methods. The performance and safety standards of nuclear plants pose problems which require technology far in advance of that now being used. We have found from numerous and repeated experiences that the only way these problems can be solved is by special and persistent attention by management. One or more individuals, competent in technology as well as in administration, must be appointed on a full-time basis in each organization to follow the nuclear work and to report directly to management. Otherwise, management will not really know the status of these development items and will not be able to make certain that satisfactory results will be achieved on time.

Second: Companies should determine where their background and talent can best meet the needs of nuclear power. For most companies this is not in the design of the reactor itself; rather it lies in the development or perfection of reliable, higher performance materials and components. Right now nuclear power requires that practically everything be designed by scientific methods.

Today there exists both a great opportunity and a great challenge in the nuclear-power field. Those who realize that a major function of management is to plan for the future, and who are willing to undertake difficult work, including achievement of better understanding of fundamentals, will be the ones who remain in this field and benefit from it because they will be solving tomorrow's problems today.

If this challenge is accepted and successfully met, the entire level of technology, management and productive skill in the United States will be raised. This is of vital interest to our country if we are to maintain the technological supremacy which is fundamental to our survival.

The CHAIRMAN. The committee is adjourned until Tuesday at 10 o'clock.

(Thereupon, at 3: 45 p. m., Thursday, February 28, 1957, the Joint Committee recessed, to reconvene at 10 a. m., Tuesday, March 5, 1957.)

DEVELOPMENT, GROWTH, AND STATE OF THE

ATOMIC ENERGY INDUSTRY

The committee met at 10 a. m., pursuant to recess, in room 445, Old House Office Building, Hon. Carl T. Durham (chairman of the Joint Committee) presiding.

Present: Representatives Durham (chairman of the committee), Holifield, Price, Dempsey, Cole, Van Zandt, Patterson, Jenkins, and Senators Pastore and Gore.

Also present: James T. Ramey, executive director, George E. Brown, Jr., David R. Toll, professional members of the staff, and George Norris, Jr., committee counsel.

The CHAIRMAN. The committee will come to order.

This is a continuation of the hearings on section 202, which adjourned last Thursday.

This morning we will begin by the executive director asking General Fields and his staff a series of questions. These questions were communicated to the AEC last Friday.

I think most of these general subjects were covered throughout the hearing, but in order to have them in chronological order, I think it would be well to ask them of the General Manager.

671

STATEMENTS OF K. E. FIELDS, GENERAL MANAGER, ATOMIC ENERGY COMMISSION; R. E. HOLLINGSWORTH, ASSISTANT GENERAL MANAGER FOR ADMINISTRATION; WILLIAM MITCHELL, GENERAL COUNSEL; E. J. BLOCH, DIRECTOR, DIVISION OF PRODUCTION; H. N. ESKILDSON, CHIEF OF ADMINISTRATION (ACTING) DIVISION OF PRODUCTION; W. KENNETH DAVIS, DIRECTOR, DIVISION OF REACTOR DEVELOPMENT; DR. C. L. DUNHAM, DIRECTOR, DIVISION OF BIOLOGY AND MEDICINE; CLARK VOGEL, ASSISTANT DIRECTOR, DIVISION OF INTERNATIONAL AFFAIRS; JESSE C. JOHNSON, DIRECTOR, DIVISION OF RAW MATERIALS; DR. T. H. JOHNSON, DIRECTOR OF DIVISION OF RESEARCH; C. L. MARSHALL, DIRECTOR, DIVISION OF CLASSIFICATION; D. F. MUSSER, DIRECTOR, DIVISION OF NUCLEAR MATERIALS MANAGEMENT; C. A. NELSON, DIRECTOR, DIVISION OF INSPECTION; H. L. PRICE, DIRECTOR, DIVISION OF CIVILIAN APPLICATION; MORSE SALISBURY, DIRECTOR, DIVISION OF INFORMATION SERVICES; OSCAR S. SMITH, DIRECTOR, DIVISION OF ORGANIZATION AND PERSONNEL; DON S. BURROWS, CONTROLLER, DIVISION OF FINANCE; A. TAMMARO, ASSISTANT GENERAL MANAGER FOR RESEARCH AND INDUSTRIAL DEVELOPMENT; BRYAN F. LAPLANTE, SPECIAL ASSISTANT TO THE GENERAL MANAGER; ALFRED HODGSON, DEPUTY DIRECTOR, DIVISION OF ORGANIZATION AND PERSONNEL; AND SHELBY THOMPSON, DIVISION OF INFORMATION SERVICES

Mr. FIELDS. Mr. Chairman, we have reviewed the questions that are attached to your letter. We haven't prepared a statement on the questions. We rather would have individual division directors responsible for the program concerned in turn answering the questions as we go through.

The CHAIRMAN. Mr. Ramey.

Mr. RAMEY. Following in order on these chapters that were submitted for the record, chapter II on isotopes, it is stated on page 14 that:

The economic feasibility of private enterprise participation in radioisotopes production appears imminent.

Does the word "imminent" mean in the next year or two, or what is your general idea of the time schedule?

