UNITED STATES ATOMIC ENERGY COMMISSION, Hon. STERLING COLE, Chairman, Joint Committee on Atomic Energy, Congress of the United States. DEAR MR. COLE: In accordance with Mr. Strauss' instructions before he left town, I am forwarding herewith a copy of the draft for an unclassified version of the reactor development program. It was from this draft that the summary sent to you on March 5 was taken. Sincerely yours, K. D. NICHOLS, General Manager. ABSTRACT OF UNCLASSIFIED MATERIAL FROM CLASSIFIED AEC REPORT TO THE JCAE, "PROGRAM PROPOSED FOR DEVELOPING NUCLEAR POWERPLANT TECHNOLOGY" The Atomic Energy Commission program for the development of nuclear powerplant technology is based on a 5-way approach to the problem of attaining economically competitive power from nuclear fuels. This program, which involves 1 full-scale experimental power project, already underway, and 4 prototype or pilot size power reactor projects, was described in detail in a classified report recently submitted to the joint committee. The Commission plan calls for a developmental effort, including 5 different types of experimental power reactor systems in the civilian power reactor field. It is expected to take from 4 to 6 years to carry out the program. All the reactor development expenditures have produced a large amount of technology applicable to the design and construction of civilian industrial nuclear powerplants. Many studies by the AEC and its contractors made on the basis of this technology lead to a program of research, development, construction, and operation of reactors along five major technical approaches: (1) Pressurized water, which calls for the building of the country's first full-scale nuclear powerplant, the pressurized water reactor, now under development by Westinghouse Electric Corp. This plant's power output will total about 264,000 kilowatts of heat from which the plant will produce at least 60,000 kilowatts of electricity net, not including power for operating auxiliary equipment. (2) Boiling water, which explores further the concept of boiling water in a reactor to create steam for a turbine directly. This concept appears promising according to preliminary experiments by Argonne National Laboratory. An experimental boiling water reactor, with an output of 20,000 kilowatts of heat and 5,000 kilowatts of electricity, will be fabricated after the necessary research and development. The joint committee was informed on March 19, 1954, that the Commission had approved this draft as final on that date. 6 (3) Sodium graphite, which is along the line of extensive investigations by North American Aviation, Inc., for the AEC. A sodium reactor experiment, to produce 20,000 kilowatts of heat and not be equipped with a turbogenerator, will be the first reactor of the sodiumgraphite type. (4) Fast breeder, which will take the next steps in developing a practical power reactor that will also breed new fissionable material, that is, produce as much as it consumes or more. Research and development will continue; an experimental breeder reactor No. 2, producing 62,500 kilowatts of heat, is to be built as a scale-up from the original experimental breeder reactor, which has an output of only 1,400 kilowatts. This first EBR demonstrated breeding on a very small scale and produced the country's first power from nuclear fuel in token amounts and on an experimental, uneconomic basis. Argonne National Laboratory is the developer of both EBR's. (5) Homogeneous, which will further the development of reactors containing fuel in a water solution. First, homogeneous reactor experiment No. 2, with an output of 5,000 kilowatts of heat, will be fabricated as a scale-up from the 1,000-kilowatt first homogeneous reactor experiment, the country's second nuclear power plant, located at Oak Ridge National Laboratory. Like EBR No. 1, HRE No. 1 is a very small, uneconomic, experimental powerplant. A turbogenerator and a chemical processing plant are included in the HRE No. 2. Next, homogeneous thorium reactor is projected as a scale-up to 65,000 kilowatts of heat with the addition of production of uranium 233 from thorium. Turbogenerator and chemical processing plants for the liquid fuel and for the thorium blanket are included. Considerable research and development will be necessary for both reactor projects. In addition to these major projects, the AEC plans to continue its program of general research and development in exploration of other types of reactors on which less work has been done, and to advance technology in such fields as reactor physics, radiation effects on materials, shielding, fuel elements and their materials, instrumentation and control, coolants, and heat transfer. These general investigations also include the recovery of uranium, plutonium, and thorium from used fuel, treatment and disposal of highly radioactive reactor wastes, and utilization of the radioactive fission products of the wastes. Plans also call for continuing the military programs. In the past, submarine and airplane reactor