ORNL: THE FIRST 50 YEARS--CHAPTER 7: ENERGY TECHNOLOGIES
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After five years of steady decline, much personal distress, and a
deep sense of frustration that obvious national problems were not
being attacked," Laboratory Director Herman Postma said, "1974 is
the year in which we perceive an end to such dismay." Warnings of
energy shortages, Postma added, "finally hit home as the Arab oil
embargo began and people had to wait in gas lines."
The 1974 energy crisis and Postma's appointment as director during
the same year had far-reaching implications for the Laboratory.
Postma had joined the Laboratory's Thermonuclear Division in 1959
and became division director in 1968. He was the first Laboratory
director without direct Manhattan Project experience.
In a broader context, his ascent symbolized the arrival of a new
generation of scientists--the "young turks." These youthful
scientists displayed as much interest in bioreactors, coal
reactors, and fusion reactors as the Laboratory's earlier
researchers--now the "gray eagles"--had exhibited in nuclear
reactors.
Responding to the demands of the younger scientists, Postma
launched several management initiatives. Drawing on his
professional management training, he initiated attitude surveys,
performance evaluations, and other modern management techniques.
Adhering more strictly than Weinberg to organizational structure
and procedure, he strengthened the administrative role of his
associate directors and divested himself of the dual roles Weinberg
had filled as both Laboratory director and chief of the Director's
Division. Postma replaced the Director's Division with central
management offices, under Frank Bruce, associate director for
Administration. Postma also supported creation of dual career
ladders--one for scientists and technicians and another for
managers. (Under earlier career ladders, Laboratory scientists had
to become managers to obtain higher salaries.)
Although researchers from the old and new schools may have
disagreed about the Laboratory's research agenda and its approach
to management, both groups were pleased by a broad exploratory
studies initiative begun in 1974. Known as the Seed Money Program,
it aimed to encourage creative science. "Scientific advances are
made by individuals in the privacy of their own minds," observed
Alex Zucker in explaining the seed money rationale. "It is one of
the functions of a scientific laboratory to discover the
unexpected, to develop new ideas, and to explore in an unfettered
way areas that may not show much promise to the casual observer."
Laboratory overhead funds were used to "seed" research proposals
that review committees considered promising, especially initiatives
that committee members thought had potential for acquiring
additional funding from other federal agencies. Loucas
Christophorou's study of the breakdown of insulating gases
surrounding power-transmission lines, David Novelli's amino acid
research, and Elizabeth Peelle's socioeconomic analysis of power
plant impacts on neighboring communities were three successful seed
money projects funded in 1974.
By 1977, funding had increased to $1 million, covering startup
costs for 15 proposals. The program remains in place today, and it
is viewed as one of managements most successful initiatives.
WHAT'S IN A NAME?
To Postma's surprise, in late 1974 he found himself with a new job
title. No longer head of Oak Ridge National Laboratory, he became
the director of Holifield National Laboratory instead--same job,
same place, different title.
Late that year, aides to the congressional committees on atomic
energy and government operations memorialized their retiring
chairman by renaming the Laboratory after Representative Chet
Holifield of California. Done without consulting Oak Ridge
community leaders or Laboratory officials, the name change met
local disapproval, although Holifield was a respected friend of Oak
Ridge. "I recognize the role Holifield's played," admitted Howard
Adler, director of the Biology Division, "but the name ORNL has
worldwide significance and recognition that can't be tossed aside
lightly."
Responding to this concern, Senator Howard Baker, Representative
Marilyn Lloyd, and other members of the Tennessee congressional
delegation sought to restore the name Oak Ridge. In the interim,
Postma and Laboratory management used Holifield National Laboratory
for official government business and the familiar Oak Ridge
nomenclature in scientific circles.
This conundrum ended late in 1975, when Congress reinstated the
title Oak Ridge National Laboratory and named the national
heavy-ion research center, a 150-foot (46-meter) tower under
construction for the Laboratory's giant accelerator, the Holifield
Heavy Ion Research Facility.
More challenging than the name game was the Laboratory's response
to the energy crises of the 1970s. To address the fuel and heating
shortages of the winter of 1974, Postma appointed Edward Witkowski
and Charles Murphy as Laboratory energy coordinators. Lights were
dimmed and thermostats were lowered in buildings throughout the
complex, and gasoline was rationed for the Laboratory's fleet of
vehicles. Taking these sacrifices in stride, Laboratory employees
donned sweaters and joined carpools to get to work. In total,
emergency conservation curbed Laboratory energy use 7% in 1974.
Congress responded to the energy crisis by boosting the national
budget for energy research, a move that helped warm and brighten
(at least symbolically) the Laboratory's cold, dim corridors.
Equally important, the energy crisis fueled congressional
discontent with the Atomic Energy Commission (AEC), which had
already been under fire over questions about how well it was
fulfilling its safety oversight responsibilities in nuclear energy.
In 1974, Congress voted to divide the AEC into two separate
agencies: the Energy Research and Development Administration
(ERDA), which would serve as the federal government's energy
research arm, and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC), which,
as the name implies, would be responsible for regulating and
ensuring the safety of the nation's nuclear energy industry.
Ending 28 years of service, the AEC closed at the end of 1974.
Among AEC staff locking the commission's doors for the last time
was Alvin Trivelpiece, later to succeed Postma as Laboratory
director.
ERDA absorbed the AEC laboratories, plus the Bureau of Mines' coal
research centers, and other federal laboratories with
energy-related missions. In all, it inherited 57 laboratories,
research centers, and contractors--with approximately 91,000
employees. The Laboratory became one of many ERDA laboratories,
although its reactor safety and environmental programs also
supported NRC licensing and regulatory activities.
Because no definition of laboratory roles and their relationships
to other ERDA responsibilities was in place in 1974, questions
about the laboratories' organization, planning, and accounting
systems arose.
The ERDA director, former Air Force Secretary Robert Seamans,
formed a committee of advisors, including Herman Postma, to help
plan the reorganization. Postma soon learned that ERDA would demand
rapid applications of technology to improve the national energy
posture. An ERDA official warned Postma and other laboratory
directors: "If you are not working on energy projects having a good
chance of being in the Sears and Roebuck catalog in five years,
then you are working for the wrong agency."
ERDA's sense of urgency propelled the Laboratory into a broad range
of energy-related research endeavors, dubbed
coconuke--conservation, coal, and nuclear energy. At Oak Ridge,
ERDA added fossil fuel and energy conservation programs to the
Laboratory's traditional nuclear fission and fusion energy
missions--an effort that fit nicely into the broad research agenda
of the younger scientists.
As part of its response to the expanded mandate, the Laboratory
formed an Energy Division in 1974 reporting to Murray Rosenthal,
associate director for Advanced Energy Systems. Samuel Beall served
as the Energy Division's first director; he was followed a year
later by Bill Fulkerson. Previously Beall had been director of the
Reactor Division; his successor, Gordon Fee, is now president of
Martin Marietta Energy Systems, Inc.
The new Energy Division absorbed the environmental impact reports
group, the National Science Foundation environmental program, an
urban research group, and non-nuclear studies from the Reactor
Division under one administrative umbrella.
