Naval nuclear propulsion program, 1975

Transcription

/NAVAL NUCLEAR PROPULSION PROGRAM—1975
STANFORD
LIBRARIES
HEARING
BEFORE THE
SUBCOMMITTEE ON LEGISLATION
OF THE
JOINT COMMITTEE ON ATOMIC ENERGY
CONGRESS OF THE UNITED STATES
NINETY-FOURTH CONGRESS
FIRST SESSION
ON
BBDA FISCAL YEAR 1976 AUTHORIZATION FOR
NAVAL NUCLEAR PROPULSION PROGRAM
THE
TESTIMONY OF ADMIRAL H. G. RICKOVER
MARCH 5, 1975
Printed for the use of the Joint Committee on Atomic Energy
NAVAL NUCLEAR PROPULSION PROGRAM—1975
HEARING
BEFORE THE
OF THE
NINETY-FOURTH CONGRESS
FIRST SESSION
TESTIMONY OF ADMIRAL H. G. RICKOVER
MARCH 5, 1975
Printed for the use of the Joint Committee on Atomic Energy
U.S. GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE
64-038 0
WASHINGTON : 1975
For sale by the Superintendent of Documents, U.S. Government Printing Office
Washington, D.C. - Price $1.55
JOINT COMMITTEE ON ATOMIC ENERGY
JOHN O. PASTORE, Rhode Island, Chairman
MELVIN PRICE. Illinois, Vice Chairman
SENATE
HENRY M. JACKSON, Washington
STUART SYMINGTON, Missouri
JOSEPH M. MONTOYA, New Mexico
JOHN V. TUNNEY, California
HOWARD H. BAKER, JR., Tennessee
CLIFFORD P. CASE, New Jersey
JAMES B. PEARSON, Kansas
JAMES L. BUCKLEY, New York
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
JOHN YOUNG, Texas
TENO RONCALIO, Wyoming
MIKE McCORMACK, Washington
JOHN E. MOSS, California
JOHN B. ANDERSON, Illinois
MANUEL LUJAN, JR., New Mexico
FRANK HORTON, New York
ANDREW J. HINSHAW, California
GEORGE F. MURPHY, Jr., Executive Director
JAMES B. GRAHAM, Assistant Director
ALBION W. KNIGHT, Jr., Professional Staff Member
WILLIAM C. PARLER, Committee Counsel
RANDALL C. STEPHENS, Assistant Counsel
Col. SEYMOUR SHWILLER, USAF (Ret), Technical Consultant
NORMAN P. KLUG, Technical Consultant
LAWRENCE F. ZENKER, GAO Consultant
CHRISTOPHER C. O'MALLEY, Printing Editor
JOSEPH M. MONTOYA, New Mexico, Chairman
SENATE
HENRY M. JACKSON, Washington
JAMES B. PEARSON, Kansas
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
MIKE McCORMACK, Washington
JOHN B. ANDERSON, Illinois
FRANK HORTON, New York
(ID
CONTENTS
TOPICAL SUBJECT LIST
Status of nuclear-powered ships
Cost of naval nuclear program
.
U.S. nuclear attack submarines
Soviet nuclear submarine force
SSN-688 class submarines
Funding for SSN-688 class submarines
New design submarine propulsion plant
Nimitz sea trials
Two reactors vs. four or eight
Young crewmen performed like veterans
Trident
.
Russian advantage in strategic submarines
Cost of Trident program
Advantages of Trident
Alternatives to present Trident design
Brussels Convention of 1962
Importance of excluding warships
NR-1
NR-2
Nuclear surface warships
Size of U.S. Navy
Title VIII
Cost of oil
Which ships should be nuclear
Nuclear aircraft
Cost of power
Light water breeder reactor
Need for breeding
Development cost of LWBR
LWBR will not breed plutonium
Advanced water breeder applications
Naval Reactors laboratories
Nuclear trained naval personnel valuable to industry
Contribution of naval program to commercial nuclear industry
Naval reactors amass over 1,250 reactor years of accident free operation—
Special safety precaution at Shippingport plant
Need for more than self-inspection
Importance of keeping Naval Reactors in ERDA
Radioactive discharges from nuclear propulsion program are insignificantFreedom of Information Act
Request for vast quantities of records
Letters from law center
Scope of recent request
Congressional concern over release of naval nuclear propulsion
information
Professional people will quit
Freedom of Information Act being used to bypass normal legal
procedures
(in)
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IV
HEARING DATE
Wednesday, March 5, 1975
Page
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OPENING REMARKS
Montoya, Hon. M., Chairman, Subcommittee on Legislation, Joint Committee on Atomic Energy
1
STATEMENTS OF ENERGY RESEARCH AND DEVELOPMENT
ADMINISTRATION WITNESSES
Rickover, Adm. Hyman G., Director, Division of Naval Reactors
1-47
Wegner, William, Deputy Director, Division of Naval Reactors. _8, 9, 27, 29, 30,
40,42
Leighton, David T., Associate Director for Surface Ships and the Light
Water Breeder Reactor, Division of Naval Reactors
5, 7,10,14,17,18, 24,
25,42
ADDITIONAL MATERIAL SUBMITTED FOR THE RECORD
Amount appropriated for procurement in the SSN-688 programs through
fiscal year 1975
Letter of March 4, 1975, to Secretary of State Kissinger from Chairman
Price, JCAE on liabilities of nuclear ship operators
Title VIII—Nuclear Powered Navy, excerpted from Public Law 93-365,
August 5, 1974
Extracts from Report No. 93-707 of the Committee on Government Operations to the House of Representatives concerning the Energy Reorganization Act
Letters from the Institute for Public Interest Representation, Georgetown
University Law Center
.
Statement by Admiral Rickover relative to access to information
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APPENDIXES
Appendix I. Naval Nuclear Propulsion Program
Appendix II. Light Water Breeder Reactor Program
Appendix III. Report entitled "Environmental Monitoring and Disposal of
Radioactive Wastes from U.S. Naval Nuclear-Powered Ships and Their
Support Facilities, 1974"
Appendix IV. List of previous hearings and reports on naval nuclear
propulsion
..
Index to March 5, 1975 hearing
49
58
92
118
119
NAVAL NUCLEAR PROPULSION PROGRAM—1975
WEDNESDAY, MARCH 5, 1975
CONGRESS or THE UNITED STATES,
SUBCOMMITTEE ON LEGISLATION OF THE
JOINT COMMITTEE ON ATOMIC ENERGY,
Washington, D.C.
The subcommittee met at 2 p.m., in room H-403, the Capitol, Hon.
Joseph M. Montoya (chairman of the subcommittee) presiding.
Present: Senators Montoya, Case, Baker, and Symington; Representatives Price, McCormack, Horton, Young, and Anderson.
Also present: George F. Murphy, Jr., executive director, James B.
Graham, assistant director, Col. Seymour Shwiller, USAF (retired),
technical consultant.
OPENING REMARKS OF SENATOR MONTOYA
Senator MONTOYA. The subcommittee will be in order.
The Subcommittee on Legislation of the Joint Committee meets
this afternoon in executive session to receive testimony from Admiral
Rickover.
It is always a pleasure to have you with us Admiral Rickover. In
fact, a few minutes ago I was commenting to somebody that I believe
the first time I heard you was when you appeared before the House
Appropriations Committee about 1960 and gave us quite a lecture on
education in this country. Do you recall that ?
Admiral RICKOVER. Yes, sir, I do. That was when Clarence Cannon
was chairman.
Senator MONTOYA. Yes.
I understand that you do not have a prepared statement. You might,
however, want to give us a very quick review of the Navy nuclear
program, particularly because we have a number of new members on
the committee.
I also understand that the Navy has just completed the sea trial of
the nuclear aircraft carrier Nimitz, which you may want to comment
on. And after you have made your statement we will ask you questions.
I want to tell you in advance that if you wish to submit any further
statements in writing you may do so. So you may proceed, Admiral.
(i)
STATEMENT OF ADM. H. G. RICKOVER, DIRECTOR, DIVISION OF
NAVAL REACTORS; ACCOMPANIED BY WILLIAM WEGNER,
DEPUTY DIRECTOR; DAVID T. LEIGHTON, ASSOCIATE DIRECTOR
FOR SURFACE SHIPS AND LWBR; THOMAS L. FOSTER, ASSOCIATE
DIRECTOR FOR FISCAL MATTERS, DIVISION OF NAVAL REACTORS; AND MERWYN GREEK, CONTROLLER, ENERGY RESEARCH
AND DEVELOPMENT ADMINISTRATION
Admiral EICKOVER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I thought it would
be worthwhile to give a brief description of the naval nuclear propulsion program. I expected there would be a number of new committee
members here who are not familiar with this program.
Senator MONTOYA. There has been indication from quite a few that
they will be here.
Admiral RICKOVER. Yes, sir. I have for each member a general information booklet about the program. With your permission a copy can
be included in the record. My remarks will be with respect to what
is in this booklet.
[The booklet referred to appears as appendix I, p. 49.]
For the members who are present at the moment I do not think I
need to explain our organizational arrangement. I will instead briefly
discuss the status of the naval nuclear propulsion program. I am referring to the first page of the second section.
STATUS OF NUCLEAR POWERED SHIPS
We now have 112 nuclear-powered ships in operation. These include
105 nuclear submarines and 7 nuclear surface ships. We have 30 more
nuclear submarines and 6 nuclear surface warships that have been
authorized. There are 6 land-based prototype reactors in operation,
so that altogether there are 131 naval nuclear reactors in operation.
The naval program is the single largest reactor program in the country. We have over 1,250 years of reactor operating experience, and the
nuclear-powered warships have steamed over 28 million miles.
We have trained over 35,000 people, which includes 5,000 officers and
30,000 enlisted men.
COST OP NAVAL NUCLEAR PROGRAM
An important thing is the cost of the naval program. Through fiscal
year 1975 the total investment by the Atomic Energy Commission—
now the Energy Research and Development Administration—is $2.7
billion with $0.5 billion of this amount devoted to equipment and facilities such as prototype reactors and the laboratories. The Navy has
invested $1 billion in research and development. That makes a total
of $3.7 billion for the entire naval nuclear propulsion program less the
cost of the ships.
The total investment to build all the nuclear-powered ships through
fiscal year 1975, including the 112 ships that are operational and the 36
more authorized, is $23.1 billion.
As a comparison the Apollo space program cost somewhere around
$24 to $25 billion. Compare that program to what the country has and
will receive in tangible defense benefits as a result of the investment in
nuclear-powered ships.
I say this because I want you to realize that for the money you have
authorized for over a quarter of a century the country has obtained the
entire nuclear navy, which is one of the best deterrents we have to war.
1 think the country has gotten a good bargain.
U.S. NUCLEAR ATTACK
SUBMARINES
The next chart shows what kind of nuclear attack submarines we
have. There are 64 nuclear attack submarines in operation and the
chart gives you a breakdown on the various types. The type that has
been most widely used is what we call the S5W. There is only one more
nuclear-attack submarine to be put into operation that will use this
plant. After that U.S. nuclear attack submarines will all be of the
high speed SSN-688 or Los Angeles class.
This new class is covered on the next page. It took about 8 years to
get permission through the Defense Department to get the first of this
class authorized. Had it not been for Congress, those ships never would
have been authorized.
The keels of nine SSN-688 class submarines have been laid. The first
one should be delivered this year, and the present Defense Department
plan is to request authorization to build five of these submarines every
2 years.
SOVIET NUCLEAR SUBMARINE FORCE
You can see on this page the characteristics of the Los Angeles class
as compared with the Sturgeon class, the class we have been building
for 7 years. You can see that one of the most important differences in
their characteristics is the speed capability. The Soviets are continuing
to place a high priority on their submarine program. They are presently turning out about four times as many submarines as we are. Intelligence information indicates the Soviets have about 80 attack-type
nuclear submarines, about 40 of which are SSGN's which can fire antiship missiles and torpedoes and about 40 of which are SSN's equipped
to fire torpedoes. We on the other hand have 64 SSN's.
The Soviets already have at sea [deleted] Victor and [deleted] Uniform class nuclear attack submarines [deleted]. The first Soviet Victor
class SSN was operational in 1968. The first SSN-688 class submarine
is expected to go to sea in late 1975. Therefore, the Soviets will have a
lead of 7 years over the United States in operating attack submarines
[deleted].
The SSN-688 class ships, with their high speed of [deleted], advanced sonar and advanced torpedo fire control systems, are expected
to be very effective against the Soviet submarine threat. This ship can
also provide vital direct support for our surface naval forces in an
escort role.
I am being very brief here, but at any time there are questions, please
feel free to interrupt me.
SSN-688 CLASS SUBMARINES
Eepresentative McCoRMACK. Could I interrupt you at this point ?
Admiral RICKOVER. Yes, sir.
Representative MCCORMACK. I am a little bit lost. We are talking
about attack submarines. We have two pages on attack submarines
here. The second page is on the high-speed attack submarine.
Admiral RICKOVER. Yes, sir. That is the one called the SSN-688 or
Los Angeles class.
Representative McCoRMACK. How many of the Los Angeles category
do we have authorized ? Is that the 26 ?
Admiral RICKOVER. We have 26 authorized through fiscal year 1975.
Everything on that page refers to the Los Angeles class, sir. That gives
a comparison with the Sturgeon class, which is the class we will finish
this year when the U.S.S. Richard Russell goes to sea. From then on all
nuclear attack submarines built will be of the SSN-688 class.
Representative McCoRMACK. We have only had one of those launched
so far.
Admiral RICKOVER. No, sir. We have launched two SSN-688 class
submarines. One or two will be operational this year. We are going to
launch several more very soon. The launching date is not a particularly
significant date. We have quite a bit of flexibility as to when we set
that date. It depends largely on the availability of a pierside location
where the fitting out work can be accomplished. The date can be variedf
considerably and does not mean that the ship is at a particular stage ^
completion.
