Sailor says that after they left Japan, it felt as if the ocean itself was dead for 3,000 miles. enenews.com
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Geiger Readings for October 20 2013
Ambient office = 100 nanosieverts per hour
Ambient outside = 93 nanosieverts per hour
Soil exposed to rain water = 71 nanosieverts per hour
Purple bell pepper from Top Foods = 146 nanosieverts per hour
Tap water = 91 nanosieverts per hour
Filtered water = 77 nanosieverts per hour
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Geiger Readings for October 19, 2013
Ambient office = 56 nanosieverts per hour
Ambient outside = 105 nanosieverts per hour
Soil exposed to rain water = 98 nanosieverts per hour
White bell pepper from Top Foods = 115 nanosieverts per hour
Tap water = 121 nanosieverts per hour
Filtered water = 116 nanosieverts per hour
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Nuclear Reactors 70 – Nuclear Breeder Reactors 11 – History of UK Breeder Reactors 2
My recent posts have been about breeder reactors which generate more fissile material than they consume. There is renewed global interest in breeder reactors for the production of nuclear fuel and the destruction of nuclear waste. Today’s post is the second in a series about the history and current status of breeder reactors in the United Kingdom.
In the mid 1970s, even with the many problems that plagued the Prototype Fast Reactor project (PFR), the Atomic Energy Agency was still pushing for a fleet of breeder reactors. The AEA had been lobbying the British government for permission to build a fuel scale fast breeder reactor with over a gigawatt capacity referred to as the Commercial Fast Reactor (CFR). By 1976, the AEA was spending over a hundred million British pounds a year on research, development for the CFR.
In 1976, the Flowers Commission called for a clear distinction between a full scale commercial fast breeder reactor and a demonstration breeder reactor. The commission was concerned about all the problems that the DFR and PFR revealed with respect to fast breeder reactor design. A Royal Commission also questioned the wisdom of moving to what Glenn Seaborg called a “plutonium economy.” These commissions were in direct opposition to the rapid development of a fleet of fast breeder reactors.
In May 1977, at the Dounreay site on the coast of Scotland, a variety of discarded materials were stuffed down a tunnel dug under the seabed to dispose of waste. The sodium-potassium coolant mixed with the other waste generated hydrogen gas which resulted in an explosion that blew of the five ton lid on the tunnel. Debris from the tunnel was scattered over a wide area. This accident happened less than a month before a public hearing on the proposed Thermal Oxide Reprocessing Plant (THORP) at the Windscale facility. THORP was designed to reprocess plutonium from the fleet of fast breeder reactor power stations envisioned by the AEA.
Despite the skepticism of the previous commissions with respect to the construction of a full scale fast breeder power reactor, there were still calls for a single demonstration fast breeder reactor. The AEA however wanted to build a commercial reactor rather than an experimental reactor because if they built a power reactor, it would be paid for by the electrical utilities and not the AEA. The Central Electricity Generation Board said that they would make land available and let the AEA hook up the new reactor to the national grid but they would not pay for it. There had been a softening of demand for electricity since the oil crisis of 1974 and national utilities already had excess capacity. In 1978, the British government shifted support from fast breeder reactors to pressurize water reactors for power generation.
The election of Margret Thatcher in 1979 resulted in renewed support for fast breeders. The official position was that the UK was a leader in fast breeder research and that fast breeders were important because of their ability to breed more fissile material for fuel. Critics said that the money being poured into worldwide research into fast breeder reactors was difficult to justify because of the complexity and cost of reprocessing spent nuclear fuel.
In 1984, a government report was issued that stated over two hundred and forty million British pounds had been spent on fast breeders so far and that another hundred and thirty billion would need to be spent to commercialize fast breeder reactors by 2015. The report was not enthusiastic about expending such huge sums of money for a program that might bear fruit in thirty years.
