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HANFORD

Defense Production Reactors

B Reactor

On December 2, 1942, under the stadium at the University of Chicago, Enrico Fermi demonstrated that a nuclear chain reaction could be sustained and controlled. Within weeks of the Chicago demonstration, President Roosevelt made the decision to produce larger versions of the Fermi reactor. Several sites were studied, but for a variety of reasons, Hanford was chosen. The Columbia River provided the many thousands of gallons of water per minute needed to cool the reactors, while Grand Coulee Dam supplied the electric power the project demanded. Construction of B Reactor began June 7, 1943, just six months after the Fermi demonstration. Fermi and a team of engineers and technicians first started the reactor only 15 months later on the evening of September 26, 1944.

The reactor was started and was gaining power. Then, inexplicably, power began to drop until the reactor shut down. Several hours later, it spontaneously recovered, then shut down again just as it had before. This cycle occurred several times. Fermi spent several hours calculating on a slide rule. His conclusion was that an isotope (Xenon 135), produced during the fission process, was shutting the reactor down. He determined that adding more uranium fuel would solve the problem. It did. Fortunately, when engineers had originally designed the reactor, they had created a symmetrical pattern of pressure tubes that actually included more tubes than scientists thought they would need. Without those extra tubes, there would have been no place to put the additional uranium fuel.

B Reactor was the first wartime reactor to go into operation at Hanford. By the following summer, enough plutonium had been produced to manufacture two nuclear weapons. The goal of the Manhattan project had been achieved, a goal which helped bring to end the war with Japan.

C Reactor

The C Reactor Interim Safe Storage Project involved placing the 46-year-old reactor in an interim safe-storage mode. When the work was completed at the end of fiscal year (FY) 1998, the C Reactor became the first production reactor in the U.S. Department of Energy complex to be placed in safe storage. The new smaller, safer facility will shield the reactor's core from the environment for up to 75 years or until final disposition. Decontamination and Decommissioning (D&D) personnel completed demolition and removal of the C Reactor pumphouse facility. This large building housed 10 giant pumps that provided the reactor with cooling water from the Columbia River. Today, all that remains of the pumphouse is a large, empty, clean lot. Demolition work that was originally scheduled for FY98 was accelerated, and the northwest and southwest portions of the reactor building were demolished.

N Reactor

N Reactor operated as a graphite-moderated, water-cooled reactor in Hanford's 100 Area on the bank of the Columbia River. It was the only dual-purpose reactor in the United States. N Reactor's primary purpose was to produce special nuclear materials for national defense programs. Its steam byproduct was used to generate electricity at the adjacent Hanford Generating Plant facility owned by the Washington Public Power Supply System. It produced up to 4,000 megawatts of heat and up to 13 million pounds per hour of low pressure steam to generate 860 megawatts of electricity.

The reactor first went critical on December 31, 1963. It achieved full power by December 9, 1964. The first generation of electrical power occurred on April 8, 1966, with the completion of The Hanford Generating Plant. The Safety Enhancement Program was started in 1987. N Reactor was ordered placed in cold standby in February 1988, with cold standby achieved in October 1, 1989. The fuel fabrication portion of the plant was placed in standby January 1989. After evaluating the United States defense needs, DOE directed deactivation activities to begin September 1991.

Deactivation activities are in the final stages at N Reactor, the last of the Hanford Site's nine production reactors to cease operations. By the end of fiscal year (FY) 1997, the majority of the deactivation work at N Reactor was complete. When deactivation work finished in FY98, N Reactor's annual surveillance and maintenance costs were reduced from $1,400,000 to $400,000.

The 105-N Fuel Storage Basin cleanup represents a major portion of N Reactor Deactivation. It involves removing fuel-handling equipment, consolidating basin sediments in a single basin location, characterizing and then removing the sediment, removing, treating, and disposing of basin water, and stabilizing basin surfaces to prevent re-suspension of radioactive particulates into the air.

Fast Flux Test Facility

The Fast Flux Test Facility (FFTF) is a a 400-megawatt (thermal) liquid-metal (sodium) cooled fast neutron flux nuclear test reactor located in the 400 Area of the Hanford Site that has been shut down, defueled, and is undergoing deactivation. While construction was completed in 1978, FFTF operation did not begin until 1980. Its mission was to test plant equipment and fuel for the U.S. Government's liquid metal reactor development program. Although the FFTF is not a breeder reactor, this program demonstrated the technology of commercial breeder reactors. From April 1982 to April 1992, the FFTF was a national research facility. It was used to test nuclear fuels, materials, components, and reactor safety designs.

The DOE began to shutdown the FFTF in December 1993. From 1994 through 1997, fuel was moved from the reactor vessel to fuel storage vessels and above-ground dry storage casks. Also, 23 of the 100 operating systems were put into lay up. The DOE ordered the FFTF on standby condition in January 1997. Around that time, about 75 percent of the plant's systems were still operating (e.g., cleanup system, effluent monitoring system, primary and secondary coolant pumps, air handling units, nitrogen inerting of cells, argon process). These processes were to be terminated and transitioned to D&D when the reactor plant is deactivated. Approximately 75 metric tons of irradiated mixed oxide reactor fuel, as well as 320,000 gallons of radioactive liquid sodium, are stored at FFTF. The sodium is in the reactor loops, but will eventually be drained from the reactor into storage vessels outside the power block. The fuel will be washed, placed in dry storage casks, and stored outside the power block. The Secretary of Energy convened a group to evaluate the viability of producing tritium at FFTF, the results of which could have altered the shutdown status of FFTF. When the DOE determined it would not use the facility in tritium production, it completed a program scoping plan in August 1999. After a brief interlude in which a National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) Nuclear Infrastructure Programmatic Environmental Impact Statement (NI-PEIS), which was published in December 2000 (DOE/EIS-0310), evaluated the FFTF as an alternative irradiation services facility the DOE resumed permanent deactivation in December 2001. In late 2002 and into 2003, legal battles temporarily halted cleanup activies.

FFTF photo from November 9, 1978

Photo Number: 094 005 001