Representative MCCORMACK. Now an attack submarine then i <
strictly an antisubmarine submarine ?
Admiral RICKOVER. It is an antisubmarine and anti-surface-ship submarine. The others which I have mentioned, the Polaris type, also
carry torpedoes, and can operate against surface ships and submarines.
But their primary function is to accomplish their strategic mission.
The torpedoes on those ships are carried primarily to protect themselves. But obviously, the torpedoes could be used for offensive
purposes.
Does that answer your question ?
Representative MCCORMACK. Yes, sir.
Senator MONTOYA. You indicate here you have 26 ships authorized
through fiscal year 1975. How many of these are under construction ?
Admiral RICKOVER. How many of the SSN-688 class? All of the
SSN-637 class submarines are built or under construction.
Senator MONTOYA. How many of the 26 ?
Admiral RICKOVER. Twenty-three are under contract.
Senator MONTOYA. Are under contract.
Admiral RICKOVER. Yes, sir, 23 are under contract now.
Senator MONTOYA. What about the other three ?
Admiral RICKOVER. We have received bids on those.
Senator MONTOYA. Do you have enough funding for all of them
now?
Admiral RICKOVER. Yes, sir, if you include the additional $260 million requested in fiscal year 1976 to cover abnormal inflation. The funding that was considered at the time Congress authorized the ships was
based on estimates for inflation in the year the ships were included. No
one projected the abnormal rates of inflation we have experienced over
the last 2 years, so the Navy has had to request additional funds.
FUNDING FOE SSN-688 CLASS SUBMARINES
Senator MONTOYA. How much funding do you have for the 26, the 23
that are in construction
Admiral RICKOVER. I will supply that for the record.
[The information supplied follows:]
AMOUNT APPROPRIATED
FOR PROCUREMENT IN THE SSN-688 PROGRAM THROUGH FISCAL YEAR 1975
[In millions of dollars]
Fiscal year
1970
1971
1972
1973
1974
1975
Total
Amount appropriated.—
626.6
634.4
905.9
1,041.9
915.7
545.0
4,669.5
Mr. LEIGHTON. Sir, that is money that is appropriated to the Navy
and is in the defense authorization.
Admiral RICKOVER. It changes from year to year.
Representative YOUNG. It is how much you can spend in 1 year anyway ; it is limited to what you can spend.
Admiral RICKOVER. When you start building the ship, you must obligate yourself for the entire cost of that ship. However, the Navy pays
the shipbuilder at regular intervals based on the actual percentage of
completion of the ship. The money originally obligated is thus expended throughout the construction period.
Senator MONTOYA. In addition to giving us the information with
respect to what funding is available for the 26 ships, would you also
tell us when this funding will be used and paid over to the one
Admiral RICKOVER. To the shipbuilder ?
Admiral RICKOVER. As I said before, we pay him at regular intervals
depending on his completion of work.
Representative ANDERSON. Mr. Chairman ?
Senator MONTOYA. Congressman Anderson.
Representative ANDERSON. I have one question with reference to the
statement you made, Admiral Rickover, that the Soviets are building
submarines at a much more rapid rate than we are. You said these
SSN-688 class ships are planned at the rate of five every 2 years. In
addition to that, that they are submarines that are capable of traveling
[deleted] or faster.
Admiral RICKOVER. I did not say faster, sir. However, I do say they
will make [deleted].
Representative ANDERSON. You have the maximum speed here of
this Los Angeles SSN-688 at [deleted]. Are we doing anything to
overcome that ? Are the designs for the future ships frozen, or are
we making an effort to overcome that ?
NEW DESIGN SUBMARINE PROPULSION PLANT
Admiral RICKOVER. I am designing a propulsion plant that will
have a rating of [deleted] shaft horsepower. This plant will enable
us to make [deleted] improvement in speed. I estimate the SSN-688
with a [deleted] shaft horsepower propulsion plant will make a top
speed of [deleted]. The SSN-688 might make a little more than that,
but I never tell Congress more than I am sure it can do.
NIMITZ SEA TRIALS
For example, I might as well talk about the Nimitz, our latest aircraft carrier. We left Newport News for sea trials off the Virginia
coast this past Saturday afternoon and completed the propulsion
plant trials successfully on Sunday. I returned to Washington Monday morning. The Nimitz will displace about 95,000 tons when loaded
for combat. It is the largest warship that has ever been built.
[Deleted].
The Nimitz has many unique features. For example, the electrical
distribution system in the Navy has for 40 years been 440 volts. For
this ship it was necessary to have parts of the electrical system operate at [deleted] volts. There is no other ship in the world that has
[deleted] volt power distribution.
Now, there is twofold significance to that. First, we have in Nimitz
about [deleted] kilowatts of installed electrical generating capacity,
and that is in addition to the power to drive the ship through the
water. To give you a concept of what this means, the U.S.S. California, a battleship that fought in World War II, used about^ a
[deleted] of that much power for her propulsion. We have in Nimitz
[deleted] times as much electricity generating capacity as California
had for main propulsion. The California used about [deleted] kilowatts for her electric drive main propulsion. We have [deleted] kilowatts on this one for electricity alone in addition to power for her
shafts.
To go up to this high voltage of [deleted] volts is a great advantage
because, as you know, E equals IR. If you multiply the voltage by
[deleted] times you reduce the current to [deleted]. The amount of
copper you have to carry in cables depends on the current and not
the voltage. Therefore, we can [deleted] reduce the amount of copper
we have in the cables. That is a significant saving in a strategic raw
material.
Furthermore, had we used the 440-volt system on Nimitz, we probably would have had [deleted] times as many generators. We had
to develop new circuit breakers for the Navy to be able to handle
the higher voltage.
The reactor in Nimitz is a brand new design. For example, the Enterprise, which is our only other aircraft carrier which is operating, has
eight reactors. Nimitz only has two reactors. Each one of the Nimitz
reactors puts out as much energy as four on the Enterprise. That gives
you an idea of the development we have made in the last few years.
Not only that, but the four engines on Nimitz were designed to
deliver a total of [deleted] shaft horsepower, although at the beginning we thought our reactors would only be capable of delivering
steam for about [delete] shaft horsepower. During final design we
were able to uprate the power of our reactors. During the Nimitz sea
trials we were able to run the 4-hour full power run at an average
power a little over [deleted] shaft horsepower. I have initiated action
to uprate the Nimits-cl&ss propulsion plant now to [deleted] horsepower instead of the present rating of [deleted] horsepower.
TWO REACTORS VERSUS FOUR OR EIGHT
Senator MONTOYA. What is the vulnerability ? Has the vulnerability
increased because of the fact you are going from eight reactors to two?
Admiral BICKOVER. That is correct, sir, a two-reactor plant is more
vulnerable than eight reactors. In the ideal a ship like Nimitz should
have four reactors from a vulnerability standpoint, but a four-reactor
ship would require more manpower. We have taken measures to minimize the vulnerability of having only two reactors, for example, by
designing each so it can provide enough power to run the ship and
catapult, albeit at a slower speed. One of the tests we ran during these
sea trials was to shut-down one of the two reactors and continue to
operate the ship at high speed.
Senator MONTOYA. What do you mean by that ?
Admiral RICKOVER. I mean we shut it down. We tripped the safety
shutdown circuit. We deliberately did it and the reactor shut down.
We ran the ship on the one remaining reactor and made enough speed
to launch airplanes, if we had to. The ship was designed for that. Incidentally, the shutdown reactor was recovered and back on the line
making power in [deleted].
Senator BAKER. I was about to ask, could you carry a full load on
one reactor ?
Admiral RICKOVER. We can make adequate speed for launching airplanes, sir, but not full power.
Senator BAKER. What is adequate speed ?
Admiral RICKOVER. I think we made about [deleted] knots.
Mr. LEIGHTON. We can make [deleted] knots on one reactor, but you
can launch and recover aircraft at a slower speed, about [deleted]
knots.
Admiral RICKOVER. On this particular trial we had 40-knot winds.
The ship could have been stopped and we could have launched planes.
Senator BAKER. Is it safe to say you could maintain [deleted] knot
cruise and full housekeeping load ?
Admiral RICKOVER. That is right, sir. That is what we did. The
people outside of the machinery plant didn't know any such thing
was going on.
Senator BAKER. Do you have any trouble with these [deleted] volt
circuits ?
YOUNG CREWMEN PERFORMED LIKE VETERANS
Admiral RICKOVER. No, sir. I was going to add one other thing which
to me is the most important of all. A minimum of 75 percent of the
crew had never been to sea before. Young men, they operated the ship
like veterans. If any members of the committee had been on board—
and I hope in the near future you can be—you would have thought
that these were highly experienced men that had spent years on that
ship. I am more proud that we were able to take these young Americans
and train them to operate this very complex machinery than I am
anything else.
8
I talked to Senator Pastore and Senator Stennis yesterday and told
them about these trials. I recommended to them that Members of
Congress be invited to go on board and watch actual operations as soon
as the ship is operational with planes and all that. It is a pretty wonderful ship, and it will reaffirm your wisdom in backing us on these
aircraft carriers.
I would like to finish with the Nimitz, unless there are some more
questions on that subject.
Representative McCoRMACK. What is the capacity of each individual
reactor in megawatts ?
Admiral RICKOVER. [Deleted],sir.
Representative McCoRMACK. Each ?
Admiral RICKOVER. Yes, sir, in megawatts of heat. These are the
largest by far of any marine reactors. You realize when we design these
reactors they have to fulfill not only the requirements that you have in
a shore station, but they have to be designed to withstand combat shock.
They also are subject to maneuvering transients. In a central station
reactor you generally operate at one power level. Here we are changing
the power level all the time, backing and doing everything.
Does that answer your question ?
Representative MCCORMACK. Yes, sir, thank you.
Representative YOUNG. May I ask a question, Mr. Chairman ?
Representative YOUNG. At one time you were concerned about the
quietness of the submarines.
Admiral RICKOVER. Yes, sir. The SSN-688 class attack submarines
now under construction are expected to be [deleted]. The Trident will
be [deleted].
I will discuss the Trident in more detail later on.
The next page covers the Polaris-Poseidon submarines. As you know,
we have 41 of them in operation; 31 out of the 41 are to be converted to
carry the Poseidon missile which has a range of 2,500 miles. Twentythree Poseidon conversions have been completed. The last one is
scheduled to be finished in 1977.
TRIDENT
The next page summarizes the Trident submarine. This is one of the
controversial subjects in Congress. Three ships have been authorized
through fiscal year 1975. The shipbuilding program approved by the
Department of Defense has 10 submarines.
The [deleted] mile range of the Trident missiles will give the submarines freedom from any foreign bases. The missiles could be fired
from our west coast, including the base at Bangor, and hit targets that
the United States might desire to reach.
Incidentally, the Russians are now operating their Delta class submarines [deleted] ; their Delta class are in effect the equivalent of the
Trident submarines. [Deleted.] They have 4,200-mile missiles which
can reach any area in the United States.
Senator BAKER. Could you give me a comparison between the Delta
class and the Trident, as to size and speed ?
Admiral RICKOVER. Yes, sir. [Deleted.]
Mr. WEGNER. [Deleted.]
9
Admiral RICKOVER. The Trident submarines will hare a top speed of
about [deleted] knots. Each of the present Delta class submarines carries twelve 4,200-mile missiles. The Russians now have 8 Delta's operational and 16 under construction. They have also developed a modified
Delta which is longer and will carry more than 12 missiles. [Deleted.]
Senator BAKER. What about the relative displacement ?
Mr. WEGNER. The Delta's are not as large as our Trident submarine,
but they are much larger than the Eussian Yankee class ballistic missile
submarines.
Admiral EICKOVER. Sir, we think the Delta's have [deleted].
The present Delta's are larger than the Yankee's [deleted].
Senator BAKER. Do you think the [deleted] is a significant factor?
Admiral RICKOVER. No, sir. [Deleted.]
Senator BAKER. Do you think that is a significant [deleted] in our
system?
RUSSIAN ADVANTAGE IN STRATEGIC SUBMARINES
Admiral RICKOVER. No, sir. The Russians have an advantage because
their longer range missile is already operational. They can operate on
station close to their bases. In addition, the Russian submarines are
new. Our ballistic missile submarines are all getting old. By the time
we have our first Trident in operation our first Polaris submarine will
be over 20 years old. That is the advantage the Russians have now.
Senator SYMINGTON. Admiral, a well-known and respectable scientist said that you can retrofit the Poseidon to fire 4,000 miles. He also
said that if you [deleted], that you could get [deleted] miles or close
to it.
COST OP TRIDENT PROGRAM
Senator SYMINGTON. Yesterday in the defense appropriations hearing, an Admiral said that the new cost of the Trident was now up to
$1.8 billion. That is $18 billion for 10 submarines. Aside from other
apprehensions, such as we have 24 and the Soviets in the main have
12—and now you say they are going to have more than 12—do you want
more submarines and less launchers, or more launchers and less submarines ? Aside from these questions, do you feel from a cost-effective
standpoint inasmuch as the Poseidon is so much less expensive that if
you cut down the warheads do you feel the Trident at that price of
$1.8 billion for the program is j ustifiable ?
Admiral RICKOVER. I think your figure includes not only the 10
Trident submarines but the cost of all the research and development,
the base, missiles, and backfitting 10 Poseidon submarines with the
Trident missile. During the past year the Trident program costs have
increased about $3.2 billion due to inflation, $0.6 billion due to the
stretchout of the submarine construction program, and about $90 million due to stretchout of the missile development.
