Download or read book Complete Guide to the Idaho National Laboratory INL History from Atomic Reactors to Nuclear Waste Cleanup Rickover and the Nuclear Navy SL 1 Fatal Reactor Accident Uranium and Plutonium written by Department of Defense and published by . This book was released on 2017-04-08 with total page 447 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Two comprehensive histories of the Idaho National Laboratory (INL) provide extensive information about the lab's role in the development of nuclear reactors and other technologies, covering the period from before its establishment in 1949 through 2010. Originally created as the National Reactor Testing Station (NRTS), the laboratory has evolved over the years and acquired a number of slightly different names, including the Idaho National Engineering Laboratory (INEL) and the Idaho National Engineering and Environmental Laboratory (INEEL). The history of dozens of important atomic reactors is outlined in these reports. There also is coverage of the famous SL-1 reactor accident. Contents: Proving the Principle * 1 Aviator's Cave * 2 The Naval Proving Ground * 3 The Uranium Trail Leads To Idaho * 4 The Party Plan * 5 Inventing The Testing Station * 6 Fast Flux, High Flux And Rickover's Flux * 7 Safety Inside And Outside The Fences * 8 The Reactor Zoo Goes Critical * 9 Hot Stuff * 10 Cores And Competencies * 11 The Chem Plant * 12 Reactors Beget Reactors * 13 The Triumph Of Political Gravity Over Nuclear Flight * 14 Imagining The Worst * 15 The SL-1 Reactor * 16 The Aftermath * 17 Science In The Desert * 18 The Shaw Effect * 19 And The Idaho Boost * 20 A Question Of Mission * 21 By The End Of This Decade * 22 Jumping The Fence * 23 The Endowment Of Uranium * 24 The Uranium Trail Fades * 25 Mission: Future * Transformed: A Recent History of the Idaho National Laboratory, 2000-2010 Transformed: A Recent History of the Idaho National Laboratory, 2000-2010 * 1 INTRODUCTION: FORGING OPPORTUNITIES FROM ADVERSITY * 2 WE HAVE A DEAL 1995-2000 * BLUEPRINT FOR CLEANUP * ADDING AN "E": THE NATION'S ENGINEERING & ENVIRONMENTAL LABORATORY * HARD LESSONS LEARNED * GOING FORWARD * 3 CLEAN IT UP, CLOSE IT DOWN 2000-2003 * MAKE NO MISTAKE; CHANGE IS COMING * INSIDE THE LABORATORY * BREAKTHROUGH * JUMPSTARTING THE SITE'S TRANSFORMATION * 4 BRINGING CREATIVITY TO THE TABLE * DIVISION AND UNIFICATION * WORKING THE 60/40 RATIO * RETURN TO NUCLEAR ENERGY RESEARCH * ADVANCED TEST REACTOR * CENTER FOR ADVANCED ENERGY STUDIES * "WORK FOR OTHERS" AND NON-DOE WORK * NASA PROGRAM * SPECIFIC MANUFACTURING CAPABILITY PROJECT (SMC) AND NATIONAL SECURITY PROGRAMS. * SUMMARY * 5 BALANCING THE MACHINE WITH THE GARDEN * IDAHO CLEANUP PROJECT * FORGING COMMUNITY RELATIONSHIPS * ENVIRONMENTAL STEWARDSHIP * 6 FUTURE VISION During the first decade of this century, Idaho National Laboratory (INL) got a new name, a new structure, and a newly-revitalized mission as the nation's lead nuclear energy research laboratory. For a laboratory that began the decade in search of a well-defined mission and being offered up for cleanup and closure, the 2000s saw a dramatic turnaround. As the last century ended, Idaho's national laboratory was still known as the Idaho National Engineering and Environmental Laboratory (INEEL), the last "e" in the acronym symbolizing the fact that the majority of the lab's budget came from the Department of Energy's Environmental Management program. As the new century progressed, however, the department merged INEEL and Argonne National Laboratory-West (ANL-W) into one unified "INL." The result was a nearly billion dollar a year entity that led the newly-revitalized interest in nuclear power, in a country trying to cope with the specter of global warming and rising carbon emissions. To accommodate this growing mission and revitalize a laboratory that had not seen much in the way of new infrastructure over the past 20 years or so, the Department of Energy and Congress invested over $900 million in the lab through the Idaho Facilities Management Fund. That money was spent upgrading the infrastructure at the Advanced Test Reactor Complex and the Materials and Fuels Complex at the desert site, and at the Research and Education Campus in Idaho Falls - the three areas where the INL's primary nuclear energy research mission is carried out.