Mr. FIELDS. Mr. Chairman, I would like Mr. Price, who is the Director of Civilian Applications, to answer that question.

The CHAIRMAN. Mr. Price.

Mr. PRICE. Mr. Chairman, what we had in mind here would be, for example, the situation on cobalt 60. Specifically we do have in mind the period of the next couple of years.

The situation is that we are now producing about 300,000 curies a year of cobalt 60 for distribution to licensees for research and development purposes.

There is building up a demand for megacurie quantities for industrial use.

Looking at that demand as we see it developing, it is our view that a reactor to produce megacurie quantities would be economically feasible and could sell the material at a price that would make it attractive for the various industrial uses that we have had inquiries about.

There are companies interested in this. I certainly cannot say that we have any firm proposals by anybody to build such a reactor. The CHAIRMAN. So the average layman can understand it in reading the record, can you convert curies into grams?

Mr. PRICE. As I understand, curies relate to specific activity. I could not convert it. I suspect somebody here could.

Mr. FIELDS. Could we supply that conversion for the record? It varies quite a bit with the material. You do have to be an expert in order to know the exact terms in grams.

(The information referred to follows:)

10,000 curies of Co-60 are equal to 10,000 grams of radium in terms of radioactivity.

Mr. RAMEY. What would be the approximate capital cost of a private reactor designed to produce radioisotopes? You have had some studies, have you not, like the one by the Stanford Research Institute and others?

Mr. PRICE. I do not know that we have any definitive figures. We have assumed the possibility of, say, a radioisotopes reactor with 20 megawatts of heat to produce at least 1 megacurie of cobalt 60 a year. That is roughly the size of the EBWR, and in round numbers, say, $5 million, more or less.

Mr. RAMEY. Would it be possible to have a kind of dual-purpose reactor that would produce radioisotopes and, say, process steam, or something used for some other purpose?

Mr. PRICE. That is right. There is some interest in the possibility of a reactor to produce radioisotopes and to sell the steam as a byproduct.

Mr. RAMEY. Does that look like it has any economic possibility? Mr. PRICE. I think it is our view, from our discussions with some of the companies that are looking into it, that this looks like a real possibility.

Mr. RAMEY. Mr. Chairman, Congressman Dempsey mentioned that he would like to hear some of the discussion on raw materials, so with your permission we might jump to chapter IV.

The first question is, What does the current revision in the declassification guide really mean in theory and practice?

There has been quite a bit of discussion of this concept of whether atomic information is "born" classified or born declassified. With the current broad scale of revision in the guide, particularly relating to reactors, is there any information in this field that is born declassified?

Mr. FIELDS. I would like Mr. Marshall, the head of our Declassification Division, to answer that question, sir.

Mr. MARSHALL. There is, Mr. Chairman, some information which now by Commission action will not require a classification at its origin. Perhaps I could start by saying that the information that is declassified by the new declassification guide relates to all phases of

nuclear power, starting with ore recovery and going through to the chemical processing, that is, the chemical recycling of spent fuel elements.

The latest action will permit declassification of a large quantity of the information which up to now was only available through access permits.

Now, more than 80 reactors, either in the design concept or in the thinking stages, that is people have told us they have wanted to builda reactor, or are thinking of building a reactor of a certain type, have been declassified by project, which means that the reports that will be written with respect to these reactors will in themselves not require any classification even at their origin.

This information will be born unclassified.

Of course, to suggest the answer to the question that you asked about the born classified, under the law as it is presently written new information must be born classified.

The law calls it restricted data and specific action is required by the Commission to remove it from restricted data.

This is a very good provision. I think there is no other way in which security of information can be preserved. You could not possibly maintain security on any information affecting the national defense without having it come into being classified and then be released from this after consideration of its value.

Closely related to the reactor data which I mentioned a minute ago will be declassification of the technology of heavy water manufacture, the separation of zirconium and hafnium and also the liquid thermal diffusion process for isotope separation.

Uranium mining operators, underwriters, investors, in the United States and in other uranium-producing countries, will benefit by the removal of all restrictions on the publication of statistics for the overall uranium-ore reserves and the present and future concentrate production figures.

The information that will be released under the new guide will also provide a much broader practical basis for enriching and improving high school, college, and univerity curricula on nuclear science and engineering; textbook publishers will be able to produce new up-todate text and general study aids on nuclear-energy application.

A like opportunity is provided for the general technical and the business press to provide a wider scope of information to those readers who need to know more about nuclear energy and its uses.

Information which is primarily applicable to military propulsion reactors, production reactors, and to weapons will continue to be classified.

Representative COLE. A facility that is designed for the purpose of producing radio isotopes is one which requires a license?

Mr. FIELDS. Yes, sir; that is right.

Representative COLE. Would it require the same degree of policing on the part of the Commission with respect to inspection, supervision, control, that other types of facilities require?

Mr. PRICE. Mr. Cole, it requires the same kind of evaluation and the same kind of protection.

Now, obviously, a small research reactor may not create as difficult a problem of hazard evaluation as another type.