Word: arco
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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Core & Blanket. Zuckert did not explain what he meant by a "power only" reactor, but in the current issue of Nucleonics, Dr. W. H. Zinn, director of the AEC's Argonne National Laboratory, described the experimental "breeder" reactor built and operated by the University of Chicago at Arco, Idaho. It produces "power only" by burning its own byproduct, plutonium...
...active core of the Arco breeder is about the size of a football. It is made of "enriched uranium," i.e., uranium rich in fissionable 11-235. Around the core is a "fertile blanket" of 11-238, the spent metal that remains when U-235 is extracted from natural uranium to make atom bombs. Through both blanket and core circulates a sodium-potassium alloy that is liquid at ordinary temperatures. This coolant carries away the heat of the nuclear reaction. The fluid metal leaves the reactor at 660° F., and produces enough steam to generate 250 kw. of power...
Burning Plutonium. The purpose of the Arco breeder is to "breed" more plutonium than is needed to replace the U-235 that it consumes. Dr. Zinn did not say so directly, but his and Commissioner Zuckert's optimism suggests that it can be done. If so, the "power only" reactors of the future can burn all of their uranium, not merely the .7% that is naturally fissionable. There will be no need for the Government to buy their plutonium; it will be burned too. If uranium gets scarce, the "fertile blanket" can be made of thorium, which neutrons turn...
...Final Go-Ahead. From M.I.T., Rickover's students went to an AEC testing station at Arco, Idaho, to study the new engine. Then, a few days before the Korean war broke out last year, Rickover got a final go-ahead from Admiral Forrest Sherman and the Joint Chiefs of Staff...