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Fifty years ago this week, on Dec. 20, 1951, a nuclear reactor produced useful electricity for the first time.
The first demonstration was a simple string of four light bulbs. The 16 scientists and engineers from Argonne recorded their historic achievement by chalking their names on the wall beside the generator.
The reactor was Experimental Breeder Reactor 1 (EBR-I), housed in a small building that today still sits alone on a wind-swept plain in southeastern Idaho. EBR-1 was designed and operated by Argonne and built by Bechtel Group, Inc. The reactor spawned a huge international industry that now plays a major role in meeting the world's energy needs.
Today, more than 100 nuclear power plants provide 20 percent of the electricity consumed in the United States. More than 435 reactors provide some 17 percent of the world's electricity, and about 65 more plants are under construction around the world.
During its 15-year career, EBR-1 was the site of many historical firsts, and retired Argonne scientist Kirby Whitham was an integral part of several of them.
On that raw December day in 1951, scientists and technicians readied for the first test of the power-generating system. "We got the reactor critical, which was a rather slow process," Whitham said. "Generating steam for the first time was a problem, because we hadn't done it before. Technicians were running everywhere, measuring temperatures and so on.
"It took quite a while to get the turbine up to speed, then we had to load the generator. The generator put out 440 volts, so we used four light bulbs wired in series."
When the bulbs lit up, "we didn't clap our hands or anything," Whitham said. "We were just glad it worked."
Walter Zinn, the first director of Argonne National Laboratory, brought out a bottle of champagne to celebrate the achievement. "Everyone had a cup," Whitham said, "but there was lots of work to do -- checking oil pressures and other things we weren't used to doing."
The day after EBR-1 generated the world's first nuclear electricity, its output was boosted to 100 kilowatts, enough to power all of its own electrical equipment. This process didn't go as smoothly as the previous day's activities.
The generator had to be manually synchronized with the outside power line, Whitham said, which required a deft touch with a knob while watching a meter spin.
"On the first try, heaven and earth came together. We blew all the fuses," he said with a chuckle.
EBR-I's primary experimental mission was to develop and test the concept of the breeder reactor -- a vision pursued by Enrico Fermi and his colleague, Zinn, who led the team that built EBR-I. The idea behind the breeder is to maximize the useful energy that can be extracted from natural uranium.
Inside a nuclear reactor, uranium-238 -- the common form of the metal which cannot be used for fuel -- can capture neutrons released during fission and transform into plutonium-239. This man-made element can fuel reactors, so breeding makes it possible to use virtually 100 percent of the energy in natural uranium. Today's commercial reactors use less than one percent.
EBR-I provided the first proof that breeding is possible: On June 4, 1953, the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission announced that EBR-I had become the world's first reactor to demonstrate the breeding of plutonium from uranium.
In 1962, EBR-I became the world's first reactor to produce electricity with a plutonium core. For the next year, the reactor provided valuable data on breeding in a plutonium-fueled reactor and helped to improve scientists' understanding of the behavior of plutonium in an operating reactor.
On Dec. 30, 1963, its scientific mission complete, EBR-I was officially shut down. On Aug. 26, 1966, President Lyndon B. Johnson presided over ceremonies designating the reactor a Registered Historical National Monument.
"We have come to a place today where hope was born that man would do more with his discovery [of atomic fission] than unleash destruction in its wake," Johnson said.
-- Dave Jacqué
Walter Zinn, Argonne's first director, gave Kirby Whitham a job at the laboratory and strict orders to follow.
"I want a chemist who will keep me out of trouble with sodium," Zinn said. "You're responsible." Whitham did, and spent the next 31 years at Argonne, working on increasingly advanced reactor designs. The first was a small reactor called Experimental Breeder Reactor-1, cooled with a mixture of sodium and potassium (NaK).
EBR-1 wasn't a large facility. "It was just a little concrete building with a fence around it -- and a lot of guards," he said. "We worked six days a week and got paid overtime, which was unheard of at Argonne."
EBR-1's first months illustrated how much scientists didn't know about the nascent science of nuclear power, and the perils of breaking new scientific ground.
The first problem: physicists had miscalculated how much fuel the reactor would require. "We put all the fuel in, and it wasn't enough. It would go critical, but you couldn't raise the power," Whitham said. "The physicists couldn't have known -- no one had experience with this kind of reactor."
The second loading presented another, more dangerous surprise: there wasn't enough shielding around the reactor to protect the scientists from radiation. An additional three feet of concrete blocks were quickly stacked around the device.
On Nov. 29, 1955, miscommunication during an experiment led to a partial meltdown of the reactor's core. The building was evacuated when radiation levels began to rise, but no one was injured or overexposed to radiation. Years later the Atomic Energy Commission did not even regard the incident as an official accident.
