Word: reactors
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...most damning revelations were in the report's catalogue of financial abuse. Many contracts for the manufacture of reactor components were slackly written, lacking even technical specifications. Said Investigator A. Ernest Fitzgerald of one contractor's agreements: "I think it was very decent of Westinghouse to do any work, because it is not clear they have to do anything at all under these contracts." A steam generator priced at $5 million in 1975 actually cost the Government $71 million. The report found evidence of both bribery and fraud by some contractors. A consortium of 753 private utilities agreed...
...heart of the Clinch River debate are not its finances but its technology; the 375-megawatt plant to be built is a breeder reactor, which creates more atomic fuel than it burns. The physics behind this alchemy is not new. A few light bulbs were powered by the first tiny breeder 30 years ago, and a 200-MW breeder plant was fired up-and failed-near Detroit in 1966. Conventional nuclear reactors also create fuel, but about 35% less than they consume, rather than, like breeders, about 20% more. Says A. David Rossin of the American Nuclear Society: "Breeder reactors...
...fueled by uranium or Plutonium, but they produce only the latter. Plutonium is a far handier substance for making bombs, and some skittish critics are afraid that Clinch River might become a target for terrorists seeking to cadge a few pounds of plutonium to make an atomic weapon. The reactor is designed to be cooled by liquid sodium, a highly volatile substance, and there are some doubts about the ability of the reactor to control a catastrophic leakage in the sodium ducts. "It is a much more dangerous and complex device than other reactors," says Vanderbilt's Barach...
...into breeder technology." President Jimmy Carter, worried about the proliferation of plutonium, tried to stop Clinch River. Even Budget Director David Stockman, while he was a Michigan Congressman, opposed Clinch River, contending that the Government should not underwrite nuclear development for the private sector by building the reactor. He called the project "totally incompatible with our free-market approach to energy policy...
Stockman argued within the White House for denying Clinch River further funds, but was overruled. What sealed the Administration's commitment to the reactor was geography-and politics. The plant is to be built in the home state of Senate Majority Leader Howard Baker. Already 458 Baker constituents work on the project, and there is the promise of 4,000 more jobs for the seven-year duration of construction. "In large measure," says one congressional aide, "the Reagan support is due to the fact that Baker is for it." Yet Baker barely had to enter the fray. Admits...