ADVANTAGES OF TRIDENT
I want to point out the following about Trident. First, Trident will
be a new ship incorporating the latest technology when the first one
10
becomes operational in 1979. Second, the longer range missile will
allow them an operating area that is 15 times as large as we have with
the present missiles, and the Tridents will carry more missiles.
The Trident I missiles can be backfit into Poseidon submarines but
their missile tubes are not large enough for the Trident II missiles.
The Trident submarines will have 87-inch diameter missile tubes compared to 78-inch missile tubes in the Poseidon submarines. The Trident
submarine missile tubes can fire missiles [deleted] as heavy as Poseidons, and each Trident submarine will have 50 percent more missiles.
Our Polaris and Poseidon submarines were built with 1950's technology. The Tridents are being built with the latest technology. They
will be much quieter and much better ships. I think if we changed
now to some other submarine design it would cost more money.
Last year Secretary Schlesinger proposed that we look into a smaller
Trident submarine for the future. I agreed with that proposal. I have
always advocated that 24 missiles are too many to carry in one ship.
But if you reduce the number of missiles per submarine, you would
need more submarines to have the same number of missiles at sea. It
would be more expensive.
Mr. LEIGHTON. Sir, may I make one comment. The Navy does plan
to backfit the Trident missile into 10 Poseidon submarines. The problem is that ultimately the Poseidon submarines themselves, even with
the backfit, will wear out and have to be replaced. So, the Navy plans
to have the Trident program and 10 Poseidon submarines backfitted
with Trident I missiles. The number of launchers needed is more than
just those in the Poseidon submarines. As our existing ballistic missiles
submarines wear out they have to be replaced.
Senator SYMINGTON. As I understand it, if you [deleted].
Mr. LEIGHTON. Yes,sir, with [deleted].
Admiral RICKOVER. The initial studies for a missile that could be
backfitted in the Poseidon submarines predicted a [deleted]. Developments have made longer ranges possible now.
Senator SYMINGTON. [Deleted.]
I am interested in the cost-effective angle.
Admiral RICKOVER. The cost of Trident has gone up because of inflation and stretchout of the program. I assure you that I think we are
on the right course. I think if we stop now and change over to another
submarine ballistic missile program it will cost us more money, more
money than we would save.
I believe we should consider a smaller ship as a follow-on to the
Tridents. The reason we are not pursuing that course now is because
the development funds were cut out last year.
Does that answer your question, sir?
Senator SYMINGTON. I appreciate your courtesy.
Admiral RICKOVER. Sir, I am very happy to give you the
information.
Senator CASE. Admiral, may I ask, how are we coming on the
Trident missile?
Admiral RICKOVER. The missile is not in my area of responsibility,
sir. In any difficult development program there are problems that must
11
be solved. I certainly believe that by the time we need the missiles in
1979 we are going to have them. We still have 4 to 5 years to complete the development.
ALTERNATIVES TO PRESENT TRIDENT DESIGN
Representative McCoRMACK. A question, Mr. Chairman.
Admiral, I have heard the criticism that we might be further ahead
with smaller submarines than the Trident which I am sure is what
you were commenting on a moment ago.
Admiral RICKOVER. Sir, we wouldn't be further ahead.
Representative McCoRMACK. I will rephrase it. There would be some
advantage to having smaller missile submarines. Can you comment on
the argument that perhaps we would be much better off, or there would
be some considerable advantage to having substantially smaller, substantially faster missile-launching submarines?
Admiral RICKOVER. It is true that a faster submarine is better from
the standpoint of evading attempts at being destroyed, but you need
to balance high-speed capability against cost and other factors for the
Trident. Suppose you have a number of Tridents that carry 16 missies
instead of 24, the cost per missile would go up quite a bit because you
would need more submarines to get the same total number of missiles
to sea.
Representative MCCORMACK. Supposing you had a much smaller submarine with external missiles, something like this, nothing but a
portable, submerged, missile launcher but which would go faster
Admiral RICKOVER. No, sir, that is not practical. When you decide to
have atomic power, you inherently require lots of space and weight
for shielding and other purposes.
For example, if you build a nuclear powered attack submarine of the
general size and speed of our current types, the shielding itself would
weigh at least [deleted] tons. In addition, for every pound of
machinery you add in a submarine, the displacement is increased by
[deleted] pounds. If you had a point source of nuclear energy and it
never moved, you would still need at least [deleted] tons for shielding.
Even if your reactor core and pressure vessel weighed nothing, you
would have to have at least [deleted] tons of shielding for the kind of
power plant used in the SSN-637 class submarines.
Representative MCCORMACK. [Deleted].
Admiral RICKOVER. May T talk off the record for a moment ?
[Discussion off the record.]
Senator MONTOYA. On the record.
BRUSSELS CONVENTION OF 1962
Representative PRICE. Admiral, recently I wrote to the Secretary of
State and expressed a concern that the Brussels Convention of 1962 on
the liability of operators of nuclear ships might be ratified without the
inclusion of a suitable exemption for warships. I would like for this
letter to be included as part of the record.
12
Senator MONTOYA. Without objection, it is made part of the record.
[The document subsequently furnished follows:]
JOINT COMMITTEE ON ATOMIC ENEBGY,
U.S. CONGRESS,
Washington, D.G., March 4, 1915.
Hon. HENRY A. KISSINGER,
Secretary of State, Department of State,
Washington, D.C.
DEAR MB. SECRETARY : On December 13,1974,1 wrote to you concerning the need
for immediate State Department action to begin the negotiations necessary to
achieve a warships exemption from the 1962 Brussels Convention on the Liability
of Operators of Nuclear Ships. The Joint Committee staff informs me that negotiations for this purpose have now been arranged with the British and the West
Germans for mid-March. Your action in dealing with this issue is most welcomed.
However, the staff also informs me that those most directly involved with this
issue in the State Department are pessimistic that they can gain such an exemption. I believe you should know that while it is not yet clear that the terms of the
1962 Brussels Convention will be totally acceptable to the Joint Committee and
the Congress for nuclear merchant ships, the convention will certainly not be
acceptable if it continues to include warships. It is my firm conviction that U.S.
nuclear powered warship accident liability must be dealt with on a unilateral
basis to protect the sovereignty of this most critical element of our national
defense. This has clearly been recognized by Congress in the recent passage
of Senate Joint Resolution 248 which is now Public Law 93-513. While I hope
we can work toward a solution to the nuclear merchant ship liability question,
we certainly cannot afford to compromise our nuclear warships in doing so.
I would appreciate your advising the Joint Committee of the results of the
forthcoming negotiations.
Sincerely yours,
MELVIN PRICE,
Vice Chairman.
[Reply subsequently received in classified files.]
Representative PRICE. I understand a meeting has been scheduled for
this month with representatives of West Germany and the United
Kingdom to discuss the matter. Would you bring the committee up to
date on efforts in this area, and would you give us your views on the
progress of such negotiations ?
Admiral RICKOVER. For some time there has been renewed interest
in both the United Kingdom and the United States concerning the 1962
Brussels Convention on Liability of Operators of Nuclear Ships. This
interest has arisen primarily because of pressure by commercial firms
to enact the Brussel's Convention, thereby solving the question of liability coverage for future nuclear merchant ships, and because the West
Germans have indicated they intend to sign the Convention to bring it
into force for their nuclear powered merchant ship, Otto Hahn. You
will recall that the convention is enacted when one nuclear ship operating state and one nonoperating state ratify it. Several nonoperating
states have ratified the convention but to date the other nuclear ship
operators, the United States, United Kingdom, U.S.S.R., and France,
have not because they did not want their nuclear-powered warships to
be subject to such an international convention.
IMPORTANCE OF EXCLUDING WARSHIPS
There has been much internal debate over what to do in this matter.
The Defense Department and ERDA have been advocating for several
years that we develop a suitable means to exclude nuclear warships
13
from the Brussels Convention so that the convention could be placed
into effect for nuclear merchant ships. The British Government has
also supported this action. However, the State Department has, until
recently, been opposed to this approach and has maintained that the
United States should ratify the Brussels Convention even though it
covers nuclear warships.
This was a position apparently fostered by the legal advisors and
those representing the commercial interests who, having no interest in
the warship problem, see ratification as the easiest solution to the liability question for nuclear merchant ships. As a result of interest
within the past several months by DOD, EKDA and, most importantly, the Joint Committee, the State Department has agreed to attempt development of a mechanism to exempt nuclear warships from
the convention. That is the purpose of the meeting with the United
Kingdom and West Germany this month. It presents an ideal opportunity ; however, developing a solution will not be particularly easy and
it will require a dedicated effort.
In the last analysis Congress will play a pivotal role in this matter.
In the past the Joint Committee has refused to consider the Brussels
Convention so long as it includes warships. I believe this is the correct
position for we simply cannot afford to subject what is now nearly a
third of our major naval combatants to the dictates of international
regulation under this convention. With 112 nuclear warships now in
operation and more under construction, surely maintaining the sovereign status of these ships is more important to our national interest
than solving the liability question for nuclear merchant ships of which
we have none operating or even planned. While I do not know what
the committee considers acceptable for liability coverage of nuclear
merchant ships, nor is it anv of my business, I believe you are correct
in refusing to consider ratification of the Brussels Convention unless
warships have been exempted.
Senator BAKER. Mr. Chairman, may I ask a question off the record ?
You may proceed, Admiral.
NR-l
Admiral RICKOVER. I have talked about the Trident submarines. The
next page is about the nuclear-powered deep submergence research
vehicle. (See p. 52.) Several years ago we decided to build a small submarine to do oceanographic work. This submarine operates down to
[deleted] feet and is called the NR-l. It only weighs [deleted] tons
and it makes [deleted]. It has done very valuable work. It is designed
so that it can [deleted].
We have used this ship extensively. All other research submersibles
are either diving bells, which are just lowered into place, or ships that
can only stay down a few hours. The NR-l can stay down [deleted] at
a time.
The endurance is not limited by the reactor, which can operate for
about [deleted] years without refueling. The limiting item is the food
that it can carry. We have a crew of five and two scientists.
54-038 0 - 7 5 - 2
14
Representative McCoRMACK. It has a nuclear propulsion plant?
Representative McCoRMACK. The whole thing weighs [deleted]
tons?
Admiral RICKOVER. Yes, sir. It has [deleted].
Representative MCCORMACK. It has a reactor though.
Admiral RICKOVER. Yes, sir; it is the smallest reactor we have ever
built, but it is intended for a very special purpose.
Senator MONTOYA. What kind of research do you do with this?
Admiral RICKOVER. I would like to go off the record for a moment
if I may.
Senator MONTOYA. Off the record.
Admiral RICKOVER. The scientific community is very much in .favor
of NR-1. By using it, we have found out new things about the Gulf
Stream. We have found there are some places where it goes in two
different directions. It has uncovered much new information about
the oceans and the seabeds. We can [deleted].
Now, the next subject is the surface warships. I mentioned the
Nimitz, and I mentioned we have another one
Senator MONTOYA. Before you go into that, your presentation indicates that there is one NR-1 authorized for fiscal year 1975. Now,
do you have any others operating?
Admiral RICKOVER. No, sir. The present NR-1 is the only one that
has been authorized.
Senator MONTOYA. You don't know what its capability is, then, if
it is not built yet?
Admiral RICKOVER. The NR-1 is actually operating. Before the
hearing I was mentioning another nuclear-powered submersible that
we would like to build—one that would follow the NR-1 with its
[deleted] feet depth capability. The follow-on submersible would, if
we can develop the hull steel, go down to [deleted] feet.
NR-2
The reason for developing the next submersible which we refer to
as the NR-2, is to demonstrate the fabricability of a hull using [deleted], a new steel under development. If we can successfully use this
new steel on this submersible, it will prove it can be used for combatant
submarines. This would enable us to increase the operating depth of
our combatant submarines. The NR-1 submersible I have been discussing has been operating for over 5 years.
Senator MONTOYA. You don't say that here.
Admiral RICKOVER. No, sir, I am sorry it does not.
Mr. LEIGHTON. On the opposite page there is a picture of the ship
at sea, sir.
Senator MONTOYA. Yes; I saw it.
NUCLEAR SURFACE WARSHIPS
Admiral RICKOVER. Next, I'll discuss the nuclear-powered surface
ships. I mentioned we have the carriers Enterprise and Nimite. We
15
also have two more carriers being built. One is the Dwight D. Eisenhower, which should be operating in 1978, and the other one is the Carl
Vinson, which has been authorized by Congress and is expected to be
operating in the fleet in 1981. The Navy is asking for long lead funding
for an additional nuclear carrier in the fiscal 1977 budget with the ship
planned for fiscal 1978. So, at the present time, that is not an issue.
We also have the cruiser Long Beach and four frigates, which are
operating. We have four more frigates being built.
The page goes on to say that our nuclear surface warships combined have steamed over 2.2 million miles. To give you an idea what
these ships can do, in 1964 three of our nuclear ships, the carrier
Enterprise, the cruiser Long Beach, and the frigate Bainbridge, went
around the world, 30,000 miles, without any logistic support.
Now, I mentioned earlier how we have improved the core lives of
the surface ships. We started originally with 3 years, and now we
are getting 10 years in the frigates and 13 years in the aircraft carriers.
We are developing a new core for the frigate that will last about 15
years. The first core of this type is now being built and will be installed this summer in a land prototype for testing.
Representative HORTON. Mr. Chairman, could I ask a question ?
Senator MONTOTA. Certainly.
SIZE OF U.S. NAVY
Eepresentative HORTON. It is my understanding there are 500 ships
in the Navy at the present time.
Admiral RICKOVER. Yes, sir. It is a little over that.
Representative HORTON. How many of those are nuclear powered ?
Admiral RICKOVER. We have 112 submarines and seven nuclear
surface ships. You see, these are combatant ships. Over one-third of
all the combatant ships in the Navy are nuclear powered. These are
the important ships of the Navy. Does that answer your question ?