The Energy Division sought to tie energy research and conservation
to broad questions of social and environmental impacts. For
example, in 1977 David L. Greene started a transportation energy
group in the Energy Division to analyze consumer responses to fuel
price changes and more efficient cars on the market and to
determine ways to save fuel and cut down on pollutant emissions. In
effect, the Laboratory had acknowledged within its administrative
framework that energy research could no longer be confined to
technical issues.
ENERGY CONSERVATION
Recognizing that the nation's energy posture could be improved by
reducing consumption of existing energy resources and putting
wasted energy to use, the Laboratory joined ERDA's national
conservation program. Through many small enhancements in energy
conservation, the Laboratory and ERDA expected in the aggregate
to reduce national energy use by several percentage points
annually.
Some conservation research emanated from the Laboratory's earlier
studies of potential environmental impacts of nuclear power plants,
such as the discharge of waste heat to water and air. Laboratory
researchers proposed using waste heat to warm both greenhouses for
growing plants and ponds for raising fish for food. As an outgrowth
of Laboratory recommendations, TVA and electric power utilities
planned to couple greenhouses and related heat-use facilities with
nuclear power plants being designed, constructed, and operated
during the 1970s.
The Laboratory proposed similar uses for waste heat, called
cogeneration, for a modular integrated utility system it
blueprinted for the Department of Housing and Urban Development
(HUD). In this design for small communities, conducted by John
Moyers and others, heat from an electric generating plant could
warm buildings and supply hot water.
Using funding from HUD, ERDA, and the National Science Foundation,
six Laboratory divisions, including the Energy Division, launched
a comprehensive set of programs to foster energy conservation in
1974. Moreover, because of strict personnel ceilings, ERDA asked
the Laboratory to act as its program manager for conservation
efforts throughout the energy agency's sprawling
federal network.
For ERDA, the Laboratory planned conservation programs, awarded
subcontracts for research and engineering, and monitored and
reviewed the work. Many of these responsibilities were carried out
by the Laboratory's residential conservation program headed by
Roger Carlsmith. The program supported studies of improved home
insulation, tighter mobile home design, advanced heating and
cooling systems, and energy-efficient home appliances.
ERDA asked the Laboratory to assess how much energy could be saved
by better insulating homes and businesses. The Laboratory emerged
as ERDA's prime resource for developing thermal insulation
standards, later adopted by ERDA, the Department of Commerce, and
building trade associations. These standards helped generate
substantial and continuing savings for homeowners while paring
national energy consumption. Retrofitting existing buildings to
save energy followed when utility systems such as TVA financed
improved home insulation, heat pumps, and other energy conservation
measures in existing structures.
Manufactured homes promised energy savings that would likely exceed
savings in more conventional structures. Laboratory studies, led by
John Moyers and John Wilson, sought to determine the full range of
potential savings. "Mobile homes are produced in factories," Moyers
pointed out, "and should be more susceptible to quality control,
unified system design, and engineering than custom-built homes."
The Laboratory relied on data obtained from a mobile home equipped
with instruments to measure its power use and seasonal temperature
fluctuations. Researchers proposed tighter insulation and storm
window standards subsequently adopted by the American National
Standards Institute and HUD to upgrade mobile home energy
efficiency. Those who purchased new mobile homes, often recently
married couples or retirees with limited incomes, enjoyed reduced
energy costs, and the nation as a whole cut its energy consumption.
Harry Fischer's annual cycle concept may have been the most
publicized Laboratory energy conservation endeavor. A retiree with
wide experience in energy engineering, Fischer dropped by the
Laboratory in 1974 to tell Samuel Beall, new director of the Energy
Division, that he knew how to provide home heating and cooling at
half the cost of systems then in use. His annual cycle energy
system (ACES) used a heat pump that extracted heat during winter
from a large insulated tank of water, changing the water into ice
for summer cooling.
A working model for the ACES house was built and operated in two
months, using funding from ERDA. Fischer met John Gibbons of the
University of Tennessee Energy, Environment, and Resources Center,
who was overseeing the university-sponsored construction of
experimental houses using solar and conventional heat near
Knoxville. Gibbons, a former ORNL physicist who later became
director of the Office of Technology Assessment and is now
President Bill Clinton's science adviser, offered university land
for construction of two ERDA-funded homes, including one heated and
cooled by ACES. Jointly managed by the university, the Laboratory,
TVA, and ERDA, the houses were completed in a year. ERDA Director
Seamans personally inspected them to highlight the fast response to
government demand.
As Fischer predicted, the ACES house could be heated and cooled at
half the energy costs of conventional systems. However, few ever
adopted Fischer's system, largely because of its high initial cost
and potential maintenance problems.
ORNL researchers also investigated ways to reduce energy use by
industry. Ralph Donnelly, Victor Tennery, and colleagues undertook
a study that, in 1976, reported that improved insulation was
crucial to improving the efficiency of industrial processes.
Another Laboratory conservation project that received broad media
attention was its bioconversion experiment, called ANFLOW. In 1972,
Congress mandated secondary sewage treatment for all communities.
The Laboratory estimated the new systems would double the energy
used for sewage treatment, so it decided to explore technologies
that might reduce energy consumption and costs. Alicia Compere and
William Griffith, both of the Chemical Technology Division, working
with John Googin, a Lawrence Award winner at the Y-12 Plant,
devised a bioreactor, known as ANFLOW, to explore its energy-saving
possibilities in treating sewage.
Conventionally activated sludge sewage treatment used
oxygen-seeking aerobic bacteria to digest wastes. In contrast, the
ANFLOW system used anaerobic microorganisms that did not require
oxygen. This process eliminated the need for energy-consuming pump
aerators. Moreover, the ANFLOW system could produce methane gas
from sewage for use as heating fuel and recover valuable chemicals
from industrial wastes for reuse.
On its own, the Laboratory built an experimental ANFLOW bioreactor,
and in 1976 it contracted with the Norton Company to build a pilot
ANFLOW bioreactor to be installed at an Oak Ridge municipal sewage
treatment plant. The ANFLOW bioreactor pumped sewage through a
15-foot (5-meter) cylinder packed with gelatin-coated particles to
which microorganisms attached themselves. The packing, made of
crushed stone or ceramics, facilitated the waste flows and provided
additional surfaces for the microorganisms, which thrived and
reproduced while consuming wastes.
Richard Genung, Charles Hancher, and Wesley Shumate, all of the
Chemical Technology Division, managed the ANFLOW program, and in
1978, a subcontract was awarded for design of a larger
demonstration plant, which was installed as part of the Knoxville
sewage treatment system.
Research on use of organisms to treat waste efficiently, however,
has proceeded slowly. Moreover, municipalities seldom build new
sewage treatment plants; they are capital-intensive, time-consuming
projects that may require a decade or more to negotiate and
construct. Therefore, energy savings derived from more efficient
sewage treatment would be a long time coming. Despite these
obstacles, work on ANFLOW has encouraged broader Laboratory
investigations into potential biological solutions to waste
disposal problems.
