Part 3: The Case for a Protopark at Hanford

Part 3: The Case for a Protopark at Hanford

The Hanford Reservation, Figure 1, is a 586 square mile federal property on the Columbia River north of Richland, Washington. Hanford's main function during World War II and the early part of the Cold War was the production of weapons grade plutonium. But plutonium production started shutting down in the 1960's and by 1985, Hanford with a few exceptions was being decommissioned.

Figure 1. The Hanford Reservation

There are numerous possible locations for a protopark at Hanford. But I want to call your attention to the sites labeled 100 on Figure 1. This is where General Groves, the head of the Manhattan Project, located the plutonium production reactors. There are six 100 sites spaced along the river. Three contained 2 reactors; three, a single reactor. Like the Russian RBMK reactor which exploded at Chernobyl, these were water cooled, graphite moderated reactors which had no containment. Like the RBMK, 8 of the 9 could be put into an unstable state.

Any properly designed reactor has the property that an increase in temperature, decreases power. If the temperature increases enough, the reactor will shut itself down. The EBR2 demonstated this capability. This is totally automatic, built into the physics of the reactor. There is nothing a confused operator or a malfunctioning control system can do to stop this shut down. If you think about it, it is almost magic.

However, the RBMK and the Hanford reactors could be put in a condition where an increase in temperature increases power. This increase in power then increases temperature which increases power, which .... Boom.

The oft repeated statement: Americans would never build a reactor like the RBMK is false. General Groves said he expected to be awakened one night with the news that one of these reactors had blown up. So he did the sensible thing. He located the reactors 30 miles from the nearest population center at Richland; and spread them far enough apart from each other, so that, if one site had a casualty, the weapons grade plutonium would continue to flow from the other sites.

As well as remoteness, Hanford has a number of other advantages:

1) Access to cooling water.

2) High voltage grid connections. The 1170 megawatt Columbia Generating Station is located on the reservation.

3) Already has a Low Level Waste disposal site.

4) Security is already in place.

For those concepts which envision modular construction, the site is nearly ideal. Massive blocks can be brought upriver to the Reservation. Decommissioned US Navy submarine reactor compartments weighing up to 1600 tons are barged to a landing at the southern tip of Hanford. and then moved by shipyard-style transporters 22 miles inland to a massive trench.

Large block construction is the key to obtaining assembly line productivity and quality. It is also essential to having a viable export industry in which nearly all the labor input is in the exporting country. A protopark that cannot efficiently test such concepts will restrict US exports to individual components.

This is some of the most studied real estate in the world. Seismic, archaeological, geologic and environmental studies have been done. Some of the new concepts are underground or partly underground. The unusual geology of Hanford --- semi-consolidated deposits laid down by glacial floods --- makes excavation cheap and predictable.

The region has an 80 year nuclear history. The locals are comfortable with nuclear power, and as a group are supportive, and in some cases enthusiastic, about a protopark at Hanford.

If one were to dream up the ideal requirements for a protopark site, it would look a lot like Hanford.