Representative HORTON. Yes; thank you.
TITLE VIII
Admiral RICKOVER. Congress last year enacted a special provision,
"Title VIII, Nuclear Navy," as part of the 1975 Department of Defense Appropriation Authorization Act. This was enacted and signed
by the President and is now part of Public Law 93-365. It provides
in essence that it is the policy of the United States to have all future
submarines, aircraft carriers, and their escorts, to be nuclear powered.
There has been a fight going on for many years between Congress
and the Defense Department, with Congress backing the nuclear
surface ships and the Defense Department being against them.
So, finally, Congress included title VIII in the military authorization bill last year. The Navy, of course, is expected to comply with
the law.
[Title VIII excerpted from Public Law 93-365, follows:]
16
Pub. Law 93-365
10 -
August 5, 1974
TITLE VIII—NUCLEAR POWERED NAVY
10 USC 7291
note.
88 STAT. 408.X
88 STAT. 409
"Major combatant vessels
for the strike
forces of the
United States
Navy."
10 USC 7291
note.
Report to
Congress.
10 USC 7291
note.
64 Stat» 832;
84 Stat. 1169.
Department of
Defense Five
Year Program.
10 USC 7291
note.
Short title.
SEC. 801. It is the policy of the United States of America to mpdernize the strike forces of the United States Navy by the construction
of nuclear powered major combatant vessels and to provide for an adequate industrial base for the research, development, design, construction, operation, and maintenance for such vessels. New construction
major combatant vessels for the strike forces of the United States
Navy authorized subsequent to the date of the enactment of this Act
becomes law shall be nuclear powered, except as provided in this title.
SEC. 802. For the purposes of this title, the term "major combatant
vessels for the strike forces of the United States Navy" means—
(1) combatant submarines for strategic or tactical missions, or
both;
(2) combatant vessels intended to operate in combat in aircraft
carrier task groups (that is, aircraft carriers and the cruisers,
frigates, and destroyers which accompany aircraft carriers);
and
(3) those types of combatant vessels referred to in clauses (1)
and (2) above designed for independent combat missions where
essentially unlimited high speed endurance will be of significant
military value.
SEC. 803. The Secretary of Defense shall submit to Congress each
calendar year, at the same time the President submits the budget to
Congress under section 201 of the Budget and Accounting Act, 1921
(31 U.S.C. 11), a written report regarding the application of nuclear
propulsion to major combatant vessels for the strike forces of the
United States Navy. The report shall identify contract placement
dates for their construction and shall identify the Department of
Defense Five Year Defense Program for construction of nuclear
powered major combatant vessels for the strike forces of the United
States Navy.
SEC. 804. All requests for authorizations or appropriations from
Congress for major combatant vessels for the strike forces of the
United States Navy shall be for construction of nuclear powered
major combatant vessels for such forces unless and until the President
has fully advised the Congress that construction of nuclear powered
vessels for such purpose is not in the national interest. Such report of
the President to the Congress shall include for consideration by Congress an alternate program of nuclear powered ships with appropriate
design, cost, and schedule information.
This Act may be cited as the "Department of Defense Appropriation
Authorization Act, 1975".
Approved August 5, 1974.
LEGISLATIVE HISTORY;
HOUSE REPORTS: No. 93-1035 (Comm. on Armed Services) and No.
93-1212 (Comm. of Conference).
SENATE REPORTS: No. 93-884 accompanying S. 3000 (Comm. on Armed
Services) and No. 93-1038 (Comm. of Conference).
CONGRESSIONAL RECORD, Vol. 120 (1974):
May 20, 22, considered and passed House.
June 3-7, 10, 11, considered and passed Senate, amended, in
lieu of S. 3000.
July 29, House agreed to conference report.
July 30, Senate agreed to conference report.
WEEKLY COMPILATION OF PRESIDENTIAL DOCUMENTS, Vol. 10, No. 32:
Aug. 5, Presidential statement.
o
17
Eepresentative HORTON. Was that report made which is called for in
section 803 ?
Mr. LEIGHTON. Yes, sir. The Secretary of Defense's posture statement included a section in response to section 803. In that report,
Secretary Schlesinger said that 5-year defense plan includes a nuclear
carrier in the 1978 program and in the 1980 program. He said that
as far as the major missile firing ships—the frigates and cruisers to
accompany a nuclear carrier in a naval striking force—are concerned,
the Department of Defense is still working out a program, and he
is not prepared at this time to say what it will be.
Admiral RICKOVER. Let me tell you the advantages of nuclear power
in surface ships. First, the initial construction cost of a nuclearpowered surface warship, carrier, cruiser, or .frigate, is about 50percent greater than an equivalent oil-fired ship with the same
weapons and sensors.
But when you buy a nuclear ship you include in the initial cost
the cost of the fuel you will use for the next 10 to 13 years. You have
bought that fuel and have it in the ship where it will remain unaffected by future cost increases or scarcities. The cost of fuel oil is
not included in the cost of conventional ships.
Now, the other problem is, what if oil is not available? That is
exactly what we faced in the October 1973 Mideast war. The maximum
range of a conventional aircraft carrier at 30 knots using its own
propulsion fuel and not aircraft fuel, is about [deleted] miles, whereas
the nuclear ships have practically an unlimited cruising radius. So if
you get into a situation where you can't get oil, what do you do with
your oil-burning fleet ? That is exactly what our Navy may face in the
future years.
»•
A subcommittee of the House Armed Services Committee visited the
Near East to review the October war situation. They reported, among
other items, that it is absolutely essential to have the important ships
of the Navy nuclear powered because the Navy may not be able to get
oil in a future war.
COST OF OIL
I have some figures on the cost of oil. Today the Navy pays about
$14 a barrel. If you add on to that the average cost of delivering oil
to the Navy's ships it gets up to over $25 a barrel. Now, if you start
paying that over the life of an aircraft carrier and include personnel
and aircraft costs, you will find that ultimately the total lifetime cost
of a nuclear aircraft carrier as compared to a conventional carrier is
only 2 percent more. If you have four nuclear escorts instead of four
conventional escorts, that adds about another 4 percent. So the total
lifetime cost of a nuclear carrier task force consisting of a carrier
and four accompanying surface combatants is only 6 percent more.
That is peacetime costs.
What do you get for that? A nuclear carrier, such as the Nimitz,
carries twice as much aviation fuel as the largest oil-fired carriers.
The Nwnitz carries about 50-percent more ammunition. It has four
catapults and four elevators for getting the plnaes up and down from
the flight deck. It can take care of all kinds of planes.
18
I was asked last year how I would compare a nuclear carrier task
force with a conventional task force. I answered that a nuclear task
force in my opinion was worth a minimum of one and one-half times
as much, because the nuclear task force can do many things the conventional task force can't do. The oil-fired carrier, once it goes
[deleted] miles at 30 knots, is finished. It would then have to burn
aircraft fuel or stop as it would be out of propulsion fuel oil. Furthermore, it has to use a lot of fuel-carrying capacity which, in a nuclear
ship, could be devoted to aviation fuel and fuel for fueling of its own
escorts.
WHICH SHIPS SHOULD BE NUCLEAR
Representative HORTON. Why don't you go down to smaller ships
such as destroyers and make them nuclear ?
Admiral RICKOVER. I will tell you why, sir. I was asked that question
a good many years ago. I could build a nuclear propulsion plant for
any size ship—even the NR-1. However, I concluded that the minimum displacement surface warship that would be worth making nuclear powered should be about 8,000 tons. The reason for that is this:
The nuclear plant, because of the requirement for radiation shielding,
gives a concentrated weight and it is pretty expensive. When you get
down to smaller ships which cannot carry much in the way of weapons
I don't consider it economical to buy a relatively expensive propulsion
plant for a lightly armed ship. It is only worthwhile for the major
ships in the Navy.
It could be done. It is technically possible to build smaller ships
with nuclear power, some of our smaller submarines being examples.
Mr. LEIGIJTON. May I make a comment on the question just asked,
sir?
Representative HORTON. Yes.
Mr. LEIGHTON. If I take a given horsepower, say I take a [deleted]
shaft horsepower propulsion plant and put it in a ship to make 30
knots, I can build that ship anywhere from 8,000 tons to 20,000 tons
with the same propulsion plant and make the 30-knot speed. That is
because of the way the hull characteristics can be varied by the way we
shape the lines.
Once you have made the investment to buy your [deleted] shaft
horsepower nuclear power plant that can drive you around the world
many times without refueling, then you want to amortize that investment by putting on it a suitable weapon system suite. In order to put
on suitable weapon systems for antiair and antisubmarine warfare,
et cetera, you end up with a fairly large ship.
You can make a smaller ship by taking off weapons systems, but you
have already spent much of the money in a propulsion plant. On the
nuclear ship where you have a high cost of manpower, and the reactor
itself, you want to have sufficient weapons capability to make the entire
ship worthwhile.
As a mater of fact, the Navy wants to buy a guided-missile ship in
the future called a strike cruiser and use the same propulsion plant
we originally put in the Bairibridge, which is an 8,000-ton ship. The
strike cruiser will probably be 12,000 to 15,000 tons, and has basically
the same propulsion plant, and has essentially the same speed. The
19
difference is in the weapons systems to get more capability in the strike
cruisers.
Representative HORTON. The destroyer does have a mission. The
question is whether or not that mission is necessary with a nuclear fleet
as you are talking about. Apparently from what you say it is not
Admiral RICKOVER. The answer to that question, sir, is an economic
one as well as a military one. It would be too expensive to have a large
number of nuclear powered destroyers that together would have the
same weapons we can put on fewer larger ships at much lower overall
cost, particularly when you can get only so much construction money.
We can build any ship with nuclear power. There is nothing difficult
about that.
NUCLEAR AIRCRAFT
Representative HORTON. Have you thought about the adaptability
of nuclear power for aircraft ?
Admiral RICKOVER. Yes. Other people have thought about it, and
over a billion dollars has been spent on development work. It went
on for several years. Finally in the early 1960's, shortly after President
Kennedy took office, it was canceled. The reason is very simple. For a
nuclear powerplant on an aircraft they couldn't afford to have the
shielding weight necessary to protect the crew and ground support
personnel the way they should be. So their idea was to operate with a
very high radiation exposure for both the pilots and ground crew. The
pilot dose was so high that they would need a different crew every
time they flew the plane. Also, they would fly over the United States
with all that radioactivity. These were some of the major drawbacks
which caused it to be killed.
I don't think with all the concern for the ecology now and the
environmental protection laws that anyone would stand for a nuclear
powered airplane flying over the United States. However, it is being
revived again. Nothing in research ever dies.
COST OF POWER
Representative McCoRMACK. Mr. Chairman, may I ask one more
question ?
Senator MONTOTA. Certainly.
Representative McCoRMACK. By way of comparison, can you give
me a rough estimate of the cost of a nuclear powered generating
system—Navy nuclear power generating system—in dollars per kilowatt capacity?
Admiral RICKOVER. Yes; I could give you that, but it is a rather
meaningless number. For example, when we built the Nautilus, and I
was assigned the job of working on the first central station atomic
powerplant, the Shippingport reactor, which I will get to in a few
minutes, the utility industry was against nuclear power. They held a
symposium. They asked me what it cost per kilowatt hour in the submarine prototype we had in Idaho. I said it worked out to 10 cents a
kilowatt hour. They said, that shows nuclear power is not economic.
But when we built the Shippingport plant the cost turned out to
be about five cents a kilowatt hour. Shippingport was small, it generated only 60,000 kilowatts of electricity which even in the middle
20
1950's was a small plant. That capacity was set by the size of the
pressure vessel, which at that time, was the largest pressure vessel
that could be built in the United States.
Then as a result of the development work we did and the industry
learning how to build larger pressure vessels, other larger units were
built and the cost per unit of capacity came down.
Kepresentative MCCORMACK. At the present time a commercial plant
goes for $750 a kilowatt installed electrical capacity—a commercial
electric plant. The question was raised, why not substitute Navy plants
for commercial ? I am trying to get a figure from you.
Admiral RICKOVER. I can tell you it is completely impractical. In the
first place the largest Navy atomic powerplant we have is for the
Nimitz. That is [deleted.] You might realize a cycle efficiency of about
[deleted] which is typical of modern nuclear generating plants, which
would give around [deleted] electrical. That is very expensive because
it is so small compared to the current size of commercial utility plants
and it has many characteristics and specifications that you don't need
in a commercial powerplant, like shock, underway maintenance capability, and high speed maneuvering, and all sorts of things you don't
need in a commercial utility plant. It would be too expensive. A shipboard nuclear plant must be made compact to keep ship displacement
low. You would not design a land reactor the same way we are required
to design shipboard reactors.
The question has been asked, when a city has a power shortage why
can't we tie up ships and supply them with power ? The reason that
question is asked is because back in 1922 the city of Tacoma, Wash.,
had its electrical system go out and one of our aircraft carriers at that
time, the Lexington, was brought up to a pier and actually supplied a
small amount of power to that city. But the Lexington was an electric
drive ship. It had large generating capacity to drive its electric main
engines. Nuclear propelled surface ships use steam turbines for main
propulsion and only have generators sufficient to handle the ship's own
electrical loads.
Representative McCoRMACK. I was not suggesting that. I am simply
trying to get a cost comparison.
Admiral RICKOVER. I understand why you asked the question.
Representative McCoRMACK. Thank you.
Senator MONTOYA. You may proceed, Admiral.
Admiral RIGKOVER. I have talked about the frigates, so I won't add
more.