In contrast to long-lived sewage systems, homeowners replace
several electric appliances each decade. Believing that aggregate
energy savings could be substantial, Laboratory researchers
launched detailed studies of ways to improve the efficiency of heat
pumps, refrigerators, furnaces, water heaters, and ovens.
Eric Hirst, Robert Hoskins, and their colleagues in the Energy
Division gained wide acclaim for computer modeling of home
appliances to identify opportunities for greater energy efficiency.
Their computer analysis of refrigerator designs, for example,
indicated that energy use for these appliances could be halved
through installing better insulation, adding an antisweat heater
switch, improving compressor efficiency, and increasing condenser
and evaporator surface areas.
Laboratory energy-saving recommendations for home appliances were
incorporated into the design standards of the American Society of
Heating, Refrigerating, and Air-Conditioning Engineers and also
into experimental appliances designed by subcontractors under the
management of Virgil Haynes at the Laboratory. Out of this applied
research came more efficient appliances, notably a heat-pump water
heater and refrigerator, that were soon manufactured for commercial
markets. By the 1980s, most American homes had at least one
appliance that was more energy efficient as a result of the
Laboratory's conservation research.
FOSSIL ENERGY
With nearly half of the world's known coal reserves, the United
States has been called the "Saudi Arabia of coal." In the face of
dwindling domestic petroleum supplies, scarce natural gas reserves,
and the uncertainty and escalating price of oil imports, it seemed
logical in the 1970s to supplement petroleum with fuels produced
from coal.
Scientists had long known that applying heat and pressure to coal
could produce liquids, gases, and solids for fuel. Efforts to turn
scientific theories and blueprints into commercial ventures,
however, had been minimal. Then, in 1975, ERDA announced that the
United States planned to produce a million barrels of synthetic oil
from coal daily by 1985. To create that much synthetic fuel would
require as many as 20 plants, so ERDA contracted with industry to
plan and design a series of pilot plants and demonstrations. ERDA's
Oak Ridge Operations Office managed the contracts and obtained
research support from the Laboratory.
In response to this major federal initiative, Murray Rosenthal
announced an interagency agreement with the Office of Coal Research
that brought the Laboratory into fossil energy research. This
agreement culminated in the Coal Technology Program headed by Jere
Nichols, later renamed the Fossil Energy Program under Eugene
McNeese, and budgeted at $20 million annually. It included
fundamental studies of the structure of coal, the carcinogenic
properties of coal conversion products, a hydrocarbon reactor, and
a potassium boiler to improve the efficiency of producing
electricity by burning fossil fuels. Under this program, the
Laboratory exchanged personnel and collaborated with the Bureau of
Mines' coal laboratories at Bruceton, Pennsylvania; Morgantown,
West Virginia; and Laramie, Wyoming.
Planning to fund industrial pilot and demonstration plants that
used synthetic refined coal and hydrocarbonization processes, ERDA
assigned the Laboratory a major role in evaluating the progress of
this broad-ranging initiative. For one project, Henry Cochran and
colleagues in the Chemistry and Chemical Technology divisions built
a model hydrocarbon reactor that mixed finely ground coal with
hydrogen under high pressure and heat to form synthetic oil, plus
a substitute for natural gas and a coke-like solid fuel. Modeling
experiments identified the optimal combination of pressure and heat
for fuel production. Related projects conducted by Richard Genung,
John Mrochek, and their colleagues included studies of coal thermal
conductivity and recovery of aluminum and minerals from fly ash.
A bioprocessing group, led by Charles Scott of the Chemical
Technology Division, launched a series of studies of bioreactors.
The dual goal was to concentrate and isolate trace metals and to
produce liquid and gaseous fuels organically. In bioreactors
resembling those in the ANFLOW sewage treatment project,
microorganisms adhering to fluidized particles in columns could
digest toxic compounds from the wastes of coal conversion
processes, converting them to harmless substances.
Researcher Chet Francis in the Environmental Sciences Division
demonstrated that simple garden soil bacteria in bioreactors could
remove nitrates and trace metals from industrial wastes effluents.
As a result, the Laboratory built a pilot bioreactor used by the
Portsmouth, Ohio, gaseous diffusion plant to treat nitrate wastes,
and the Y-12 Plant used Francis's design for a full-scale plant to
treat nitric acid wastes.
The Laboratory also looked for ways to reduce sulfur dioxide air
pollution from coal combustion. In the Engineering Technology
Division, John Jones's team developed a fluidized-bed coal reactor
connected with a closed-cycle gas turbine for power generation.
Aiming to make high-sulfur Appalachian coal more environmentally
acceptable, the system fed coal and limestone particles into a
furnace where jets of preheated air agitated them, igniting the
coal and thus providing the heat needed to combine the limestone
with sulfur dioxide to form harmless gypsum. ERDA sponsored
construction at the Y-12 Plant of a prototype to prove that
Appalachian coal could be burned cleanly during power generation.
Eugene Hise and Alan Holman devised another method of removing
sulfur from coal. Because sulfur-bearing iron pyrites and
ash-forming minerals are weakly attracted by magnetic fields and
coal particles are mildly repelled, they devised a system for
magnetically cleaning coal, using a superconducting solenoid to
provide a magnetic field of the required shape and force.
ORNL researchers responded to the need to make components that
could withstand the high temperatures of synthetic fuel plants. In
1983 C. T. Liu and his associates in the Metals and Ceramics
Division began developing a scientific approach to the design of
intermetallic alloys for high-temperature structural uses in
advanced heat engines and coal conversion systems. The group
developed ductile nickel aluminide alloys that become stronger as
temperature increases. The development has been licensed to six
companies and is being used in at least two cooperative research
and development agreements (CRADAs).
In another coal-related research initiative, the National Science
Foundation (NSF) funded a regional evaluation of the economics of
strip mine reclamation in Appalachia. Robert Honea and Richard
Durfee headed a team in 1975 that used satellite imagery, census
data, and regional-scale models to analyze strip mining. Focusing
on mining in the New River basin north of Oak Ridge, the study took
images from space satellites to classify land cover types, which
were then verified with aerial photographs. Researchers could
examine strip-mining effects during every overhead pass of the
satellite, enabling them to obtain a better picture as the mining
unfolded instead of just a snapshot of the impacts once the mining
was completed.
In 1975, ERDA Director Seamans broke ground for an Environmental
Sciences Laboratory in Oak Ridge, a two-unit structure that became
the first programmatic laboratory in ERDA. It was completed in
1978. The Laboratory's first major laboratory and office expansion
since the 1960s, Environmental Sciences was located at the west end
of the complex near the Aquatic Ecology Laboratory. The main
building was connected by walkways to greenhouses, animal and
insect facilities, and chambers for controlled environment
experiments.
In 1976 Chester Richmond, who succeeded James Liverman and John
Totter as the associate director for Biomedical and Environmental
Sciences, implemented a life sciences program to support coal
conversion technologies. Working closely with the Environmental
Protection Agency, the program, led by ecologist Carl Gehrs of the
Environmental Sciences Division, examined the chemical and physical
characteristics of coal liquids, their biological and health
effects, and their transport through ecosystems. From this program
came funding for examining mutagenesis (in the Biology Division),
ecological toxicology (in the Environmental Sciences Division),
health risk effects (in the Health and Safety Research Division),
and coal-liquid constituent identification (in the Analytical
Chemistry Division).