In addition to the dangers of the unknown, working conditions could be uncomfortable in the hurriedly built facilities of the time. Experiments at EBR-1 were run in the winter, and boiling-water reactor development had to take place in the summer. "The boiling water reactor buildings weren't insulated, so the water might freeze and burst the pipes if the water-cooled reactors were shut down," Whitham said. "You didn't have that problem with the NaK coolant."
Save America's Treasures of the National Trust for Historic Preservation is seeking contributions to preserve Experimental Breeder Reactor-I (EBR-I).
The organization hopes to match a $320,000 federal matching grant to restore the landmark and educate the American people about the birth of the Atomic Age and the harnessing of nuclear energy for electricity.
The primary goal is to restore and maintain EBR-I as a museum and to develop exhibits on the history of nuclear power. To reach a national and international audience, the project will produce a film about EBR-I and the next 50 years of nuclear power.
Donors will be recognized in press releases and public announcements, on commemorative plaques at EBR-I, and as part of the film's credits, as appropriate. Contributions are tax-deductible. Checks should be made to "National Trust/SAT" with the designation "Atomic Age" in the lower left-hand corner, and sent to Cindy Kelly, Save America's Treasures, National Trust for Historic Preservation, 1785 Massachusetts Avenue, NW, Washington, D.C., 20036. For further information, call 202-686-4069 or e-mail cindykelly@erols.com.
Laboratory Director Hermann Grunder discusses the direction of Argonne's research in response to the war effort and changes in emphasis at the Department of Energy.
With our nation engaged in war and many Americans worrying about terrorism on our shores, many aspects of life have changed. Here at Argonne, this change means we are sharpening our focus on our role in national security, and what we can contribute to safety, counterterrorism and defense. While we are not a designated defense laboratory, we have much to offer in this effort.
Support for national security, of course, has always been part of our mission. We have long-standing programs in nuclear arms control, nonproliferation, and infrastructure assurance. What is most important, though, is the breadth of Argonne's scientific and technical expertise. Our outstanding research and development work gives rise to many capabilities that can enhance national security, even though they were initially developed with other applications in mind. For example, we have long recognized the potential of biochips to detect biological agents as we were developing their use in medicine (for instance, identifying mutations of tuberculosis bacteria) and forensics (using mitochondrial DNA for criminal identification).
A little more than a month after Sept. 11, DOE Secretary Spencer Abraham stated that the overarching mission of the department -- and of all its national laboratories -- is national security. He said, "It is time for all of us to understand that our energy and science programs should be judged by whether they advance this nation's energy -- and hence, national -- security."
At that time, we undertook a complete inventory of our technologies with potential applications in this arena. We named Harvey Drucker, Argonne's ALD for Energy and Environmental Science and Technology, as our point of contact with DOE and its task force of national laboratory personnel advising the Office of Homeland Security.
Argonne researchers identified more than 180 Argonne technologies with potential to detect, mitigate and prevent terrorist activities and with bearing on the direction defined by Secretary Abraham. These projects address national defense, energy, and the environment, as well as efforts to understand the human genome and climate change.
These technologies, as with biochips, were developed for purposes other than counterterrorism and working with many different sponsors, yet they are extraordinarily useful in today's environment. Their existence confirms the value to our nation of having the DOE national laboratories as a stable element of the federal research and development enterprise.
We are working to make sure these technologies, the roles they play, and the projects that give rise to them are well understood in Washington. Three Argonne technologies -- biochips applied to identifying biological agents, cyanide gas microsensors for protecting military personnel and emergency first responders, and chemical early warning and crisis management systems for subway transit systems -- were among 14 Office of Science laboratory counterterrorism exhibits recently displayed at DOE headquarters. Secretary Abraham showed the exhibits to Director of Homeland Security Tom Ridge. Our displays are currently in the lobby of Argonne-East's Building 201.
We have also responded to the Laboratory Strategic Missions Review being done under the auspices of Deputy Secretary Francis Blake. This review connects each program in each of the national labs to one of 12 strategic missions:
Ensuring the reliability of our
nuclear stockpile
Preventing proliferation of nuclear
weapons and other weapons of mass destruction
Enhancing homeland defense against new
terrorist threats
Naval reactors
Protecting our critical energy
infrastructure
Implementing the president's national
energy plan
Identifying and developing new sources
of energy
Implementing faster and cheaper
environmental cleanup of DOE sites
Implementing the president's climate
change initiative
Advancing high energy and nuclear
physics
Building and operating major
scientific user facilities
Nuclear medicine
Argonne is well positioned to contribute solutions for the challenges that face our country. This war, more than any in the past, is based in science and technology, and Argonne is science and technology. We must all keep our eyes on serving the national security mission by accomplishing the highest caliber research and development. In so doing, we will continue to be central to our nation's future.
"Management Perspective" is an occasional column expressing the views of Argonne's senior management.
Argonne will honor its longtime employees with a luncheon and dinner-dance.
The service awards luncheon, honoring those with 20 years of service, will be held Friday, Feb. 1, at the Argonne Guest House. Invitations will be sent in early January.