Download or read book Atomic America written by Todd Tucker and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2009-03-03 with total page 289 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: On January 3, 1961, nuclear reactor SL-1 exploded in rural Idaho, spreading radioactive contamination over thousands of acres and killing three men: John Byrnes, Richard McKinley, and Richard Legg. The Army blamed "human error" and a sordid love triangle. Though it has been overshadowed by the accident at Three Mile Island, SL-1 is the only fatal nuclear reactor incident in American history, and it holds serious lessons for a nation poised to embrace nuclear energy once again. Historian Todd Tucker, who first heard the rumors about the Idaho Falls explosion as a trainee in the Navy's nuclear program, suspected there was more to the accident than the rumors suggested. Poring over hundreds of pages of primary sources and interviewing the surviving players led him to a tale of shocking negligence and subterfuge. The Army and its contractors had deliberately obscured the true causes of this terrible accident, the result of poor engineering as much as uncontrolled passions. A bigger story opened up before him about the frantic race for nuclear power among the Army, the Navy, and the Air Force -- a race that started almost the moment the nuclear bombs were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The National Reactor Testing Station (NRTS), where the meltdown occurred, had been a proving ground where engineers, generals, and admirals attempted to make real the Atomic Age dream of unlimited power. Some of their most ambitious plans bore fruit -- like that of the nation's unofficial nuclear patriarch, Admiral Rickover, whose "true submarine," the USS Nautilus, would forever change naval warfare. Others, like the Air Force's billion dollar quest for a nuclear-powered airplane, never came close. The Army's ultimate goal was to construct small, portable reactors to power the Arctic bases that functioned as sentinels against a Soviet sneak attack. At the height of its program, the Army actually constructed a nuclear powered city inside a glacier in Greenland. But with the meltdown in Idaho came the end of the Army's program and the beginning of the Navy's longstanding monopoly on military nuclear power. The dream of miniaturized, portable nuclear plants died with McKinley, Legg, and Byrnes. The demand for clean energy has revived the American nuclear power industry. Chronic instability in the Middle East and fears of global warming have united an unlikely coalition of conservative isolationists and fretful environmentalists, all of whom are fighting for a buildup of the emission-free power source that is already quietly responsible for nearly 20 percent of the American energy supply. More than a hundred nuclear plants generate electricity in the United States today. Thirty-two new reactors are planned. All are descendants of SL-1. With so many plants in operation, and so many more on the way, it is vitally important to examine the dangers of poor design, poor management, and the idea that a nuclear power plant can be inherently safe. Tucker sets the record straight in this fast-paced narrative history, advocating caution and accountability in harnessing this feared power source.
Download or read book Idaho Falls written by William McKeown and published by ECW Press. This book was released on 2003-04-01 with total page 268 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The little-known true story of a mysterious nuclear reactor disaster—years before Three Mile Island, Chernobyl, or Fukushima. Before the Three Mile Island incident or the Chernobyl disaster, the world’s first nuclear reactor meltdown to claim lives happened on US soil. Chronicled here for the first time is the strange tale of SL-1, an experimental military reactor located in Idaho’s Lost River Desert that exploded on the night of January 3, 1961, killing the three crewmembers on duty. Through exclusive interviews with the victims’ families and friends, firsthand accounts from rescue workers and nuclear industry insiders, and extensive research into official documents, journalist William McKeown probes the many questions surrounding this devastating blast that have gone unanswered for decades. From reports of faulty design and mismanagement to incompetent personnel and even rumors of sabotage after a failed love affair, these plausible explanations raise startling new questions about whether the truth was deliberately suppressed to protect the nuclear energy industry.
Download or read book Oak Ridge National Laboratory written by Leland Johnson and published by Univ. of Tennessee Press. This book was released on 1994 with total page 292 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Leland Johnson and Daniel Schaffer begin their narrative in 1943 when the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers built ORNL in the hills of East Tennessee to produce plutonium for atomic weapons. After World War II, ORNL became a center for fundamental scientific research under the successive management of the Atomic Energy Commission, the Energy Research and Development Administration, and the Department of Energy.
Download or read book Idaho National Laboratory Fuel Reprocessing Complex Historic American Engineering Record Report ID 33 H written by Brenda R. Pace and published by . This book was released on 2006 with total page 294 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: For nearly four decades, the Fuel Reprocessing Complex (Buildings CPP-601, CPP-603, CPP-627, CPP-640) at the Idaho Chemical Processing Plant (ICPP) recovered usable uranium from spent reactor fuel. The facility was constantly evolving to process new types of spent nuclear fuel and would eventually process materials from nearly 100 different reactors. Research and test reactors located at the National Reactor Testing Station supplied a large proportion of the fuel load for the facility, along with nearly all of the fuel cores that had powered the United States Navy's fleet of nuclear submarines and surface ships. Fuels clad in aluminum, zirconium, stainless steel, and graphite were routinely processed at the plant. Custom processing capabilities were also developed through the years and a variety of valuable isotopes and inert gases were isolated and shipped to research laboratories across the country. AS ICPP scientists developed the facilities and the skills necessary to reprocess highly enriched fuels from so many different sources, they also came up with many general improvements and scientific advances in fuel reprocessing techniques and waste management as a whole. In 1992, when changing political tides and lowered demand for uranium caused the Department of Energy to halt all fuel reprocessing efforts across the country, approximately 31,432 kg of uranium had been successfully recovered at the Idaho Chemical Processing Plant. The four main buildings that housed the complex fuel reprocessing operation now await decontamination and demolition.