For example, in the early 1980s Barbara Walton discovered that
cricket eggs exposed to chemicals from synthetic fuels produced
insects having abnormalities such as an extra eye, antenna, or
head; the discovery received considerable media attention.
These efforts enabled the Laboratory to prove that coal conversion
liquids and effluents could be toxic. It also provided information
to guide changes in coal chemical processing that would create less
toxic products.
FUSION AND FISSION ENERGY
Under ERDA, Laboratory fusion energy research expanded more rapidly
than fission research. Although fusion research could not enhance
the nation's short-range energy posture, ERDA gave the program
substantial support in the hope that it would ultimately provide a
long-range solution to the nation's energy problems. With the end
of molten-salt reactor research and modest support for
high-temperature gas-cooled reactor research, the research agenda
of the Laboratory's Manhattan-era researchers had been reduced to
the Clinch River Breeder Reactor technology and related fuel
reprocessing for plutonium recovery.
Under John Clarke, Postma's successor as chief of fusion energy
research, successful testing of the ORMAK and ELMO Bumpy Torus
devices continued into the 1970s. The Laboratory also built
ISXs--devices called Impurity Study Experiments--to illuminate the
behavior of impurities inside fusion reactor plasmas. Researchers,
led by Stan Milora and Chris Foster, developed a pellet injection
method for firing frozen hydrogen pellets into fusion plasmas to
maintain the plasma densities. This refueling technology was
subsequently adopted for tokamaks in Europe and the United States.
International fusion research involved many countries, DOE
facilities, and Laboratory divisions. A major fusion research
problem during the late 1970s was the action of the fusion plasma
when it escaped the magnetic field and met the first wall of the
vessel containing it. Would it damage the wall? Would it sputter
impurities from the wall back into the plasma and "poison" it by
radiating away the energy needed to sustain the fusion reaction?
To coordinate studies of these and related questions, the
Laboratory joined with four other DOE laboratories in a "first wall
interactions" group. Bill Appleton and Jim Roberto, both of the
Solid State Division, Bob Clausing of the Metals and Ceramics
Division, and Bob Langley and Peter Mioduszewski, both of the
Fusion Energy Division coordinated "first wall interactions"
studies at the Laboratory.
Other fusion research advances during the ERDA years included the
neutral beam technology developed by Bill Morgan's team to heat
plasma inside a fusion device. The neutral beam technology helped
Oak Ridge's ORMAK and Princeton's tokamak achieve record
temperatures that approached what was needed for self-sustaining
fusion reactions. Investigations of huge superconducting magnets
for containing fusion plasmas began under Hugh Long, Martin Lubell,
Fred Walstrom, and William Fietz, leading to selection of the
Laboratory in 1977 to build the international Large Coil Test
Facility. Managed by Paul Haubenreich, this facility would test
supercold magnets, weighing 40 tons each, that were manufactured
both in the United States and abroad.
The fusion program also needed large amounts of specialized atomic
cross-section data to understand complex plasma interactions. This
need was met by a nationally coordinated program started in the
Physics Division in 1956 by Clarence (Barny) Barnett, who ran the
program until the late 1980s.
While fusion energy research prospered, the Laboratory built no new
nuclear fission reactors during the 1970s. In 1976, the Laboratory
changed the name of the Reactor Division to the Engineering
Technology Division because its work no longer concerned overall
reactor design; instead, it focused on development of engineering
systems for both nuclear and non-nuclear facilities. The nuclear
safety program for the NRC continued, however, under Fred Mynatt's
direction.
After 1976, the Laboratory's nuclear energy research focused
largely on the Clinch River Breeder Reactor Project and plans to
reprocess its fuel. Design of the steam generator and heat
exchangers for the Clinch River reactor was undertaken by
Laboratory metallurgists led by Peter Patriarca, who investigated
thermal stress and creep in the materials to be used in these
systems.
The Laboratory also specialized in devising materials for breeder
and fusion reactors that would withstand radiation damage. Jim Weir
developed a theory to explain how heated steels swelled and became
embrittled during neutron bombardment in reactors, and researchers
Jim Stiegler, Everett Bloom, and Arthur Rowcliffe developed
low-swelling stainless steel alloys by doping them with silicon and
titanium. Despite these advances, support for Clinch River breeder
programs faltered after the election of President Jimmy Carter, who
opposed the project.
The Carter administration also expressed concern over the
possibility of diversion of weapons-grade nuclear materials used in
civilian programs to military or terrorist purposes. The
Nonproliferation Alternative Systems Assessment Program was
initiated to evaluate the problem, which received much attention by
DOE. A companion program of broader scope called the International
Nuclear Fuel Cycle Evaluation also was formed by several nations
led by the International Atomic Energy Agency at a 1977 meeting in
Washington, D.C. The Laboratory had a significant role in both
programs, with William Harms as the major participant. These
programs focused on potential problems in nuclear fuel-cycle
programs and contributed to a decrease in emphasis on breeder
reactors. Both programs were unpopular at the time. However,
their influence on the direction of the Laboratory's fuel
reprocessing program resulted in both improved design concepts and
better technology, including the development of robotic systems for
use in hazardous operations.
Space exploration also received some nuclear energy research
funding during the 1970s. The Laboratory designed radioisotopic
heat sources to power long-distance space probes and designed
materials to contain the heat within the space vehicles and protect
the plutonium fuel from the impact of accidentally falling to
Earth. Tony Schaffhauser, C. T. Liu, and Roy Cooper, for example,
led teams in the Metals and Ceramics Division that developed the
iridium cladding and carbon fiber insulation to contain the
isotopic heat sources used aboard the Voyager and other space
probes. Years after their launch, these probes returned spectacular
images of the outer planets and their moons to Earth for scientific
analysis.
SPLENDID CROWDING
The years of urgent energy research under ERDA were years of
expansion for the Laboratory. By 1977, it had acquired lead
responsibility for five major ERDA programs and had become involved
with the full complement of the nation's energy programs. In
addition, it had undertaken work for 11 other agencies, amounting
to $35 million in funding annually, and it was subcontracting six
times the amount of outside work it had supported in 1974. The
number of Laboratory personnel rose to more than 5000, performing
and supporting about 700 scientific and technical projects. The
Laboratory also hosted 1250 guest researchers and more than 25,000
visitors annually.
Emphasis by ERDA on developing non-nuclear advanced energy systems
proved a boon for materials sciences at the Laboratory. Limited
previously to studies of materials related to the fission and
fusion energy programs, under ERDA the Laboratory's research in
materials sciences advanced into studies of many materials. This
new initiative was especially pertinent to the Solid State Division
under Mike Wilkinson and the Metals and Ceramics Division under Jim
Weir, which experienced significant program expansions.