LIGHT WATER BREEDER REACTOR
Next we come to the Shippingport Powerplant. This is a subject of
considerable interest to Congress. I mentioned that Shippingport was
the first central station atomic power plant in the United States. We
are now working on a breeder core to go into the existing Shippingport
plant as a backfit. This breeder core will use light water instead of
sodium as coolant. That is, we are not building an entirely new plant.
I believe there is in each one of the folders a co^y of this red booklet
I have here. Each of you can retain your copy; it is unclassified. There
is classified information in the black book, but this red book is an unclassified book.
[See appendix II, p. 58.]
21
Representative HORTON. We can take this one with us ?
Admiral RICKOVER. Yes, sir. I think you are all familiar with the
idea of breeding and the fact that EEDA is working on the liquid
metal breeder as its primary effort. Also, several years ago the Atomic
Energy Commission authorized me to work on a breeder concept which
does not use sodium but uses ordinary water. We expect to have a light
water breeder core operating in the Shippingport plant in 1976. We
are currently building all the parts. It will be inserted in the present
pressure vessel of the Shippingport plant so that the only changes to
the plant we have to make are to adapt it for the new core. The new
core will fit right into the old plant.
Now this breeder core will use the thorium/uranium-233 fuel cycle.
I have here an interesting chart. If you will please turn
NEED FOR BREEDING
Senator MONTOTA. How does this relate to the liquid metal breeder?
Admiral KICKOVER. It is an entirely different concept, sir. The liquidmetal breeder in theory has a higher breeding ratio. Let me explain:
When you place into a breeder core a certain amount of fissionable material, by the time you complete power operation of the breeder core
and you chemically reprocess it, you will expect to have more fuel at
the end of core operation than you had to start. In this way, in theory,
you could fuel another core adding only fertile material and no new
fissionable material. Now there is a difference between fertile material
and fissionable material. Uranium ore is mined as U3O8 and you cannot
use that directly235
in a reactor. As you well know, U3O8 has only y140
which is U235.238
U is fissionable and can sustain a nuclear chain reaction, but U which makes up over 99 percent of the ordinary
uranium mined, cannot. The existing power reactors we have
in the
United States today use enriched uranium where the U235 content
of the uranium has been increased by putting the uranium through a
diffusion plant. However, since you are essentially using only the
U235 as fuel, you are only using about 0.5 to 1 percent of all the energy
potential in that uranium.
Now, if you could find a way to make available for power production
the potential energy in all the uranium and thorium you mine, then
you could multiply by 50 or more times the usable energy that you can
get out of the raw material you mine. That is the reason to work on
breeder reactors.
The reason people work on liquid-metal breeders is to breed with
plutonium as
the fissionable fuel, which is what you get when you
irradiate U238. To breed with plutonium, you need a fast reactor
neutron energy spectrum which you cannot get in a water-cooled reactor. In addition, sodium can operate at much higher temperature
than water. We in naval reactors, on the other hand, having had considerable experience with water, said "Let us try and make a breeder
that works with water, which eliminates some of the problems." Furthermore, not only can a light-water breeder core be installed in the
existing Shippingport reactor but large LWBR cores could also be
installed in existing pressurized water reactors.
Now if you will turn to page 6 of this red book (see p. 66), there is
a very instructive diagram. The energy potential in the fossil fuel we
22
have is shown by that little square on the left. If we use our present
uranium resources in present types of reactors, all the energy we would
be able to turn into electricity is that smaller block in the middle. But
the light-water breeder concept uses thorium as well as uranium. There
are sizable thorium resources in the world, as much and perhaps more
than uranium; there has not been much exploration for thorium to
date. Using a thorium-uranium-233 fuel cycle breeder, like our lightwater breeder would allow 50 percent or more of the potential energy
in these thorium resources to be used to generate power as represented
by this large rectangle on the right. Therefore, if we are successful,
the LWBR concept could provide enough fuel to last several hundred
years. This is what we are trying to do.
DEVELOPMENT COST OP LWBR
The development cost for the LWBR is very much less than for the
liquid-metal breeder because it is an easier job. I believe the total cost
of the LWBR program when it is finished will be somewhere around
$270 million total cost, whereas the liquid-metal breeder is necessarily
much higher.
Senator MONTOYA. What is the cost of the liquid-metal reactor?
Admiral RICKOVER. I will ask Mr. Greer, who is the ERDA
Controller.
Mr. GREEK. The total cost estimated through the 1987 time-frame I
believe is a little over $8.7 billion. Through the year 2020 it goes up
around $10 billion. That is based on 1976 dollars. So obviously the
escalation would add to that over time.
Senator MONTOYA. What, again, is the cost of the light-water breeder
reactor ?
Mr. GREER. I think the admiral has talked about $270 million.
Admiral RICKOVER. Cost of development and building the first core
for installation and operation in the Shippingport plant will be about
$270 million. Ultimately, in the long run, the LWBR and the liquidmetal breeder will make about the same amount of energy available
for power generation because this all results from breeding. However,
the liquid-metal breeder, in theory, will make extra fuel faster than the
LWBR so it can support a faster growing utility industry and require
less mining and enrichment at any given point in time.
I think ERDA should continue to pursue the liquid-metal breeder
because if it works it will be a fine thing.
LWBR WILL NOT BREED PLUTONIUM
Senator MONTOYA. What about plutonium, Admiral?
Admiral RICKOVER. The liquid-metal breeder will make plutonium
which is a fissionable material. The light-water breeder, on the other
hand, will make U233, which is a thermal reactor fuel and is radioactive like all recycled fuel; but uranium-233 is much less toxic than
plutonium and is safer to handle. In the blue notebook, under the page
labeled "Light-Water Breeder Reactor," it is the second page in the
civilian program section. This table compares a 1,000-megawatt electrical light-water plant of the type commercially used today with a
postulated 1,000 megawatt electrical light-water breeder type.
23
Now we are building a small light-water breeder to put in to Shippingport, but using that same technology you could design and build
a 1,000-megawatt unit. This table is to compare the uranium mined if
you did build such a breeder.
In the regular commercial plant you would have to mine 5,200 tons
of U3O8 for each 40 years of plant operation, or about 130 tons per
year. This would go on for as long as you wanted to operate that unit
of capacity as a nonbreeding light-water reactor. For our comparable
light-water breeder you would only have to mine 1,300 to 3,000 tons
during the first 10 years of operation of the first plant and none after
that, even for replacement plants. That is the point.
Mr. LEIGHTON. The major advantage of the liquid-metal breeder
is that they would be able to, in theory, produce considerably more fissionable material than they used and, therefore, as they go along they
could start new plants representing added capacity without mining
large amounts of U3O8, even to start up a plant. These numbers are on
a plant per plant basis, in other words, each 1,000 megawatts of electrical capacity you started you would have to mine 1,300 to 3,000 tons
to start one 1,000 MWe plant's worth, using the light-water breeder.
So, the liquid-metal breeder, if it is successful, does have a significant
advantage over a light-water breeder in that it makes more fissionable
material than it uses and will let you start additional electrical generating capacity rather than just replacement plants for existing
capacity.
ADVANCED WATER BREEDER APPLICATIONS
Admiral RICKOVER. In the long run it does not make any difference
in the amount of energy made available. In the long run the fuel utilization for both the LWBR and the liquid-metal breeder is about the
same. It takes longer for the light-water breeder to reach that point
but in the end it is about the same total amount of energy.
Now we have money in the fiscal year 1976 budget, approved by
ERDA and the OMB, for starting design studies now for 1,000-megawatt prebreeders and breeders, to develop the information necessary for
the utility industry to go ahead on their own. We don't want to go
into the commercial LWBR business after we have finished operating
the LWBR breeder core in Shippingport. So we are going to help
industry make a design for a 1,000-megawatt reactor, including both
prebreeders and breeders. This work will be a continuing program
into the future and is being initiated in fiscal year 1976 under the
program name "Advanced Water Breeder Applications" (AWBA).
We are also investigating whether we could improve the breeding
ratio of large water breeder cores by using heavy water as the coolant
and moderator in that reactor. But we don't want to keep on repeating
the same work we are doing. We are a developmental outfit. We try
to develop a concept to the point we prove it practicable and then we
turn it over to other people to apply the technology to the commercial
utility industry.
NAVAL REACTORS LABORATORIES
Now turning to the next page, we have two maior laboratories. One
is the Bettis Laboratory in Pittsburgh, operated by the Westinghouse
Electric Co. They have 1,350 scientists and engineers, and a total em-
24
ployment of 4,300. They have designed many of the reactor plants for
the ships that I mentioned.
Representative HORTON. Why is that marked "Confidiential"
Admiral ?
Mr. LEIGHTON. The horsepower, sir.
Admiral RICKOVER. The next page is about the Knolls Atomic
Power Laboratory in Schenectady, N. Y. They are operated by General
Electric Co. You can see they have 1,260 scientists and engineers, and
they are responsible for carrying out part of this program as well.
I won't go further into this unless you wish to ask me questions.
NTTCLEAR TRAINED NAVAL PERSONNEL VALUABLE TO INDUSTRY
Then we have several other facilities. For example, both the Bettis and Knolls Atomic Power Laboratories operate various prototype
reactor plants for us. Bettis operates three prototypes at the National
Reactor Test Station in Idaho, and Knolls operates two at West Milton, N.Y., and one at Windsor, Conn. We normally build a full-scale
prototype of a new type reactor plant before we install it in a ship. We
test these plants extensively and we also use them for training the
Navy people who will operate them at sea. Instead of hiring civilians
as operators for these plants we use sailors and by doing so we are
able to do our practical training concurrently with testing. Our people
are trained on full-scale reactor plants and not on simulators. We train
young officers and enlisted men for 1 year, 6 months of class room
work on the theoretical aspects followed by 6 months of practical onthe-job training, actually operating a reactor plant like the one they
will operate on board ship.
In the f> months of academic work we give them the equivalent of
about 2 years in college.
These people become very valuable to industry because of their Navy
training and experience. The civilian companies are constantly advertising to get them. I would estimate that 60 percent of all the people
who operate commercial atomic powerplants today got their training
in the Navy. It is a fact that two-thirds of all of the jroung officers who
left the Navy in the past 21/4 years have gone to work in the commercial
nuclear field.
CONTRIBUTION OF NAVAL PROGRAM TO COMMERCIAL NUCLEAR INDUSTRY
Representative ANDERSON. I have a question, and I am afraid it is
breaking in a bit on you, Admiral, but I have to go shortly. You are
familiar I am sure with the problems that we have been having in the
civilian nuclear power industry lately and the shutdown that had to bel
ordered by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission of the 23 reactors
because of cracking of the pipes in the cooling system and so on. We
never seem to hear of problems like that as far as the naval nuclear
reactor program is concerned. I am wondering if it is possible to share
to some extent some of your technology with the civilian power
industry.
1
Nuclear Regulatory Commission Action Requiring Safety Inspections Which Resulted
in Shutdown of Certain Nuclear Powerplants. joint hearing before the Joint Committee
on Atomic Energy and the Senate Committee on Government Operations. Feb. 5, 1975.
25
Admiral RICKOVER. We do, sir. You know that the naval program was
the first to develop the light water reactor for power application and
because of this I was also given the responsibility to develop the first
civilian central station nuclear powerplant at Shippingport, Pa. The
technology from this work formed the basis for the civilian atomic
power industry as it is known today. We are continuing to do advance
development work both in naval and civilian applications and this
technology is made available to U.S. industry.
Representative ANDERSON. In the construction process do you think
you have so much higher standards of inspection ?
Admiral RICKOVER. It is not so much a matter of higher standards,
but of the actions we take to insure the standards are fully met. For
example, 40 percent of the cost of manufacturing a naval core is due to
the inspections we perform. We place very heavy emphasis on quality
control. We pay a great deal of attention to the design, the technical
specifications, the entire process of manufacturing and testing our
equipment.
NAVAL REACTORS AMASS OVER 1,250 REACTOR TEARS OF ACCIDENT
FREE OPERATION
Senator MONTOTA. Have you had any fractures ?
Admiral RICKOVER. No, sir.
Senator MONTOYA. No leaks ?
Admiral RICKOVER. Well, sir, with any powerplant using a water
and steam cycle you will occasionally have some leaks.
Mr. LEIGHTON. Not in the sense the chairman is asking.
Admiral RICKOVER. If you are speaking about major leaks in which
substantial release of radioactivity is involved, the answer is "No."
We have accumulated over 1,250 years of reactor operation and
have never had a reactor accident. You may be interested that our naval
nuclear propulsion plants are designed so that [deleted] after you shut
one down, you can go into the reactor compartment and work on the
equipment. We design these plants to very exacting specifications, with
emphasis on reliability and redundancy so that safe operation is
assured.
SPECIAL SAFETY PRECAUTION AT SHIPPINGPORT PLANT
With respect to the Shippingport Atomic Power Station, for which I
am responsible, there is one unique aspect that I have implemented
which pertains to safe operation. You will be interested in this, Mr.
Anderson, because this gets to the heart of your question.
Before I permitted the Shippingport plant to begin operation, I
would not let that plant start up until the chairman of the board of
the Duquesne Light Co., which was to operate the plant, signed an
agreement that at any time the plant was operating one of my representatives could be present in the control room with authority to shut
the plant down if he thought it was not being operated safely. We
have had to do that twice, although not for many years now.
I recommend that it would be well worthwhile for the Nuclear
Regulatory Commission to adopt a similar practice with the commercial plants. Our man is present and keeps a log on the plants' operation. If he sees anything he considers unsafe he tells the top shift
26
operator. If the top shift operator does not take adequate action, our
man will order the plant shut down.
Senator MONTOYA. We had quite a dialog with the NEC people
which indicated that the NRC people were advocating self-inspection
by the utilities, and that because of this self-inspection that these
leaks had occurred. Subsequently some countermeasures had been
ordered by NRC.
