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

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
Author: Department of Defense
Publisher:
Total Pages: 447
Release: 2017-04-08
Genre:
ISBN: 9781521021439

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.

Idaho Falls

Idaho Falls
Author: William McKeown
Publisher: ECW Press
Total Pages: 268
Release: 2003-04-01
Genre: Technology & Engineering
ISBN: 1554905435

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.

Atomic America

Atomic America
Author: Todd Tucker
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
Total Pages: 289
Release: 2009-03-03
Genre: History
ISBN: 1439158282

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.

Oak Ridge National Laboratory

Oak Ridge National Laboratory
Author: Leland Johnson
Publisher: Univ. of Tennessee Press
Total Pages: 292
Release: 1994
Genre: History
ISBN: 9780870498541

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.

Idaho National Laboratory Fuel Reprocessing Complex Historic American Engineering Record Report - ID-33-H

Idaho National Laboratory Fuel Reprocessing Complex Historic American Engineering Record Report - ID-33-H
Author: Brenda R. Pace
Publisher:
Total Pages: 294
Release: 2006
Genre: Reactor fuel reprocessing
ISBN:

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.

Historical American Engineering Record - Idaho National Engineering and Environmental Laboratory, Test Area North, Haer No. ID-33-E.

Historical American Engineering Record - Idaho National Engineering and Environmental Laboratory, Test Area North, Haer No. ID-33-E.
Author:
Publisher:
Total Pages:
Release: 2005
Genre:
ISBN:

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.

The Rickover Effect

The Rickover Effect
Author: Theodore Rockwell
Publisher: Wiley
Total Pages: 411
Release: 1995-08-25
Genre: Technology & Engineering
ISBN: 9780471122968

"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.

The Cult of the Atom

The Cult of the Atom
Author: Daniel F. Ford
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Total Pages: 284
Release: 1982
Genre: History
ISBN: 9780671253011

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.

Atomic Frontier Days

Atomic Frontier Days
Author: John M. Findlay
Publisher: University of Washington Press
Total Pages: 0
Release: 2011
Genre: History
ISBN: 9780295990972

Takes readers behind the headlines into the Manhattan Project at Hanford and the communities that surround it and offers perspectives on today’s controversies in an area now famous for the monumental effort to clean up decades of nuclear waste.

Why Nuclear Power Has Been a Flop

Why Nuclear Power Has Been a Flop
Author: Jack Devanney
Publisher: Bookbaby
Total Pages: 206
Release: 2020-11-11
Genre:
ISBN: 9781098308964

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.