Download or read book Historical American Engineering Record Idaho National Engineering and Environmental Laboratory Test Area North Haer No ID 33 E written by and published by . This book was released on 2005 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Test Area North (TAN) was a site of the Aircraft Nuclear Propulsion (ANP) Project of the U.S. Air Force and the Atomic Energy Commission. Its Cold War mission was to develop a turbojet bomber propelled by nuclear power. The project was part of an arms race. Test activities took place in five areas at TAN. The Assembly & Maintenance area was a shop and hot cell complex. Nuclear tests ran at the Initial Engine Test area. Low-power test reactors operated at a third cluster. The fourth area was for Administration. A Flight Engine Test facility (hangar) was built to house the anticipated nuclear-powered aircraft. Experiments between 1955-1961 proved that a nuclear reactor could power a jet engine, but President John F. Kennedy canceled the project in March 1961. ANP facilities were adapted for new reactor projects, the most important of which were Loss of Fluid Tests (LOFT), part of an international safety program for commercial power reactors. Other projects included NASA's Systems for Nuclear Auxiliary Power and storage of Three Mile Island meltdown debris. National missions for TAN in reactor research and safety research have expired; demolition of historic TAN buildings is underway.
Download or read book The Rickover Effect written by Theodore Rockwell and published by Wiley. This book was released on 1995-08-25 with total page 411 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "A notable, anecdote-rich biography of the controversial 'father of the nuclear navy.'"—Publishers Weekly "This thought-provoking, well-written, and stimulating book . . . is an honest tribute to a man whose greatness will one day be recognized even more than it is today."—Associated Press "Together with Rhodes's definitive account of the race . . . to develop a nuclear bomb, these two works constitute the most important contributions to date on the history of atomic energy."—Nuclear News "The consummate inside story of Rickover's team: how they developed nuclear power, how they worked together, and their relationships with a revered, though controversial, boss."—Captain Edward L. Beach, USN (Ret.), author of Run Silent, Run Deep In less than a decade, Hyman G. Rickover created the world's first nuclear submarine, the USS Nautilus, and built the world's first atomic power station. His unprecedented technological achievements overcame both natural and human obstacles and gave new meaning to the concept of industrial quality control. Here is the critically acclaimed, authentic inside story, told by the man who worked at Rickover's side for fifteen years. Theodore Rockwell takes us behind the "zirconium curtain" to see the emergence of the commercial nuclear industry through the eyes of those who shaped it and to discover why Rickover provoked a storm of controversy. The Rickover Effect is a riveting tale of genius and dedication told in intimate, human terms. Theodore Rockwell is an editor and author, as well as an expert on nuclear reactors who worked with Admiral Rickover from 1949 to 1964. He served as technical director of the U.S. Naval Reactors Program from 1954 to 1964.
Download or read book A Nuclear Engineer in the Twentieth Century written by Robert Kupp and published by Trafford Publishing. This book was released on 2005 with total page 374 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: How does a chemical engineer, discharged from the Navy, drafted into the Army and assigned to the Medics, get on the Manhattan Atom Bomb Project and become a Nuclear Engineer in the Twentieth Century? With a great deal of luck and a little talent. In addition to telling this story, the book is written for a lay audience, but for someone having technical and scientific interests, and wanting to better understand the development of nuclear technology in the US. Radiation safety, power economics, risk/benefit analyses, and the societal issues of nuclear waste disposal, including such politically non-touchable areas as -"How many dollars to save a life?" and relatedly - "How safe is safe enough?" - are all discussed. Mr. Kupp's anecdotes of his youth, his home life, and his 30-year sailing history, all contribute to the realism of the book and round out the story of his life to more than just a technical career.
Download or read book The Cult of the Atom written by Daniel F. Ford and published by Simon & Schuster. This book was released on 1982 with total page 284 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Anti-nuke expose based on the secret files of the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission. It tells the inside story of the most ambitious, expensive, and risky venture ever undertaken by the federal government; the effort to create a commercial nuclear power industry. Meticulously documented report that probes the internal workings of a powerful government agency as never before. With the sober precision of a legal brief, it tells a harrowing story with urgent implications, for six dozen nuclear power stations, the relics of the A.E.C.'s impetuous nuclear program, are still operating today all around the United States.