Although the Environmental Sciences Laboratory and the Holifield
Heavy Ion Research Facility were under construction in 1977, the
Laboratory had not added significant space to its complex since the
1960s. Existing work space was reduced even more by addition of
minicomputers and copying machines during the 1970s. The stereotype
of scientists musing in splendid isolation was far from true at the
Laboratory in 1977. In fact, conducting research there had become
a close-quartered affair.
"The fact is that programs grow faster than buildings can get built
or than money can be found for that purpose," lamented Postma. "In
practice, the only justification for new buildings is to alleviate
crowded conditions that already exist rather than rationally
anticipating projected needs," he elaborated. "Thus, in the future
there will be more crowding at the Laboratory, more sharing of
offices, and far greater need for understanding and cooperation by
all members of the Laboratory."
The problem of overcrowding decreased unexpectedly in 1977 when
newly elected President Jimmy Carter and his Department of Energy
adopted personnel ceilings that capped the number of Laboratory
employees. After four years of nearly nonstop additional hiring,
the Laboratory's personnel offices suddenly became tranquil and
quiet.
President Carter walked to the White House in January 1977 in the
midst of one of the 20th century's coldest winters. At the time,
the effects of the 1973 oil crisis still rippled through the
national economy. Unprecedented cold temperatures generated
unanticipated demands for energy supplies, placing additional
stress on a national energy system that had not fully adjusted to
the new constraints on energy consumption. The result was another
energy crisis, although not nearly as severe as the paralyzing
events that had gripped the nation four years before. Nevertheless,
during the oil and natural gas shortage, the Laboratory narrowly
avoided a complete shutdown for lack of heat only because the Oak
Ridge Gaseous Diffusion Plant shared its oil reserves during the
emergency.
Calling for the "moral equivalent of war" on energy problems,
President Carter in the spring of 1977 requested public sacrifices
for the sake of regaining control of the nation's energy future. To
manage the battle, he proposed establishing a cabinet-level
Department of Energy (DOE). Approved by Congress in August 1977,
the new DOE absorbed the functions of the ERDA, the Federal Energy
Administration, and the Federal Power Commission, plus energy
programs from other federal agencies.
Carter appointed James Schlesinger, former AEC chairman and
Secretary of Defense, the nation's first energy secretary. In
addition, the president announced his opposition to the Clinch
River Breeder Reactor Project and stopped the reprocessing of
nuclear fuel. These decisions clouded the future of nuclear energy,
which, in turn, placed the future of the Laboratory's nuclear
divisions on an uncertain path with no clear signposts pointing the
way to the future.
STABILITY AMID TRANSITION
The transition from ERDA to DOE proved difficult. The ERDA
administrator and assistant administrators resigned before DOE
became functional in October 1977, leaving agency program direction
unclear. "Whereas we perceive uncertainty and lack of clear
direction in Washington, the realities at the Laboratory are quite
different," observed Alex Zucker during this transition. "Our
programs are productive, our staff is busy. Stability rather than
uncertainty characterizes our work; and, if we work now in new
areas, we are doing it with the old elan."
Secretary Schlesinger revised the system for managing DOE's eight
multiprogram laboratories, 32 specialized laboratories, and 16
nuclear materials and weapons laboratories. For their institutional
needs, the laboratories were to report to assistant secretaries in
Washington instead of regional operations officers. Invited to
Washington to advise Schlesinger on basic research needs, Postma
declared that integrating energy development into a single
department at last recognized that energy was as important as
labor, agriculture, and defense. "There will be studies galore to
evaluate everything," Postma predicted. He was confident that the
Laboratory would prosper despite the "turbulence represented by the
changing political and programmatic winds in Washington."
During 1978 the transition to DOE was completed. Believing that
national laboratories had reached optimum size, the Carter
administration sought to work more directly with industry,
expanding the role of national laboratories as program and
subcontract managers. It designated national laboratories as
centers of excellence in special fields and imposed ceilings on the
number of personnel. Oak Ridge was made the lead laboratory for
coal technology and fuel reprocessing, and the Laboratory was told
that its staff could not exceed 5165 personnel for 1979.
The Carter administration proved more interested in energy
conservation and "soft" energy than in nuclear energy. Taking its
cues from Washington, the Laboratory began to emphasize small
programs in geothermal and solar energy initiated under ERDA. The
Environmental Sciences Division also initiated intensive study of
wood and herbaceous biomass--fast-growing trees and grasses that
could be converted to a renewable energy resource.
John Michel managed the Laboratory's research on geothermal energy
using hot water and steam formed within the earth. This included
research in the Chemistry Division on scaling and brine chemistry,
in the Metals and Ceramics Division on corrosion, and in the
Engineering Technology and Energy divisions on cold-vapor,
low-temperature heat cycles. The collective goal of this technical
research was to upgrade the efficiency of producing electricity
with geothermal energy. A related research program studied ways to
improve heat exchangers to capture the oceans' thermal energy.
Rather than burning the rocks and burning the seas with nuclear
energy--a dream of the 1960s--this research sought to extract
low-level energy from the earth and ocean in kinder and gentler
ways.
The Laboratory's solar energy research was circumscribed by
formation of a special DOE laboratory, the Solar Energy Research
Institute in Colorado (now called the National Renewable Energy
Laboratory). Robert Pearlstein became coordinator of Oak Ridge's
small solar program, which included fruitful research in the three
Laboratory divisions. Eli Greenbaum and associates in the Chemistry
and Chemical Technology divisions investigated the production of
hydrogen from water by using green plant materials to capture and
convert the sun's energy catalytically, while the Solid State
Division program, directed by Richard Wood, investigated improved
photovoltaic solar cells for converting sunlight directly into
power.
Funded initially as a seed money project, John Cleland's team in
the Solid State Division developed a new method of doping silicon
to produce the semiconductors used in solar cells. Instead of using
chemical doping methods, a silicon isotope in samples inserted in
the Bulk Shielding Reactor was transmuted into phosphorus through
interactions with neutrons. This process provided uniform
distribution of phosphorus in the silicon, thereby improving the
efficiency of solar cells fabricated from this material.
In a related development, the Solid State Division in 1978 used
lasers to prepare silicon for solar cell fabrication. To provide
good distribution within the silicon, ions of a dopant such as
boron were deposited on a silicon surface or implanted among the
atoms at the surface using an ion accelerator. Lasers were used for
diffusing the boron throughout the silicon and for removing crystal
imperfections introduced in the implantation process. This
combination of ion implantation doping and laser annealing, which
was initiated primarily by Rosa Young and C. W. (Woody) White,
spurred fundamental and applied studies in processing solids. The
Surface Modification and Characterization Research Center, started
by Bill Appleton and later headed by White and David Poker, became
the focal point for these studies. Housed initially in the old
fanhouse of the Graphite Reactor, the center became a DOE user
facility that hosts many university and industry collaborators.
ALMOST A MECCA
To observe firsthand the Laboratory's research achievements and to
soothe the Laboratory's ill feelings generated by his decision to
oppose the Clinch River Breeder Reactor Project, President Carter
visited Oak Ridge in May 1978 at the request of Senator James
Sasser. The president brought his science advisor and energy staff
with him. Remembering his service as an officer in Admiral
Rickover's nuclear navy, Carter declared, "Oak Ridge was almost
like Mecca for us because this is where the basic work was done
that, first of all, contributed to the freedom of the world and
ended the war and, secondly, shifted very rapidly to peaceful use
of nuclear power."