research and development, construction, and operation have made valuable contributions toward the development of civilian nuclear power, and it is reasonable to expect additional contributions from these sources in the future. FINANCING PRIMARILY BY GOVERNMENT The program outlined calls for financing primarily by the Government. Except for the pressurized water reactor, it consists of small, experimental reactors. All these units will produce technical and cost information which will make possible more accurate evaluation of the future of nuclear power. It is hoped that the new technology will encourage industry to take over an increasing share of the financing of further research and development and to consider with increasing favor the actual construction of pilot or full-scale power plants. The progress of this program and the extent and growth of industrial effort will assist in determining the course of future work. Consisting largely of small, experimental reactors, the program is designed to provide & foundation upon which future work toward industrial nuclear power can be undertaken by Government or industry. It is based on the assumption that the law will be changed to make industrial participation in reactor development more attractive. Thus the program implements the AEC Statement of Policy on Nuclear Power Development, issued May 26, 1953, which recognized— a responsibility of the Commission to continue research and development in this (nuclear power) field and to promote the construction of experimental reactors which appear to contribute substantially to the power reactor art and constitute useful contributions to the design of economic units. The statement also expressed the conviction of the Commission that progress toward economic nuclear power can be further advanced through participation in the developinent program by qualified and interested groups outside the Commission. The public hearings of the Joint Committee on Atomic Energy in the summer of 1953 brought out the fact that the cost of developing competitive nuclear power is at the present time too great for industry to carry. However, a number of industrial firms are already sharing in certain research and development projects with the AEC, and others are financing their own studies of reactor technology. Private financing thus far has been only a small fraction of total reactor development costs. ESTIMATING NUCLEAR POWER COSTS Economic evaluations by the Commission and its contractors show that the probability of producing electricity from nuclear fuel at a cost competitive with electricity from coal, oil, or gas is good. The estimates generally indicate that if the goal of economic nuclear power is pursued with vigor, costs can be brought down-in an established nuclear power industry-until the cost of electricity from nuclear fuel is about the same as the cost of electricity from conventional fuels, and this within a decade or two. This does not mean that such low-cost nuclear power will be obtained from the very first plants which might be built but that it may well come from succeeding plants which, as a result of experience with the first, it should be possible to construct and operate more economically. At the same time it should be remembered that even the program outlined may not be sufficient to determine conclusively whether power can be produced cheaply enough from nuclear fuel to be of general use. There are five different types of reactors in the program, because it has not yet been learned which is the ideal or even the best choice. It will require all the ingenuity of the AEC staff, the Commission's contractors, and private industry working together to get costs down, but it is reasonable to assume that eventually this will be done. Though the estimates which have been made are the best that can be obtained at the present time, they are merely paper evaluations and are subject to considerable uncertainty. Architect-engineering work has not been done yet for a full-scale industrial nuclear powerplant. The estimates will become more dependable as the development program improves technology and results in more detailed plans and specifications. Assumptions on which the costs are estimated include reasonably conventional location of nuclear plants-not location on large exclusion areas. Neither real estate prices for large exclusion areas near customers nor the cost of long distance transmission from remote areas can be borne if competitive costs are to be attained. It is further recognized that the establishing of a nuclear power industry is dependent upon solution of a number of nontechnical problems. These include the problems of patent rights, of the lease or sale of fissionable materials, of the licensing of producers of these materials, of Government purchase of byproduct fissionable material, and accounting assumptions such as length of amortization period and amount of interest. These factors are not within the scope of the technical report. The reactor development program will be