Download or read book The National Atomic Museum written by Sam Bono and published by . This book was released on 2002 with total page 68 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Fermi I written by E. Pauline Alexanderson and published by . This book was released on 1979 with total page 490 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Fermi-I: New Age for Nuclear Power documents the long road from the beginnings of nuclear power in 1945, to that first proposal in March 1955, and on to November 1972, when the plant was decommissioned. The book covers not only the history of the Fermi Project but also discusses the Atoms for Peace period when the project was conceived and developed, and the factors that motivated and influenced project accomplishment.
Download or read book Plentiful Energy written by Charles E. Till and published by Createspace Independent Publishing Platform. This book was released on 2011 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Integral Fast Reactor (IFR) is a fast reactor system developed at Argonne National Laboratory in the decade 1984 to 1994. The IFR project developed the technology for a complete system; the reactor, the entire fuel cycle and the waste management technologies were all included in the development program. The reactor concept had important features and characteristics that were completely new and fuel cycle and waste management technologies that were entirely new developments. The reactor is a "fast" reactor - that is, the chain reaction is maintained by "fast" neutrons with high energy - which produces its own fuel. The IFR reactor and associated fuel cycle is a closed system. Electrical power is generated, new fissile fuel is produced to replace the fuel burned, its used fuel is processed for recycling by pyroprocessing - a new development - and waste is put in final form for disposal. All this is done on one self-sufficient site.The scale and duration of the project and its funding made it the largest nuclear energy R and D program of its day. Its purpose was the development of a long term massive new energy source, capable of meeting the nation's electrical energy needs in any amount, and for as long as it is needed, forever, if necessary. Safety, non-proliferation and waste toxicity properties were improved as well, these three the characteristics most commonly cited in opposition to nuclear power.Development proceeded from success to success. Most of the development had been done when the program was abruptly cancelled by the newly elected Clinton Administration. In his 1994 State of the Union address the president stated that "unnecessary programs in advanced reactor development will be terminated." The IFR was that program.This book gives the real story of the IFR, written by the two nuclear scientists who were most deeply involved in its conception, the development of its R and D program, and its management.Between the scientific and engineering papers and reports, and books on the IFR, and the non-technical and often impassioned dialogue that continues to this day on fast reactor technology, we felt there is room for a volume that, while accurate technically, is written in a manner accessible to the non-specialist and even to the non-technical reader who simply wants to know what this technology is.
Download or read book Why Nuclear Power Has Been a Flop written by Jack Devanney and published by Bookbaby. This book was released on 2020-11-11 with total page 206 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book is a collection of essays focused on the Gordian knot of our time, the closely coupled problems of energy poverty for billions of humans, and global warming for all humans. The central thesis of the book in that nuclear power is not only the only solution, it is a highly desirable solution, cheaper, safer, less intrusive on nature than all the alternatives.
Download or read book Nuclear Power written by Darryl Siemer and published by John Wiley & Sons. This book was released on 2019-09-20 with total page 286 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: As the world’s energy sources continue to develop, with less reliance on traditional fossil fuels and more reliance on cleaner, more efficient, alternative energy sources, nuclear power continues to be a dividing point for many people. Some believe it is the answer to our energy problems for the future, while others warn of the risks. Written by a retired scientist who spent most of his career at the Idaho National Laboratory (INL), this book aims to delve into the issues surrounding nuclear power and dispel its myths, while building an argument for why the United States should develop a nuclear power plan for the future. As a “whistleblower,” the author spent much of the last ten years of his career at the INL raising concerns about how its mission of serving as the Department of Energy’s lead laboratory in radioactive waste management was not being properly managed. While the United States continues to tread water on the issue of nuclear energy, the author believes that a nuclear “renaissance” is not only possible but is necessary for meeting the world’s growing demand for energy, especially clean energy. With fossil fuels slowly dying out and renewable energy sources not able to handle the demand for a continuously growing energy-consuming public, nuclear is an obvious solution. This book is a must-have for any engineer working in nuclear power, students hoping to go into that industry, and other engineers and scientists interested in the subject. This book is both “technical” and “political” because they’re equally important in determining what actually happens in institutions dealing with technical problems.
Download or read book Civilian Power Reactor Program written by U.S. Atomic Energy Commission and published by . This book was released on 1960 with total page 32 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Laboratory Directed Research and Development written by Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory and published by . This book was released on 1990 with total page 212 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Linking Legacies written by and published by . This book was released on 1997 with total page 250 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