Now, it is your statement that there should be some very serious
inspection procedures such as you followed in order to prevent these
leaks or fractures?
Admiral RICKOVER. I mentioned only one aspect of the Shippingport operation in that I have a representative assigned to the control
room whenever the plant is operating. I also have several other people
at the station who monitor other aspects of the work there.
NEED FOR MORE THAN SELF-INSPECTION
I do not think you can depend on self-inspection alone any more
than you can depend on every individual to properly report his income
tax if there was no one checking up on him. I do not think that is in
accord with human nature. That is why we put such heavy emphasis
on Government inspections when we are manufacturing, installing,
and operating our nuclear plants.
The very frequent inspections we have are one of the major reasons
why we have had good success. You should also recognize that the
naval plants face far more difficult operating conditions than conventional plants. They have to respond to speed and maneuvering
changes and operate under varying and sometimes highly adverse environmental conditions.
We have designed and built them with great care and rigorously
trained the people how to operate them. That is what you need to do to
be successful.
There is one other thing you might consider for the commercial
nuclear power industry. Why don't the atomic power utilities organize
a group somewhat analogous to their NEPA, National Electric Power
Association, that would be technically proficient and could check their
designs and their operation? They would make regular inspections,
and report their findings to a central authority. Then the NRC could
check up on that.
We do this all the time in the Navy program. We have inspection
boards that make very thorough inspections of all our nuclear-powered
ships, spending several days at a time for each ship. I have my own
representatives at every shipyard working on nuclear-powered ships
and at every prototype reactor site who regularly inspect those operations. They report directly to me on what is going on.
I think if you want to get more public confidence in the atomic
power utilities, I recommend the establishment of a technical review
and inspection program such as I just described. I think the Joint
Committee should consider taking action to get such a program implemented. With the present structure, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission does not have enough people to check every plant all the time.
As I previously mentioned, I would also recommend that in every
commercial atomic powerplant you have a Government representa-
27
tive present every time the plant is operating. It would not cost a great
deal and it would give the public much more confidence in the operation of these plants.
Representative ANDERSON. Have one present at what time ?
Admiral RICKOVER. Any time the plant is operating. I would have a
Government representative assigned to the control room just as I have
been doing since 1957 at the Shippingport station. You see, when Shippingport was being designed, I knew whatever we did would set a
precedent for the commercial atomic plants. Many of the practices and
technical features used in the Shippingport plant have been followed
by the commercial reactors. But the practice of having a Government
representative present at all times when the reactor is operating has
not yet been adopted. I think it should be, sir.
Mr. WEGNER. I would like to clarify one point that has to do with
the release of naval reactors experience and technology to industry.
Information which is classified is, of course, carefully controlled and
not subject to disclosure to people who are not properly cleared.
[Deleted.]
Admiral RICKOVER. The basic technical knowledge derived from our
naval work is available to U.S. industry so that they can improve their
designs. [Deleted.]
Mr. WEGNER. [Deleted.]
IMPORTANCE OF KEEPING NAVAL REACTORS IN ERDA
Admiral RICKOVER. That raises another point. The Energy Reorganization Act of 1974 contains a provision which requires that a
study be performed addressing the desirability of transferring military applications work from ERDA to the Defense Department.
While I believe the major thrust of this study was intended to consider the nuclear weapons work, it has raised the question of whether
the Naval Reactors program should be in the Department of Defense
or remain in ERDA. From what we have been discussing you can see
that the ERDA part of naval reactors is the one doing the advanced
development work for pressurized light water reactors.
This work has been essential to the development of our nuclear Navy
and the commercial nuclear industry. To transfer it to the Defense
Department would severely disrupt this effort and, in the case of the
nonmilitary Shippingport plant work, would make no sense at all.
This was recognized by the House Government Operations Committee
when they reported the Energy Reorganization Act to the House for
consideration. There is a section in their report on the importance of
keeping the Division of Naval Reactors in ERDA and with your permission I would like to put that into the record.
[The information subsequently furnished follows:]
EXTRACTS FROM REPORT No. 93-707 OF THE COMMITTEE ON GOVERNMENT OPERATIONS TO THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES CONCERNING THE ENERGY REORGANIZATION ACT
(Section on Reactor Development and Naval Reactor Activities, page 11-13)
"ERDA will continue to conduct the AEC's functions in regard to reactor
development and naval reactor activities . . .
"The naval propulsion reactor program is a joint program of the ABC and
the Department of the Navy. ERDA will assume AEC's role, which is carried
28
out by the Division of Naval Reactors and relates to the design, development
and improvement on naval propulsion plants and reactor cores for installation
in ships ranging in size from small submarines to large combatant surface ships.
The Division of Naval Reactors is also responsible for maintenance, operation
and safety of the nuclear propulsion plants, as well as the selection and training
of the necessary personnel.
"Your committee is well aware that the Division of Naval Reactors' early
work in reactor development provided the technological base for the civilian
nuclear powerplants currently in use. Your committee also knows that this
Division has trained many of the engineers and technicians now engaged in
the design, manufacture or use of nuclear plants for generating central station
power on utility systems.
"The Division of Naval Reactors is currently conducting a lightwater breeder
reactor project, aimed at determining the capability of breeding in a pressurized
water reactor. This is still another important part of the AEC's developmental
mission in regard to breeder reactors.
"The outstanding success of the Naval Reactors Division, from the standpoints
of both the civilian reactors program and the common defense and security, is
well known. The dual scope and contributions of this program in classified and
non-security areas continue. Your committee wants to express clearly its conviction that if the functions of the Naval Reactors Division had not been under
the jurisdiction of the AEC, most of its accomplishments in both the peaceful
and naval ships areas probably would not have materialized."
Senator MONTOTA. Admiral, how are you coming along under the
EEDA umbrella?
Admiral RICKOVER. We are doing just fine, sir. I continue to have
the same fine working relationship within ERDA as I did with the
AEC. As I just mentioned, my principal concern is that someone will
get the idea that the Naval Reactors program is just a military effort.
Naval reactors is a broadly based atomic program with both military
and civilian contributions.
We have substantial relationships with other components of ERDA
and NRC which benefit all concerned.
Senator MONTOTA. What about in the area of accountability of
nuclear materials? Your practice viz-a-viz the practice of private
industry ? What do you have to say on that ?
Admiral RICKOVER. We carry out the policy of ERDA and our
vendors are licensed and therefore subject, to the regulations of the
NRC.
Senator MONTOYA. Do you have any recommendation based on past
practice with respect to licensees ?
Admiral RICKOVER. We have never had any particular problems.
Of course there has to be a set of uniform rules. We comply with the
regulations others must follow.
RADIOACTIVE DISCHARGES FROM NUCLEAR PROPULSION
PROGRAM ARE INSIGNIFICANT
Senator MONTOYA. What about waste disposal? What safeguards
do you have with respect to waste disposal that private industry and
the Atomic Energy Commission has not provided for in the past ?
Admiral RICKOVER. We do not act independently on that, sir. Insofar as the disposal of spent nuclear cores that is handled by the
ERDA Division of Production in accordance with established regulations. Naval cores are handled just like any other cores in that
respect.
29
As far as radioactive discharges from our ships and the facilities
that serve them, I can give you some interesting figures. Until 1970 we
were discharging several million gallons of very low level radioactive
water into the harbors and rivers of the world from the nuclear powered ships and support facilities. The year before last we reduced this
amount to 25,000 gallons. Last year we reduced it to 10,000 gallons of
water from over 100 ships, 9 shipyards, 11 tenders and 2 submarine
bases. Ever since 1971 we have annually discharged a total of only .002
of one curie of radioactivity into all the harbors of the world. The
radiation to which people are potentially exposed from this extremely
small amount is less than the radiation one person gets from 7 or 8
chest X-rays.
In fact if you take the 5,000 or 6,000 tons of seawater which a single
Polaris submarine displaces, you will find the natural background
radioactivity in that water is greater than what we discharge into
harbors each year from all these ships and support facilities.
With your permission, Mr. Chairman, I will as I have in the past,
put a copy of our annual report on radioactive discharge by the naval
nuclear propulsion program in the record.
Senator MONTOYA. Without objection, the report will be included.
[The report referred to appears as appendix III, p. 92.]
Senator MONTOYA. Do you have any further questions ?
Representative ANDERSON. No, Mr. Chairman.
Senator MONTOYA. Is that all, Admiral ?
FREEDOM OF INFORMATION ACT
Admiral RICKOVER. We would like to talk about the Freedom of
Information Act. I am sorry that Mr. Moss is not here to hear this.
I think you know that this law, enacted by Congress in 1967 and
amended in 1974, makes it possible for anyone, whether they are an
American citizen or a foreign national, to make a demand on the
United States Government for any document it may possess.
I am sure the intent of that law was not to be as drastic as it has
turned out. Since Mr. Wegner has been handling this I would like to
ask him to discuss this area. I think you would be very interested in
seeing how the burden that has been placed on the entire executive
branch by this law can affect a particular operation such as ours. It
is capable of practically stopping our ability to get any work done.
Senator MONTOYA. Has there been any suit filed against you ?
Admiral RICKOVER. Sir ?
Senator MONTOYA. What has the court decided ?
Admiral RICKOVER. It has not come up in the court yet.
REQUEST FOR VAST QUANTITIES OF RECORDS
Mr. WEGNER. We have not been sued as yet. So far we have just
been requested to provide large amounts of records and we are doing
everything we can to comply with the law. We are involved in cases
where the demands being placed on this organization are absolutely
unreasonable. We are being asked to locate and release vast quantities
of records. It is taking the time and the efforts of the very top people
to deal with the requests that are coming in. The same thing is hap-
54-038 O - 75 - 3
30
pening in other offices of the executive branch. I am sure it was not
the intent of Congress that this occur, but I think Congress needs
to recognize what is happening to the Federal Government. No doubt
we are representative of what is happening in many agencies of the
Government, and we have requests that will take our top people
hundreds and hundreds of man-hours to satisfy. It will divert them
from their vital technical work in order to deal with these requests.
Senator MONTOYA. Have you received any opinion from the Attorney
General with respect to whether or not you are exempt from some of
these provisions of the Freedom of Information Act ?
Mr. WEGNER. We are not exempt from the law any more than any
other Federal agency, sir.
Admiral KICKOVER. We have quite a few classified records and these
are exempt from disclosure. But there is a great bulk of very valuable
technical information that is not classified and which could be subject
to release under the Freedom of Information Act.
LETTERS FROM LAW CENTER
Mr. WEGNER. I have copies of the letters concerning the most allinclusive request we have received. It will give you an idea of what we
are facing. I can insert the letters in the record.
Senator MONTOYA. If you will.
[The information referred to follows:]
31
INSTITUTE FOR PUBLIC INTEREST REPRESENTATION
GEORGETOWN UNIVERSITY LAW CENTER
ADRIAN ». FI»HI*.
»OO »:<W JCHHV AVE . N.W.
DCAN
WASHINGTON. O. C. IOOOI
TtLI»HOH« (2OI) •24.(3(O
November 11, 1974
Chief of Naval Information
Department of the Navy
Washington, D.C. 20301
Dear Sir:
The Institute for Public interest Representation
("Institute") is a private organization affiliated with
Georgetown University Law Center. The Institute was founded
for the purpose of ensuring that federal agencies recognize
and give sufficient consideration to the public interest
in their decisionmaking processes. It engages in litigation,
where appropriate, before federal agencies and in the federal
courts.
On behalf of the Institute, we request access, for
purposes of inspection and copying, to all records and other
documentary material, whether or not prepared by the Naval
Ship Systems Command, pertaining to disposal, whether
intentional or not, including but not limited to disposal
by ocean dumping or in-port discharge, of any radioactive
material generated by, used in, produced as a by-product or
waste product of, or existing in connection with any operations
of the Naval Ship Systems Command 08 or the Division of Naval
Reactors, whether at sea or on shore. The types of radioactive material to which these records pertain include but
l
are not limited to:
.
1.
any reactor core materials;
2.
primary or secondary reactor coolant,
in any amount;,
3.
ion exchanger resins;
32
Chief of Naval Information
r>epaxtment of the N^vy
November 11, 1974
Page Two
4. any other radioactive material, including
but not limited to material made radioactive by irradiation or containing material
made radioactive by irradiation.
The records and other documentary material made available
in response to this request should include, but not be
limited to, all records and documents prepared pursuant to
32 C.F.R. Part 214, including, inter alia, environmental
statements, environmental assessments, draft and final
environmental impact statements, and any other records
pertaining to environmental effects of the above described
activities.
We would appreciate your prompt response to this
request,
Sincerely,
Robert C. Brown
33
ADRIAN ». FISHER.
«OO NEW JERSEY AVE.. N.W.
WASHINGTON. O. C. 2OOOI
TkLKPHONK (2O2) 624-839O
ROBERT PITOFSKY.
HO OF TRUSTEES
November 11, 1974
Secretary
U.S. Atomic Energy Commission
Washington, D.C. 20545
Dear Sir:
The Institute for Public Interest Representation
("Institute") is a private organization affiliated with
Georgetown University Law'Center. The Institute was founded
for the purpose of ensuring that federal agencies recognize
and give sufficient consideration to the public interest in
their decisionmaking processes. It engages in litigation,
where appropriate, before federal agencies and in the federal
courts.
On behalf of the Institute, we request access, for
purposes of inspection and copying, to all records, whether
or not prepared by the Division of Naval Reactors, pertaining
to disposal, whether intentional or not, including but not
limited to disposal by ocean dumping or in-port discharge, of
any radioactive material generated by, used in, produced as
a by-product or waste product of, or existing in connection
with any operations of the Division of Naval Reactors or the
Naval Ship Systems Command 08, whether at sea or on shore.