In 1985, just as the AEA was promoting the construction of a European Demonstration Reprocessing Plant for the fast breeder reactor at Dounreay, the Thatcher government cut funding for fast breeder development. The disaster at Chernobyl in the Soviet Union in 1986 shocked the whole world and cast a pall over nuclear energy development in general.
In 1988, the British government slashed funds for fast breeder development from one hundred million pounds to ten million pounds annually. Work on the PFR was to end in 1994 and work on reprocessing was to end in 1997. The vision of powering the UK with fast breeder reactors was abandoned.
Prototype Fast Reactor building at Dounreay:
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Geiger Readings for October 18, 2013
Ambient office = 85 nanosieverts per hour
Ambient outside = 81 nanosieverts per hour
Soil exposed to rain water = 81 nanosieverts per hour
Orange bell pepper from Top Foods = 88 nanosieverts per hour
Tap water = 96 nanosieverts per hour
Filtered water = 67 nanosieverts per hour
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Nuclear Reactors 69 – Nuclear Breeder Reactors 10 – History of UK Breeder Reactors 1
My recent posts have been about breeder reactors which generate more fissile material than they consume. There is renewed global interest in breeder reactors for the production of nuclear fuel and the destruction of nuclear waste. I have been covering the history of United States breeder reactor research and development in the past several posts. Today I am going to briefly review the history and current status of breeder reactors in the United Kingdom.
Around 1950, the British were seriously talking about breeder reactors because uranium was scarce and expensive. Early on, researchers were skeptical about the feasibility of creating full scale breeder reactors but work did begin in 1955 on an experimental breeder reactor at Dounreay (DFR) on the coast of Scotland under the new Atomic Energy Authority (AEA). The reactor started operation at the end of 1959. The reactor utilized a molten sodium-potassium alloy for cooling which resulted in many problems. They did actually manage to supply power from the reactor to the national grid in 1962.
With the successful operation of the DFR, there were enthusiastic projections for the creation of gigawatt fast breeder reactors by 1975. There were estimates that the cost of such reactors would be similar to the cost of conventional nuclear power reactors. Design work was carried out for a demonstration project called the Prototype Fast Reactor (PFR). In 1968, the AEA said that it wanted to have at least fifteen gigawatts of breeder reactor power generation online by 1986. Although they were still having problems with the DFR, in 1970, the AEA said that they were confident that a commercial fast breeder reactor with more than a gigawatt of capacity could be online by 1974. Work on the PFR kept falling farther behind schedule and the optimistic 1974 date for commercial power generation had to be abandoned.
In 1973, the AEA, undaunted by the problems at the DFR and the delay in the PFR, predicted commercial breeder reactors would begin construction around 1976 with the first coming online in 1981. This was thought by some to be too optimistic with only a five year construction schedule but the AEA was confident with their new plan. Just before hosting an international conference on fast breeder reactors in March 1974, the AEA finally managed to turn on the PRF for the first time. At the conference, a paper from the Central Electricity Generation Board was skeptical about the AEA plans. The paper pointed out that safety and reliability were important and fast breeder research had shown many design difficulties. Cost savings were anticipated to be small for a fast implementation of fast breeder power generation. The paper concluded that no fast breeder reactors would be ordered before 1978. Later in 1974, the PFR was only operating at ten percent of full capacity and was having a variety of problems with the cooling system. As of 1976, the PRF was still not up to full capacity and a number of components had to be replaced. in 1977, the PRF was turned off permanently. Even with all the problems the AEA still pushed for a commercial breeder reactor to be built by 1986.
Dounreay AEA facility in 2006:
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Geiger Readings for October 17, 2013
Ambient office = 66 nanosieverts per hour
Ambient outside = 89 nanosieverts per hour
Soil exposed to rain water = 95 nanosieverts per hour
Celery from Top Foods = 184 nanosieverts per hour
Tap water = 75 nanosieverts per hour
Filtered water = 70 nanosieverts per hour