The first president to visit the Laboratory while in office, Carter
enjoyed technical presentations and a roundtable discussion with a
group of scientists in the auditorium of building 4500-North.
There, the president seemed particularly interested in Lee Berry's
description of fusion research, asking how it compared with Soviet
research. Berry responded that the United States may have enjoyed
a slight lead in the fusion race. Sandy McLaughlin appealed to the
president's environmental interests by describing Laboratory
research on the ecological effects of atmospheric pollutants.
Then in the lobby of Building 4500 North, Postma introduced him to
Charles Scott, who described bioreactor experiments; Samuel Hurst,
who discussed the ORNL development using lasers to detect single
atoms of a target element among millions of atoms of other
elements; and John Jones, who explained a fluidized-bed coal burner
designed to cogenerate power and heat.
Laboratory personnel greeted the president with respectful cheers,
surprising local reporters who thought the president's opposition
to the proposed Clinch River Breeder Reactor Project and subsequent
political decision to move a centrifuge plant from Oak Ridge to
Portsmouth, Ohio, would elicit a less enthusiastic response.
President Carter, however, was near the peak of his popularity at
the time of his visit to the Laboratory. Afterward, events, such as
the Iranian hostage crisis, plagued his administration,
exacerbating the national energy crisis and inevitably affecting
Laboratory activities.
QUICK RESPONSES
The March 1979 accident at Three Mile Island Unit 2 surprised
nuclear experts at the Laboratory and elsewhere. Although nuclear
safety research had concentrated on the risks of pipe rupture and
the possibility of loss-of-coolant accidents in light-water
reactors, the Three Mile Island accident in Pennsylvania resulted
instead from a pressure valve that stuck and inaccurate
instrumentation and human error that complicated the emergency.
Having a national reputation in the safety field, Laboratory staff
led by Fred Mynatt became immersed in the Three Mile Island
emergency and subsequent analysis.
When the company owning the disabled reactor called Floyd Culler at
the Electric Power Research Institute for help, Culler (who had
just left the Laboratory after 25 years of service, including one
year as acting director) contacted Postma and other Laboratory
officials, as did the staff of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
During the emergency, Laboratory personnel served as consultants
and on-site analysts. Seventy-five staff members performed
technical and analytical research during the emergency or
subsequently provided information to the committee appointed by
President Carter to investigate the accident.
The Laboratory helped the industry recover from the accident in
many ways, including forming several response teams organized by
Don Trauger. An Industrial Safety and Applied Health Physics
Division team, led by Roy Clark, monitored emissions of
radioactivity from the plant after the accident, while Robert
Brooksbank's team minimized radioactive iodine releases by adding
chemicals to the cooling system and by arranging replacement of the
filters used to cleanse reactor gases before their release into the
atmosphere. The absence of significant iodine releases was in part
a testament to their success.
The Chemical Technology Division designed systems to store the
contaminated water and remove the fission products. Robert Kryter
and Dwayne Frye, both of the Instrumentation and Controls Division,
supervised installation of monitors that replaced the damaged
sensing systems inside the reactors. Wilbur (Dub) Shults and an
Analytical Chemistry team analyzed samples from the accident site
to assess the severity of contamination and devise cleanup
strategies. An Engineering Technology Division group led by Mario
Fontana and a Metals and Ceramics Division team led by David Hobson
examined core cooling and debris problems, zircaloy cladding
damage, and fission product releases. A group led by David Bartine
addressed radiation and shielding issues. Joel Buchanan led the
team studying the hydrogen in the reactor, and David Thomas
supervised an Engineering Technology Division group that fabricated
an electrical core to simulate the accident in the Thermal
Hydraulic Test Facility.
Accident investigations and recovery activities continued for
years, and the Laboratory took pride in its emergency response.
Anthony Malinauskas and David Campbell's review of the issues
surrounding releases of radioactive iodine to the atmosphere for
President Carter's commission and the NRC proved especially useful.
They concluded that the reactor released far less iodine than
expected because much of it remained in the reactor.
The accident at Three Mile Island forever changed the public's
attitude toward nuclear power. The Laboratory's response, however,
helped provide a sound scientific base for understanding the causes
and effects of the most serious mishap in the history of the U.S.
commercial nuclear industry.
Later in 1979, the nation and the Laboratory became troubled by the
revolution in Iran and the hostage and energy crises that ensued.
Visiting Iran shortly before the revolution to discuss training
Iranian technicians at the Laboratory, Associate Director Don
Trauger observed firsthand the political instability there. He
refused, however, to describe the subsequent acute petroleum
shortage as another energy crisis. After a decade of energy crises,
he believed that it was time for the nation and world to accept the
shortages of adequate energy supplies as a persistent and chronic
problem. "`Crises' imply unexpected situations that can be set
straight by rapid, aggressive responses." Instead, Trauger
suggested that "we must hurry to find solutions, but we must not
become overly impatient in our quest."
Laboratory energy conservation efforts accelerated during the
Iranian embargo. The Laboratory converted its steam power plants
from natural gas and petroleum back to coal and turned to gasohol
to fuel some of its vehicles. It could not, however, find a local
gasohol supplier and had to use its own staff to mix gasoline with
ethanol. In addition, the Laboratory's environmental impacts group
was commandeered to analyze implementation of the Strategic
Petroleum Reserve--a federally sponsored effort to store large
quantities of oil that could be tapped in times of emergency. The
Strategic Petroleum Reserve later would serve an important role in
stabilizing oil prices during the Persian Gulf War of 1991.
CONSTANCY OF CHANGE
In 1980, the Laboratory found itself caught in the impasse between
Congress and President Carter over the Clinch River Breeder Reactor
Project. Funding for the Laboratory's breeder research to support
the reactor and fuel reprocessing was slashed significantly--a blow
to fission research that further discouraged the Laboratory's
dwindling number of Manhattan-era researchers.
"This last defeat has convinced gray eagles like myself that the
rainbow we have been following for the past 30 years may indeed not
have the long sought-after pot of gold at the end," lamented Peter
Patriarca, head of the Laboratory's breeder reactor materials
research program. "I feel that I and others like me have
accomplished a lot in 30 years of service, but we really haven't
achieved the ultimate and that is my disappointment."
Still, 1980 was a banner year for many Laboratory programs. For the
first time, the budget exceeded $300 million. Of this total, $20
million was subcontracted to universities and $60 million to
industry to support research and engineering. Completed in 1979,
the new Environmental Sciences Laboratory eased staff crowding.
Three new user facilities opened in 1980, marking the culmination
of three successful programs launched in the 1970s: the National
Environmental Research Park, the Holifield Heavy Ion Research
Facility, and the National Center for Small-Angle Scattering
Research.
The user facility concept evolved from a fundamental change at DOE.