The types of radioactive material to which these records
pertain include but are not limited to:
1.
any reactor core materials;
2. primary or secondary reactor coolant,
in any amount;
34
Secretary
U.S. Atomic Energy Commission
November 11, 1974
Page Two
3.
ion exchanger resins;
4.
any other radioactive material, including but
not limited to material made radioactive by
irradiation or containing material made radioactive by irradiation.
The records made available in response to this request should
include, but not be limited to, all records prepared pursuant
to 10 C.P.R. Part 11, including, inter alia, environmental
statements, environmental assessments, draft and final
environmental impact statements, statements of "no potential
environmental effect" prepared pursuant to 10 C.F.R. § 11.21(a)
and any other records pertaining to environmental effects of
the above described activities.
We would appreciate your prompt response to this
request.
1
John H. Harwood II
>y/ /, /'/
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f
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Robert C. Brown
35
ER.
PHILIP ELM AN.
vC
' Dl;;«?i.KRAMER>
February 14. 1975
RICHARD WOLF,
DEPUTY DlNKCTOR
Rear Admiral S.T.
Acting Commander,
Department of the
Washington, D.C.
Counts
Naval Sea Systems Command
Navy
20362
Dear Admiral Counts:
Thank you for your letter of December 27, 1974, replying
to our letter of November 11, 1974. You noted in your letter
that in some respects the description we provided of the
records we are seeking was "so broad in nature that [you]
are unable to identify specific documents . . . ." The
documents enclosed with your letter have enabled us to
make our description of some of the records which we requested
precise, and we are confident you will be able to identify
the records described below.
On behalf of the Natural Resources Defense Council and
this Institute we request access, for purposes of inspection
and copying, to the following records:
(1) Records covering the period from July 1, 1967, to
the present showing the number and frequency of discharges
from Navy nuclear vessels incident to ion exchange resin ^J
disposal, the amount of radioactivity (curies) involved in
each such discharge (if different from that shown in Table V
of Enclosure (1)-10 to youfcr letter), and the total amounts of
jjy'
"Ion exchange resin" was formerly referred to as "demineralizer resin." All requests in this letter for records
relating to "ion exchange resin" include, of course, records
meeting the stated description in all respects except that the
type of substance now called "ion exchange resin" is referred
to therein as "demineralizer resin" or any other name.
36
Rear Admiral S.T. Counts
radioactivity annually discharged from Navy nuclear vessels,
both in-port and at sea, incident to ion exchange resin disposal.
(2) All Instructions (or other records) cancelling,
superseding, reiterating, or modifying BUSHIPS INSTRUCTION
9890.5 dated 12 May 1958, which is Appendix A to Enclosure
(1)-10 of your letter.
(3) Records setting out current procedures for
disposal of ion exchange resin, all records relating to the
change in this procedure, which according to page 239 of
Enclosure (l)-4 took place during 1970, and records setting
out procedures for disposal of ion exchange resin during 1968,
1969, 1970, and 1971. The requested records should show the
reasons for the 1970 change in procedure and the official
responsible for the change,
(4) Records stating the density of ion exchange resin,
arid all records indicating whether or not ion exchange resin
floats in sea water, and,,if it does not float, the rate at
which it sinks.
(5) Records, such as procedure manuals and Instructions,
supporting the statement on page 9 of Enclosure (1)-1 to your
letter that "Navy procedures prohibit sea disposal of solid
radioactive materials," and all records showing any exceptions
to this general prohibition.
(6) All records indicating what radioactive substances
other than "solid radioactive materials" are permitted by
Navy procedures to be disposed of at sea and the circumstances >
under which such disposal is allowed or required.
(7) All records which form the basis for Tables, 1, 2, 3,
and 4 (including "Note ***") of Enclosure (1)-1 to your
letter, but only for the years 1969 and 1973.
37
February 14, 1975
Page Three
(8) Records showing information of the type presented
in Table 3 of Enclosure (1)-1 to your letter for Port
Canaveral, Apra Harbor, and all foreign harbors used for any
purpose by U.S. Navy nuclear vessels; and records showing
information of the type presented in Table 4 (including
"Note ***") of Enclosure (1)-1 to your letter for all foreign
harbors used for any purpose by U.S. Navy nuclear vessels.
The requested records cover the years 1969-1973, inclusive.
(9) All records dated at any time in 1969 or 1973 which
form the basis for the records requested in paragraph (8)
above. The records requested in this paragraph are of the
same type as those requested in paragraph (7) above.
(10) Records specifying the sediment testing procedures
briefly described on pages 11-12 of Enclosure (1)-1 to your
letter and all records forming the basis for reliance on the
validity of the results obtained with these procedures.
(The requested records include, but are not limited to, records
indicating the rate of sediment deposit at the various harbors
where tests were or are conducted, records forming the basis
for sampling only the "top one-half to one inch of sediment,"
and all records containing information on the depth to
which marine life penetrates the'sediment.)
(11) All records forming the basis for the statement on
page 12 of Enclosure (1)-1 to your letter that "[d]ata on
uptake of cobalt 60 by marine life obtained to date show that
in the salt water harbor bottom environments, no significant
build up of cobalt 60 occurs in marine life."
(12) All records forming the basis for the conclusion,
stated on page 14 of Enclosure (1)-1 to your letter, that
"monitoring of radioactivity in marine life has not been
necessary" and records showing the official responsible for
this conclusion.
February 14, 1975
Page Four
(13) Any records of monitoring of radioactivity in marine
life in ports and harbors, including foreign ports and harbors,
used for any purpose by U.S. Navy nuclear powered ships.
The requested records relate only to monitoring done since
1963.
(14) All records referred to in the description, on
page 3 of Enclosure (1)-1 to your letter, "standard instructions
defining the radioactive waste disposal limits and procedures
to be used by U.S. Navy nuclear-powered ships and their
support facilities."
(15) Records which show the number of curies annually
discharged into foreign harbors and the harbors listed in
Table 1 of Enclosure (1)-1 to your letter from 1967 to
the present.
(16) All records forming the basis for the statement
on page 7 of Enclosure (1)-1 to your letter that the "total
amount of tritium released during each of the last 5 years
from all U.S. Naval nuclear-powered ships and their supporting
tenders, bases and shipyards has been less than 200 curies.
Most of this has been into the ocean greater than twelve miles
from shore."
(17) All records relating to the continued validity
of Reference (5) to Enclosure (1)-1 of your letter.
(18) All correspondence between any officer, whether
civilian or military, of the Division of Naval Reactors
and any officer of the Environmental Protection Agency relating
to the Marine Protection, Research, and Sanctuaries Act of
1972, as amended, 33 U.S.C. §§ 1401-1444.
l
In addition, we request access, for purposes of inspection and copying, to all records of radiation exposure of
personnel, whether civilian or military, associated in any
way with any aspect of the operations of the Division of
Naval Reactors or the Naval Sea Systems Command. The requested
records cover the period from 1968 to the present. They
39
February 14, 1975
Page Five
include, but are not limited to, records showing, for the
personnel described above, information of the type presented
in the "Sixth Annual Report of the Operation of the U.S.
Atomic Energy Commission's Centralized Ionizing Radiation
Exposure Records and Reports System," a copy of which is
enclosed. Not included in this request are those portions
of the records containing personnel and medical files and
similar files the disclosure of which would constitute a
clearly unwarranted invasion of personal privacy.
If responding to any portion of our request will result
in our being assessed a fee, we ask that you contact us before
proceeding to respond to that portion of the request. Please
telephone Mr. Brown if we can in any way help expedite this
matter.
Sincerely,
ô.
Robert C. Brown
Enclosure
40
Mr. WEGNER. Let me read a part from the latest letter.
In addition we request access, for the purpose of inspection and copying, to
all records of radiation exposure of personnel, whether civilian or military, associated in any way with any aspect of the operation of the Division of Naval
Reactors or the Naval Sea Systems Command. The requested records cover the
period from 1968 to present . . .
Representative ANDERSON. Who is making this request by the way?
Mr. WEGNER. The request is being made by the Institute for Public
Interest Representation, Georgetown University Law Center. We have
no idea why they want these records or what their concern is.
I think you should recognize that in order to comply with this latest
request involves the records of over 1,300 facilities including laboratories, shipyards, ships, and manufacturing facilities which probably
employ in the neighborhood of well over a half million people. Yet by
the law we are supposed to respond to this request in 10 days or be
subject to suit.
Senator MONTOYA. What is your objection to that mandate ? The fact
that you have to list records of involvement of all these people ?
Mr. WEGNER. I have only read you one of 19 categories of records
this organization has asked for. I can read some more.
Senator MONTOYA. What I am trying to find out is, what alternatives
do you offer ?
Mr. WEGNER. I would certainly make it such that a request would
have to be a reasonable request. I recognize it would not be easy to
write the law to reflect this. But I think Congress ought to understand
how this law is being used the way it is written.
Representative ANDERSON. I would like to ask this question, and in
the course of the questions, I guess, make an observation. I don't know
about the situation in the Senate. As far as the House is concerned, of
course, that Freedom of Information Act came out of the House Government Operations Committee, and I assume the Senate counterpart
of that committee acted on it in the Senate. Have you ever made any
effort to communicate with either of those committees to tell them some
of the things you are telling us today ?
Admiral RICKOVER. No, sir. We have not yet had the opportunity to
do so.
Representative ANDERSON. This committee can't do much to amend
the Freedom of Information Act. You ought to be in touch with the
respective chairman of the Seriate and House Government Operations
Committee.
SCOPE OF RECENT REQUEST
Admiral RICKOVER. I understand your point, sir.
Let me read you some of the categories in this latest request:
"All instructions or other records cancelling, superseding, reiterating, or modifying the BUSHIPS Instructions 9890.5 dated 12 May,
1958, which is appendix A to enclosure (1)-10 of your letter.
"Records setting out current procedures for disposal of ion exchange
resin and all records related to the change in this procedure which
according to page 239 of enclosure (l)-4 took^place during 1970, and
records setting out procedures for disposal of ion exchange resin during 1968, 1969, 1970, and 1971. The requested records should show the
reasons for the 1970 change in procedure and the official responsible
for the change.
41
"Records stating the density of ion exchange resin and all records
indicating whether or not ion exchange resin floats in sea water and
if it does not float, the rate at which it sinks.
"Records such as procedure manuals, instructions supporting the
statement on page 9 of enclosure (1)-1 to your letter that 'Navy
procedures prohibit sea disposal of solid radioactive material,' and all
records showing any exceptions to this general prohibition."
As I previously mentioned, the results of what we do in radioactive
discharges are set forth in an annual report which I have been providing to the Environmental Protection Agency and before them to the
U.S. Public Health Service for years. I have also included a copy in
the hearing record when I testify before this committee. This report is
an official record which describes exactly what we do.
Another category being requested is, "all records indicating what
radioactive substances other than 'solid radioactive material' are
permitted by Navy procedure to be disposed at sea and the circumstances under which such disposal is allowed or required.
"All records which form the basis of tables 1, 2, and 3 ..." and so
on. A total of 19 different categories.
Senator MONTOYA. Admiral, that is going to go in the record anyway. It is already in the record. May I suggest that you dredge this
problem to the Government Operations Committee which handles the
legislation with respect to the Freedom of Information Act.
CONGRESSIONAL CONCERN OVER RELEASE OF NAVAL NUCLEAR
PROPULSION INFORMATION
Admiral RICKOVER. Yes, sir. But this committee has for years been
concerned about the release of our naval nuclear propulsion technology to foreign countries. Because of its great strategic value you have
insisted that the executive branch protect even the unclassified technology. Under the Freedom of Information Act we are vulnerable to
losing a vast amount of valuable technical information because we
cannot even determine the eventual destination or use of records requested under the act.
As members of Congress you are concerned about how tax dollars are
being spent and whether our citizens are getting their money's worth.
If my people have to be off searching for thousands of records to
satisfy a single request, our technical work will suffer, the naval nuclear
power program will suffer and ultimately our national defense posture
will suffer. That is something I am certain you are concerned about.
I understand a former Defense Department employee has requested
access to a voluminous number of documents he had access to in his
former iob. He is doing this even though he knows that many are
classified. However, according to the law, the Defense Department
would have to review all of these for classification and the requester
can even go into court and request judicial review of the classification.
Can you imagine the time and effort all of this would take ?
Another request that has been received is for all ioint chiefs of staff
records pertaining to Israel-Arab relations since 1947. This is a request
by a publisher who wants to write a book. It is just a fishing expedition.
Such requests can only tie knots in the way Government agencies
operate. Congress is going to have to make a decision: do they want
42
us to do our work or do they want us to engage in this sort of nonproductive "hide and seek" ?
PROFESSIONAL PEOPLE WILL QUIT
You should also recognize that professional people in Government
will not put up with this nonsense. They will quit. Talented, dedicated
people are not going to serve in Government if they are subject to this
kind of harassment.
I would like to get this matter before the Government Operations
Committee and I respectfully request Mr. Anderson's help in doing
that in the House.
Representative ANDERSON. I certainly would be willing to do this.
When the transcript of these hearings has been prepared, and I realize
it is going to be a classified hearing record.
Admiral RICKOVER. This portion will be unclassified, sir.
Representative ANIDERSON. I will call it to the attention—I don't
know who the chairman in the particular subcommittee is now, whether
it is Mr. Moss or somebody else—I will undertake to call it to their
attention, and suggest this is a matter they ought to look into and get
in touch with you further, and even hold some hearings on the problem.
Mr. WEGNER. You recognize that the President vetoed the recent
amendment to the Freedom of Information Act for some of the very
reasons we are citing here today. He was concerned that it would tend
to interfere with the operation of the Federal Government.
Senator MONTOYA. Would you insert in the record a very definitive
statement as to the pitfalls that lie in compliance ?