reviewed annually in the light of accomplishment during the preceding year, and revised as necessary. Results sought in research and development cannot be guaranteed within estimated expenditure. Also, some technical avenues may turn out to be more promising, others less promising, than they now appear. AREAS FOR COST REDUCTION The problem of developing nuclear reactors for the economic generation of electric power is largely one of reducing costs for capital investment and fuel. The capital cost of a nuclear plant must be reduced considerably below estimates based on current technology. The "per kilowatt cost" of a nuclear powerplant that can be built today or in the very near future will be perhaps several times the "per kilowatt cost" of a conventional plant of the same power output. For practical nuclear powerplants of the future, a construction cost goal of $50 to $70 kilowatt of heat, roughly equivalent to about $200 per kilowatt of electricity, is sought. Then the cost of constructing a nuclear plant will be about the same as for a conventional plant. The basic hope for making nuclear power competitive rests on the possibility of making the fuel very inexpensive certainly bringing its cost below 3 mills per kilowatt-hour of electricity, which is about the average cost of fuel for conventional power. To achieve this low fuel cost, technical advances sought include (1) Higher burnup per fuel cycle, that is, burning more fuel before it must be removed from the reactor for chemical processing. Alloying offers one possibility for reducing radiation damage so that fuel elements will last longer and withstand higher burnup. (2) Lower cost of chemically processing and fabricating fuel elements. Partial processing without complete removal of radioactivity is attractive. Simple methods of fabricating this mildly radioactive material are being investigated. (3) Higher thermal efficiency, that is, conversion of a larger percentage of heat energy into electrical energy. Achievement depends on higher reactor temperature. The first pioneering nuclear plants have low efficiencies-17 percent for the experimental breeder reactor No. 1 and 14 percent for the homogeneous reactor experiment No. 1. Design concepts for large water-cooled plants provide substantially higher figures, while estimates for full-scale liquid metal reactors approach 35 percent, which is approximately the efficiency of large, new conventional power plants. In addition to reducing fuel costs, the program is aimed at developing types of reactors and modes of operation safe enough to make large exclusion areas unnecessary. PRESSURIZED WATER REACTORS The pressurized water reactor, a conversion from a project for a reactor for a large naval ship, will be a full-scale nuclear central station of moderate power-at least 60,000 kilowatts of electricity-and should be in operation within 3 or 4 years. It is not expected to be competitive with conventional power plants, but it will give information that can be obtained only from a large plant, such as reliability, period of amortization, and operating and maintenance costs. This project is the next step in carrying forward the pressurized water approach to nuclear power. A number of early reactors were water cooled and this technology was advanced considerably more by the recent work of Westinghouse Electric Corp. on the submarine thermal reactor and on the large ship project. Westinghouse is the principal contractor for the pressurized water reactor, responsible for research and development, and fabrication of the reactor itself and auxiliary equipment. The Westinghouse contract does not include the turbine and generator portions of the plant or the plant's operation. Research and development is well under way. Only slight enrichment of the uranium fuel is necessary to achieve a critical mass with ordinary (light) water moderator and coolant. Nuclear experiments are being conducted to determine the amount of uranium fuel needed, its exact enrichment, the shape of the fuel elements, and methods of fabrication. Like STR, this reactor will make use of the new metals, zirconium and hafnium, and their alloys. Among contributions this project will make to pressurized water technology are developing and testing of fuel elements for long irradiation cycle and advancing the physics of slightly enriched uranium fuel in ordinary water. The project will demonstrate that a relatively large pressure vessel can be built according to specifications required for reactor operation. A system will be developed and demonstrated for charging and discharging compactly located fuel elements through a pressure shell. A system for the control of a reactor composed of very closely spaced fuel elements will be developed and operated. By comparison with the submarine thermal reactor, the pressurized water reactor will operate at appreciably higher fuel temperature, coolant temperature, and steam pressure. Preliminary specifications call for a fuel temperature well over 600° F., coolant temperature |