NUCLEAR POWER FOR PEACEFCTL PURPOSES — SMYTH 199 



QUESTIONS STILL TO BE ANSWERED 



The fundamental question still to be answered is whether a power- 

 producing uranium reactor can be built which will compete with other 

 sources of energy. The answer to that question will be found in the 

 choice of some one of the kinds of reactors we liave already built or 

 thought about. None of them has yet been proved to be the ideal or 

 even the best choice. The homogeneous reactor, for example, does 

 simplify chemical processing, but it requires enriched fuel and it is 

 not yet certain that the corrosion problems can be solved. The breeder 

 has not yet been proved on any large scale so that we do not know 

 at all how expensive that may be. The submarine thermal reactor 

 uses such expensive materials for cladding the fuel elements that it 

 is almost certainly not competitive, even though we may be able to 

 produce zirconium at lower and lower costs. It also uses enriched 

 material. And so it goes all through the list. 



PROPOSED FIVE-YEAR PROGRAM 



In the past few months we have been reviewing the results that we 

 have obtained up to the present time and planning what would be best 

 to do over the next few years in order to arrive at an economical solu- 

 tion of the problem of nuclear power. We have decided that there 

 are six programs that we should pursue. One of these is the general 

 program that we must obviously continue, the program of research on 

 fundamental properties of materials, on nuclear reactions, on compo- 

 nents that might go into the reactors of the future, and on chemical 

 processes. This work will be continued principally in our Argonne 

 and Oak Ridge laboratories. In addition to this general research 

 and development work, we wish to build five reactors of varying size 

 and cost. The Commission has recently submitted to the Joint Com- 

 mittee on Atomic Energy a special report on the reactor program 

 prepared at the request of the Committee. 



The first of these reactors in our new program has already been 

 publicly announced. It is the so-called PWR reactor which is de- 

 signed to generate at least 60,000 kilowatts of electric power. It will 

 use slightly enriched uranium as fuel, ordinary water as a moderator 

 and coolant. The reactor will be operated under reasonably high 

 pressure and temperature — not nearly so high as are used in modern 

 steam plants, but as high as we feel to be safe in terms of our present 

 knowledge. Specifically, the water in the reactor will be under 

 2,000 pounds per square inch pressure and at a temperature between 

 500° and 600° F. Steam will be delivered to the turbine at about 60O 

 pounds per square inch. The temperature is limited by the corrosion 

 of the fuel elements and piping and container, and the pressure is 



870930—66 14 



