by T. Rockwell, ICONE-8791, Proceedings of ICONE 8, April 2-6, 2000.
  7. US DOE report ORNL – 6988 and its Appendix Report, “DUF6 MATERIALS USE ROADMAP.”
  8. 1995 report DOE/EIA – 048(95) referenced in the paper “S-PRISM Fuel Cycle Study,” Proceedings of ICAPP ’03, by AE Dubberley, et al.

 

 

10Sep03:Grandchildren Breeder Report 01:DRR