Those with 25, 30, 35, 40 and 50 years of service will be honored at a dinner-dance Friday, March 15, at Argonne-East's Building 213 Cafeteria. Awardees will receive their invitations in early February.
Employees should bring their packages to the Argonne-East Shipping Department as soon as possible to avoid delays during the busy holiday season.
The Shipping Department strives for same-day shipping of packages brought in after 12:30 p.m., but packages are processed on a first-come first-served basis. Packages that cannot be processed on Friday, Dec. 21, will be held until the laboratory reopens Wednesday, Jan. 2, 2002.
During the holiday break, documents being sent domestically can be placed in FedEx dropboxes. FedEx will collect items in on-site drop boxes once a day, except for Christmas day and New Year's day. Parcels and boxes are not accepted in the drop boxes.
For more information, call Jeff McGhee at ext. 2-5712.
A discussion of an innovative new way of recycling mercury from contaminated water won the "best presentation" award for Argonne's Laura Skubal (ES) at a recent scientific meeting.
Lead author Skubal addressed 250 participants at the first International Conference on Semiconductor Photochemistry in Glasgow, Scotland, about her research on "Reduction and Removal of Mercury from Water Using Arginine-Modified TiO2."
"The advantage of our process is that unlike conventional wastewater treatment processes, the contaminant metal is chemically reduced into an elemental state," said Skubal. "This opens up the possibility of recycling the metal since it is in a `pure' form."
Skubal is a member of the research group that has just been awarded $1.2 million from the Department of Defense's Strategic Environmental Research and Development Program to develop photochemical microsensors that detect and classify various gaseous organic compounds, exploiting the properties of titanium dioxide (TiO2).
Natalia Meshkov (ES), the other author in the mercury removal study, and Michael Vogt (ES) are the other research group members.
-- Jeff Evans
Argonne's Florida retirees will meet Saturday, Feb. 23, 2002, for their annual luncheon in Tampa.
The luncheon will be held at the Colonnade Restaurant, 3401 Bayshore Blvd., Tampa. Take I-275 to Gandy Boulevard. Take Gandy east to Bayshore and turn left (note that streets have been renamed in the area). The restaurant's phone number is (813) 839-7558.
Cost is $15 per person. Send payment by Jan. 31, 2001, to Robert H. Krueger, 1511 Estero Blvd., Apt. 506, Fort Myers Beach, FL 33931-2842. For more information, call (941) 463-0145.
Argonne-West closed early Wednesday, Dec. 5, due to high winds and snow that reduced visibility to near zero.
Buses were called in early, and all non-essential employees left the laboratory by 3:30 p.m.
The laboratory was open for business as usual the following day.
Electronics and Computing Technologies will offer several computer software classes during January 2002.
Detailed class descriptions, schedules and enrollment forms are available online. For more information about enrollment procedures, contact Diane Cavazos (ECT) at ext. 2-7153 or dkcavazos@anl.gov.
Unless otherwise noted, classes will be held in Argonne-East's Building 221, Room A142, and are limited to 10 participants. Proficiency with the Windows operating system is necessary.
"Introduction to Word 2000" (ECT369)
-- Monday, Jan. 14, 8:30 a.m. - 4:30 p.m. Cost: $215.
"Introduction to Excel" 2000 (ECT370)
-- Tuesday, Jan. 15, 8:30 a.m. - 4:30 p.m. Cost: $215.
"Introduction to Access Version 2000"
(ECT371) -- Wednesday Jan. 16, 8:30 a.m. - 4:30 p.m. Class size limited to eight. Cost: $215.
"Introduction to PowerPoint 2000"
(ECT372) -- Thursday, Jan. 17, 8:30 a.m. - 11:30 a.m. Cost: $140.
"Intermediate PowerPoint 2000"
(ECT373) -- Thursday, Jan. 17, 1 p.m. _ 4 p.m. Cost: $140.
"Front Page 2000 (ECT383)" -- This
class is two full days, from 8:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. Thursday, Feb. 21, and Friday,
Feb. 22. Another class will be held Thursday, March 21, and Friday, March 22. Class
size limited to eight. Cost: $430.
Tips on winning an R&D 100 Award will be presented at a lunchtime seminar at noon Tuesday, Jan. 8, in the Argonne-East Building 213 Cafeteria, Dining Room B.
The seminar will include time for questions.
The seminar is hosted by the Office of Technology Transfer, which provides assistance in entry preparation and pays entry fees and other costs for the awards. The R&D 100 Awards honor the 100 most significant innovations of the year.
For more information on submitting an entry, contact Shari Zussman at ext. 2-5936 or zussman@anl.gov.
This is the final issue of Argonne News for 2001.
The Argonne News Web site will be updated Friday, Jan. 4, and Thursday, Jan. 10, or as needed. The newsletter will return Monday, Jan. 14.