Before 1979, many Laboratory personnel collaborated informally with
scientists from outside the Laboratory. That year, DOE made it
official policy that DOE facilities were to be opened to outside
users for cooperative and proprietary research and development.
The Oak Ridge National Environmental Research Park, comprising
12,400 acres of protected land for environmental science research
and education, opened in 1980 as the fifth outdoor laboratory of
the Department of Energy. Nearly surrounding the Laboratory, it
made up about a third of the Oak Ridge Reservation. Here,
scientists inventoried plant and animal species; monitored the
dynamics behind climate and ecological change; undertook studies of
contaminant transport and bioremediation; and cooperated with
local, regional, and private agencies to promote science and
environmental education. Nearly 20,000 students from kindergarten
to high school visited this park annually as part of their science
education programs. The Walker Branch Watershed in the park emerged
as a key experimental facility for biogeochemical and hydrologic
research.
One early research effort in the park tested bird and small animal
habitat models later used by the Army Corps of Engineers to prepare
environmental impact statements for construction projects. Another
early research effort examined atmospheric deposition of pollutants
for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Turbulence and Diffusion
Laboratory located in Oak Ridge.
Former Congressman Chet Holifield participated in the December 1980
dedication of the Holifield Heavy Ion Research Facility named after
him. "One more curiosity of the scientifically oriented human mind"
was Holifield's description of the awesome tower and the pelletron
accelerator it housed.
Twice as powerful as any other machine of its type, the accelerator
in the tower was coupled with the Oak Ridge Isochronous Cyclotron
to convert heavy ions into high-speed projectiles. Colliding with
targets, these projectiles produced results that helped to
illuminate fundamental nuclear science. Laymen were more amazed by
the spin spectrometer, a clustered array of gamma-ray detectors,
dubbed a "crystal ball," used to measure the energies of the gamma
rays emitted by the products of the heavy-ion collisions.
Like the environmental park, the Holifield Heavy Ion Research
Facility was designated a national DOE user facility. Over the
years, it hosted numerous scientists from around the world. By the
late 1980s, nearly a quarter of all Ph.D. degrees in low-energy
nuclear physics involved work done at this facility. Oak Ridge
Associated Universities organized the University Isotope Separator
of Oak Ridge (UNISOR) group of universities that conducted studies
using an isotope separator at the end of one of Holifield's beam
lines. The Physics Division under Paul Stelson and later Jim Ball
formed and built the Joint Institute for Heavy Ion Research on DOE
land using funding from Vanderbilt University and the University of
Tennessee. The institute has been a model of scientific
cooperation. This mostly underground, energy-efficient structure
designed by Laboratory architect Hanna Shapira also has served as
a visible symbol of the Laboratory's commitment to energy
conservation.
The National Center for Small-Angle Scattering Research was the
Laboratory's third user facility opened in 1980. Small-angle
neutron scattering blossomed during the 1970s as a way to explore
certain types of microscopic structures. Although two laboratories
using this scientific technique existed in the United States, they
were not readily available to independent researchers. In 1977 the
National Science Foundation (NSF) proposed to fund a center for use
by scientists nationwide. Wallace Koehler and Robert Hendricks, who
had developed a small-angle X-ray scattering instrument, submitted
a proposal to establish a user-oriented, small-angle scattering
center at the Laboratory. It called for a new small-angle neutron
scattering (SANS) facility at the High Flux Isotope Reactor, along
with access to the Laboratory's existing small-angle X-ray and
neutron scattering devices. Their proposal received NSF approval in
1978.
The new SANS facility, which opened in 1980 at the High Flux
Isotope Reactor, included a position-sensitive detector designed by
Casimir Borkowski and Manfred Kopp for determining the directions
and intensities of the scattered neutrons. Initially directed by
Koehler and later by George Wignall, the SANS facility was
comparable to the best facilities in Europe, and the center offered
a combination of X-ray and neutron scattering that made the
Laboratory a mecca for this type of materials research.
With these new facilities, the Laboratory entered the 1980s
prepared for its role as a user-oriented institution that could
host scientists from around the world. After a decade of energy
crises and constant transition, the Laboratory seemed to have
adjusted well to its new role as a multiprogram laboratory of the
Department of Energy.
During the presidential election of late 1980, however, candidate
Ronald Reagan complained that DOE had not produced a single
additional barrel of oil and promised to dismantle Carter's
creation. By Christmas of that year, Reagan's transition team
announced it had profound changes in mind for both DOE and its
national laboratories.
In less than a month, they would have an opportunity to put those
ideas into practice. Barely having caught its breath from a decade
of whirlwind change in energy policy and direction, the Laboratory
was poised for yet another transition. The Reagan years were about
to begin.
SIDEBARS
DIRECTOR HERMAN POSTMA
Born of Dutch parents in Wilmington, North Carolina, Herman Postma
attended Duke University and earned graduate degrees at Harvard
University. He spent the summers from 1954 to 1957 working in
ORNL's Electronuclear and Physics divisions and joined the
Laboratory staff in 1959, later spending time in the Netherlands as
a visiting scientist at the Dutch institute for plasma physics.
As a scientist, he is credited with developing neutral beam
injection and stochastic heating methods to heat plasmas in fusion
devices and with devising solutions to plasma stability problems
standing in the way of achieving fusion goals.
Only 40 years old when appointed Laboratory director in 1974, he
was the first director without Manhattan Project experience. His
background, moreover, was in fusion energy, not nuclear fission
energy on which the Laboratory had traditionally focused.
Coinciding with the creation of the Energy Research and Development
Administration and the oil embargo crisis, his appointment marked
a sweeping change of direction for the Laboratory.
During his 14 years as director, Postma applied professional
management techniques to Laboratory administration and presided
over the broad expansion of its programs to cover all forms of
energy. He provided stability during the turbulent transitions from
the AEC to ERDA to DOE and beyond and diversified the research
through work for government agencies other than DOE. A significant
push to transfer technology to American industry began during this
time. He helped forge closer ties between ORNL and regional
institutions, especially through the Distinguished Scientist
program jointly sponsored by the Laboratory and the University of
Tennessee.
Postma became a senior vice president of Martin Marietta Energy
Systems in 1988 and retired in 1992.
SKYJACK `72
On the morning of Veteran's Day in November 1972, a commercial DC-9
circled over Oak Ridge amid threats that it would be deliberately
crashed into the Laboratory or perhaps the Y-12 or K-25 plants.
Three men wanted on criminal charges, holding hand grenades with
the pins pulled, took over the plane carrying 27 passengers and 4
crew members. If their demands for a $10 million ransom and
parachutes were not met, they threatened to crash the aircraft into
an AEC facility.
Although few personnel were at the Oak Ridge facilities because of
the holiday, the AEC closed the facilities, shut down the reactors,
and evacuated personnel except for security forces. After circling
Oak Ridge for two tense hours, the plane flew to Lexington for
refueling. In less than an hour, it was back over Oak Ridge, with
the skyjackers again threatening to crash the plane into the
facilities if their payoff demands were not met by 1:00 p.m. that
day. Ground investigators, in the meantime, learned that the
criminals were from Oak Ridge, Knoxville, and Detroit and were
prison escapees and bail jumpers.
After lengthy negotiations by radio, the criminals landed the plane
at Chattanooga, where they received part of the cash ransom and
left the area headed south. At another refueling stop near Orlando,
Florida, waiting FBI sharpshooters shot out the plane's tires in an
attempt to prevent its takeoff. The criminals, however, shot the
co-pilot and forced the pilot to get the plane airborne. The
skyjackers ordered the plane to Cuba, where the pilot made a safe
landing, even without tires. There, the skyjackers entered the
waiting arms of Communist soldiers. After their return to the
United States, the exhausted passengers commented that the
highlight of their trip was watching Cuban soldiers take the ransom
money from the criminals and march them away under guard.
As the drama unfolded aboard the airplane, the Laboratory and Oak
Ridge facilities reopened at 3:00 p.m. that day. The incident, in
fact, caused little stir in the Oak Ridge community because both a
National Guard airlift to Fort Campbell and a mock Civil Defense
disaster drill had been planned and were under way in the town on
that holiday. Two days following the incident, the Laboratory
restored its nuclear reactors to full operation.
This incident at Oak Ridge was one of the most frightening of more
than 150 skyjacking attempts made during the early 1970s, prompting
the intense airport security screening instituted in the following
years.
NUCLEAR FUEL REPROCESSING
As the pilot plant for plutonium separation, the Laboratory took
the lead in processing nuclear fuel during World War II. Design and
operation of its separations building, adjacent to the Graphite
Reactor, provided a prototype for the concrete "canyons" built at
Hanford, Washington.
After the war, plans called for constructing a plant that would use
the wartime precipitation methods to process fuel from the
Materials Testing Reactor. John Swartout of the Chemistry Division
and Frank Steahly of the Chemical Technology Division insisted,
however, that the solvent-extraction method was more efficient and
less costly than the precipitation method for recovering uranium
and plutonium from spent fuel. As a result, the "25
solvent-extraction process" was adopted and used in the plant built
in Idaho.
During the following decades, Laboratory teams headed by Floyd
Culler, Frank Bruce, Raymond Wymer, William Unger, and others set
the pace in the design and piloting of nuclear fuel reprocessing
plants. Their designs became the basis for immense processing
plants built at Hanford; Savannah River, South Carolina; and
elsewhere throughout the world. Although their plans to recover
plutonium from the Clinch River Breeder Reactor were suspended
along with the reactor itself, the technology Laboratory
researchers developed proved useful in the 1990s when the
Laboratory cooperated with Japanese scientists in design of breeder
reactor processing plants.
This technology, developed by the Fuel Recycle Division under
William Burch, included remotely controlled "servomanipulators" for
work in environments too hazardous for humans. The division's
growing expertise in remote handling technology led to its change
in name to the Robotics and Process Systems Division.
THE CARTER VISIT
On May 22, 1978, President Jimmy Carter visited the Laboratory and
other Oak Ridge facilities. He was accompanied by Department of
Energy Secretary James Schlesinger, Presidential science advisor
Frank Press, DOE Research Director John Deutch, and Tennessee
Senator James Sasser. His visit attracted many members of the local
and national press, including Sam Donaldson of ABC news.
President Carter arrived at the Laboratory in a limousine about
noon and walked to a packed Central Auditorium in Building
4500-North. There he sat at a table with managers and researchers
for a roundtable discussion. He spoke briefly, and Director Herman
Postma introduced researchers selected because their research was
thought to be of interest to the president.
Laboratory staff members had mixed feelings about the president.
Many were excited about his arrival because he was the first U.S.
president to visit the Laboratory while in office. Many were proud
because this former governor of Georgia was the first president
from the Southeast and because he had worked on a Navy submarine as
a nuclear engineer under the supervision of Admiral Hyman Rickover.
But many staff members who had long supported nuclear power
disagreed with Carter's opposition to the development of breeder
reactors. His stance was based on his concern that the plutonium
produced in such devices might be diverted by terrorists and outlaw
nations to make bombs.
At the roundtable discussion, President Carter told employees, "I
think the success that we will strive to achieve in the energy
field is heavily on your shoulders." He also spoke of the unsolved
problems of safe disposal of nuclear waste and proper storage and
use of spent nuclear fuel.
President Carter then listened to the Laboratory researchers at the
roundtable: Bob Honea and Patricia Rice, on use of computers to
study potential impacts of the president's proposed National Energy
Plan; Henry Inouye, on development of alloys that grow stronger as
temperatures increase; Pete Lotts, on design of nuclear fuel
elements and cycles to prevent diversion of fissionable materials;
Sandy McLaughlin, on effects of air pollution on vegetation; Liane
Russell, on genetic effects on mice of synthetic fuel compounds
derived from coal; and Lee Berry, on magnetic fusion research,
including the Laboratory's work in plasma heating and plans for an
international test of six superconducting magnetic coils.
The president expressed particular interest in Berry's talk and
asked him several questions including, "Is there any limiting
characteristic of fusion that causes you the most concern?" Berry
replied that his only concern was whether the engineered fusion
systems of the future could be integrated to produce power. "We can
make a reactor," Berry said, searching for an analogy. "But the
question is, will it fly? I mean, will it go under water and come
up again?" The audience, and presumably the president, laughed.
After the discussion, the president was escorted to the East Lobby
of Building 4500-North, where he was shown several exhibits. He
heard about the development of fluidized-bed coal burners (from
John Jones); tertiary recovery of oil (from Alicia Compere); use of
bioreactors to degrade hazardous substances and produce desired
chemicals (from Chuck Scott); and detection of single atoms of
target elements using lasers (from Sam Hurst).
How did the researchers feel about the President after his visit?
According to The Oak Ridger, the researchers were impressed by "the
keenness of the President's mind, the perceptiveness of his
questions, and the sincerity of his interest in what other
scientists were saying." Such a rare dialogue between scientists
and a U.S. president will remain a highlight of Laboratory history.
OAK RIDGE'S ENVIRONMENTAL PARK
A park nearly surrounds the original X-10 site today. Established
in 1980, the Oak Ridge National Environmental Research Park offers
12,400 acres of protected land for environmental sciences research
and education. One of six Department of Energy environmental
research parks located at sites across the nation, it affords
opportunities for scientists to investigate the ecology of the
forests of southern Appalachia.
The Laboratory's Environmental Sciences Division for many years has
used the park area for research, creating a large base of
information that is available to guest researchers. In the park,
the Laboratory encourages research relating to energy, ecosystem
dynamics, contaminant transport, and bioremediation. Scientists
from universities, industrial firms, and other institutions submit
their research proposals to the Laboratory for advance review and
in selected cases qualify for funding assistance. Visited annually
by 20,000 students, ranging in class level from kindergarten to
college, the park contributes substantially to environmental
education in the United States.
Because it forms a broad forested band nearly encompassing the
original X-10 site, the Oak Ridge National Environmental Research
Park also guarantees a continuation of the rural flavor that has
characterized the Laboratory's history.
(keywords: Oak Ridge National Laboratory, history)
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Date Posted: 2/22/94 (ktb)