Mr. WEGNER. Yes, sir. We certainly will.
Senator MONTOYA. Then we will extract it from the record and
certify it to the Government Operations Committee.
Representative ANDERSON. If it could be in an unclassified form it
would be much easier to circulate.
Mr. LEIGHTON. This hearing record will start out classified but it will
go through security review and be declassified. This portion will be
unclassified.
Mr. WEGNER. There is a current case in which a claim is being prepared against the U.S. Government. Prior to that claim being carried
into litigation, the company, claiming the Freedom of Information
Act as its authority, has requested all of the information in the U.S.
Government files in order to substantiate their claim against the
Federal Government.
Senator MONTOYA. Could't they do that under discovery ?
Mr. WEGNER. No. sir.
Senator MONTOYA. In a lawsuit ?
ADMIRAL RICKOVER. With the Freedom of Information Act one party
has the right to obtain information, the other party does not. The
Government can't look into their contractors records under the Freedom of Information Act. We have no legal authority. But they have a
legal authority to come and look at the Governments records.
43
Senator MONTOYA. I would say that you do.
Admiral RICKOVER. No. sir.
Senator MONTOYA. tinder the rules of discovery.
Admiral RICKOVER. Well, yes, you have that in a lawsuit. But then
both parties go before a judge who is neutral. You have to go through a
court to get permission for access and both sides are treated equally.
Senator MONTOYA. You can do it through deposition too.
Admiral RICKOVER. But in this case we are talking about handing to
a contractor every file and record before litigation. This is not during
litigation; this is before litigation.
Senator MONTOYA. I think Congressman Anderson offered a good
suggestion which I endorse. We will certainly permit you to fortify the
record a little more.
Admiral RICKOVER. Yes, sir, I would appreciate it if Congressman
Anderson will help us. If you doubt what we say we will be glad to give
you further details.
Representative ANDERSON. I believe you.
[The information subsequently supplied follows:]
STATEMENT BY ADMIRAL RICKOVER RELATIVE TO ACCESS TO INFORMATION
I recognize that we are living in a time when secrecy in government is a matter
of great concern and there are instances where it has been misused. I certainly
believe that fundamental to our democratic way of life is the right of our citizens
to know what their government is doing. However, good government requires
some confidentiality and if this is not allowed our Government will not be able to
carry out its duties. We must strike a proper balance between the public's
"right-to-know" and the government's "obligation-to-govern."
With the Freedom of Information Act, particularly as it has recently been
amended, the pendulum has swung too far in the direction of exposure to the
detriment of efficient and effective government. I know what I am saying is not
popular, but I am deeply concerned over the adverse effects this law is having.
One individual with pen, paper and a few stamps can effectively disrupt a Federal agency. A person asking for all Government records on a given subject can
cause the expenditure of thousands to tax dollars and many manhours of Federal
workers in complying with the request. The law does not require the requestor to
justify his request or demonstrate that satisfying it will benefit the public. While
some records are exempt from release, the exemptions have been narrowly defined.
The law provides for appeals and judicial reviews of denials such that the government is constantly on the defensive when, in the public interest, it must withhold information, even if it is properly classified. Tremendous effort on the part of
the Executive Branch is required to protect information which must be kept
confidential if it is to benefit the national interests.
The Freedom of Information Act as amended is a powerful tool in the hands of
an individual or group who, for personal reasons, can use it to the detriment of
the public good. It will be and has been used in this way. This law now enables
any person, alien or U.S. citizen to roam within the files of every Government
agency increasingly disrupting the day-to-day business and occupying the time
of too many Government personnel.
I have previously covered a specific example of how the Freedom of Information Act is being used concerning my work. The requests, which have been inserted
into the record are extremely broad in scope and to search all of the records
covered by them, not to mention reviewing them for classification and releasability, would require hundreds of manhours by people who are needed to work on
important technical programs. The same thing is happening to other Executive
agencies so that the total impact on government cannot be ignored.
Another perhaps more serious concern is that through the Freedom of Information Act, it appears that anyone can gain access to unclassified military technology unless it can be withheld from release according to one of the limited
exemptions in the Act. I am particularly concerned with the loss of our valuable
naval nuclear propulsion technology.
44
The vital importance of protecting this technology has been recognized by
both the Congress and the Executive Branch. With the strong support of the
Joint Committee on Atomic Energy, the Executive Branch has consistently
maintained a strict policy of denying foreign governments and foreign nationals
access to naval nuclear propulsion technology, classified or unclassified, unless
such disclosure is authorized by a government-to-government agreement executed
in accordance with the Atomic Energy Act. Only one such agreement has ever
been approved: a now terminated 1958 agreement with the United Kingdom,
under which the United States provided one U.S. naval nuclear propulsion plant
for the British submarine Dreadnought, under very stringent security controls
and guarantees.
Since public release is tantamount to foreign disclosure, public disclosure of
unclassified naval nuclear propulsion technology as well as classified technology
has been strictly controlled by the Executive Branch. Naval nuclear propulsion
information is specifically exempted from foreign disclosure under the National
Disclosure Policy; and special Department of State and Department of Commerce regulations are in effect prohibiting the unauthorized export of this
technology.
I would like to emphasize that the magnitude and complexity of the massive
body of information covered by the term "naval nuclear propulsion technology",
and the heavy dependence of the Government on the private sector for the development and use of this technology in the construction and maintenance of our
nuclear powered fleet. Naval nuclear propulsion technology, in the broadest sense,
comprises all the technical information which is required to design, develop,
and fabricate all the components, nuclear and non-nuclear, for the propulsion
plants of our nuclear powered warships. We now have almost one hundred and
fifty nuclear powered ships in operation, under construction or authorized, each
of which consists of many thousands of highly technical parts and components.
Only a small part of this work is done in Government facilities; the bulk is
done in laboratories, plants, shipyards, and other facilities under Government
contract. As a rough measure of the massive volume of information involved,
there are 6 Government and 3 private shipyards engaged in this work, employing
over 100 thousand people; 2 major laboratories, numerous smaller laboratories,
and 6 prototype reactors, employing over 10 thousand people, are also involved.
Over a thousand private contractors and vendors, employing many more thousands
are dispersed throughout the country and are engaged in designing and fabricating
the components of these propulsion plants. Annually, in addition to an extremely
large volume of official correspondence, the naval nuclear propulsion program
generates thousands of technical papers and reports, tens of thousands of technical drawings and blueprints, and hundreds of thousands of shop orders, purchase orders, and other technical and miscellaneous documents.
Virtually all of this information would be of military or intelligence value
to the Soviet Union or other powers with an interest in naval nuclear propulsion.
From these documents a competent technical analyst could extrapolate or infer
extremely valuable information on the capabilities, characteristics, operating
parameters, design features, and arrangements of U.S. nuclear powered ships,
as well as U.S. engineering advances which could be exploited to reduce anv advantages the U.S. has in this field.
Ideally, we would prefer to provide all of this information with the maximum
protection possible by classifying it. As a practical matter, however, the imposition of various safeguards, controls, and procedures required by formal classification would create an unsupportable burden on the naval nuclear propulsion
program and effectively destroy its military value. Classification of program
technology would require:
(to) Extensive physical modification of several hundred private plants which
fabricate the components of our propulsion systems, in order to secure the work
areas, machines, and components under fabrication;
(6) The application of classified markings, accounting, and handling procedures
to all plans, drawings, shop orders, purchase orders, and correspondence relating
to the technical portions of the program work, including the installation of
approved safes, vaults, etc., for overnight storage of working documents, which
would have to be collected at the close of each working day and redistributed to
individual shop employees prior to resumption of work;
(c) Security guard forces at all private facilities would have to be substantially expanded, in order to meet the regulatory criteria for the safeguarding of
classified materials;
45
(d) Formal security investigations would have to be conducted, and clearances
granted and maintained, for the thousands of employees involved in program
work;
(e) The transport of components and circulation of plans, reports, and contract documents throughout the program, (presently accomplished, with appropriate packaging, crating, etc., via the mails and ordinary freight) would have to
be subject to the elaborate controls required for the transmittal of classified
materials;
(/) Extensive modifications would have to be made at many facilities where
nuclear propulsion work is accomplished; large areas would have to be enclosed
and secured as classified areas; in some cases entire facilities or major portions
of them would have to be placed off-limits to uncleared personnel, requiring
duplication of major facilities now used commonly for nuclear program and nonprogram work.
The cost of these measures, if applied to all program information for which
protection from unauthorized release is necessary, would be prohibitive. Although, owing to the wide geographic dispersion of the facilities and the numbers
of components, documents, etc., involved, no detailed estimate is possible, it is
clear that an increase of at least 25% in overall program costs, amounting to hundreds of millions of dollars, would result from total classification. More critical,
however, would be the cost of classification in terms of the time required to design,
construct, and install our naval nuclear propulsion plants under fully classified
conditions. Again, as a rough estimate, the delays which formal classified handling and control of program technology would cause in the handling, storage, and
transfer of documents and information throughout the program would extend
project times 25 to 50%. In light of the military pressures which exist for the
rapid completion of U.S. nuclear propulsion program objectives, we cannot afford
such delays.
Finally, the effect of the large additional administrative and physical burden
of classification on the willingness of private enterprises to perform program work
must be considered. Already, private firms are reluctant to enter this field because
of the stringent technical criteria we require and the administrative requirements of sensitive government contract work ; some are leaving the field for commercial work, largely for this reason. If these vendors were required to make
extensive modifications to their facilities, subject their employees to Government security investigations, and otherwise meet the criteria for classified Government work, it is doubtful that many would wish to qualify for this work. The
effect of classification on our relationship with our private contractors is not
susceptible to precise evaluation, but we know it would be very damaging.
For all these reasons we have formally classified only the more critical
portion of our technology which is a limited amount compared to the total. I
would emphasize, however, that this dops not mean we have left the unclassified portion of our work unprotected. There are, as you know, a wide range of
protective measures available short of formal classification and we have made
full use of these measures to insure protection of our technology. Procedures
for the control, physical security, handling, storage, and transfer from one
location to another of unclassified technology have been carefully designed
in each instance to provide effective protection with the minimum possible
interference with program activities.
When circumstances and the nature of the technology concerned have warranted stringent controls, we have applied them even in the absence of classification. We have not permitted foreign release to occur through the public
release of naval nuclear propulsion technology. In short, we have had the
flexibility to apply judgment and discretion to the difficult balance we have had
to strike between formal security procedures and the vital and complex military
objectives we have been given to accomplish. This flexibility has been an
essential part of the successful operation of the naval nuclear propulsion
program.
•
You can see the dilemma we are in. Congress has in this case established
conflicting requirements. On the one hand Congress has been insistent that we
protect our naval nuclear propulsion technology from indiscriminate release and
foreign disclosure, a position with which I fully agree, yet through the Freedom
of Information Act, Congress has put the executive branch in a position where
we may have to surrender such information to any requestor, for no stated
reason and cannot refuse even if we know hp i<« not a U.S. citizen. Certainly
I know of no reason why a private citizen needs or could use this information
since building nuclear powered warships is certainly not a private enterprise.
54-038 O - 75 - 4
46
This brings me to the question that was raised earlier in the testimony, what
would I recommend to redress the imbalance caused by this Act? The most
important thing is for Congress provide an exemption for valuable military
technology, even if unclassified, from release under the Freedom of Information Act. Congress can do this without changing the present law if it enacts a
separate statutory exemption. It is, I believe, extremely important that this
be done without delay in the case of naval nuclear propulsion technology so
that this information—which is of such direct importance to the national defense—is not compromised.
As to other changes to the Freedom of Information Act, there are several
areas that should be considered. I do not intend however, for the following to
be necessarily a complete list:
1. The Act does not require the requester to demonstrate a legitimate reason
why he needs a given record or how the public good will be served by its release.
In the absence of such a justification, which can be considered on its merits,
an individual or organization can make a request for purely selfish reasons that
will harm the public interest if the requested records are released.
2. The Act should apply only to requests by U.S. citizens. The government
should be under no obligation to supply records to foreign nationals.
3. In addition to the need to exempt military technology, the existing exemption categories should be expanded to cover more fully items which the government receives in confidence. For example management inspection reports of
private firms doing government work should be exempt else the government will
no longer be able to obtain such reports.
4. The provisions of the Act dealing with classified records need revision.
The Act appears predicated on the basis that classified government records are
improperly classified. The Act should be structured upon the presumption that
government records are properly classified. Otherwise, government representatives are placed in the ludicrous position of having to try and defend in public
the classification of documents which by law they cannot disclose to the public
without being subject to criminal penalties. In addition, the present Act's provision for judicial review of the classification of government records should be
narrowed. A requestor should have to demonstrate some basis for improper
handling by the government before the judicial process comes into play.
5. Under the present Act each agency establishes a uniform schedule of fees
for recovery of the cost of searching for and duplicating records requested by
the public. However, the cost of examining the records for exempt material
is not recoverable by the government. Based on recent experience the time and
effort expended in reviewing requested records for exempt material considerably
exceeds the time and expense of the administrative search for and duplication
of the documents. Further, review for exempt material is an administrative
duty which cannot be taken lightly. Improper disclosure of certain classes of
exempt material might expose government personnel to criminal or civil liabilities. The Freedom of Information Act should be revised to recognize the government's efforts to review records for exempt material and to make the cost of
this review recoverable.
6. The Act as amended gives an agency 10 working days in which to advise
the applicant of the determination whether to disclose or to withhold the
requested documents. For straightforward requests of single documents which
are readily available, compliance with the legislative mandate ordinarily is not
burdensome. What the law does not adequately take into account, however,, are
requests for large quantities of public records. I have previously discussed
just such a request. In cases such as these compliance with the 10-day period for
determining the agency's position to disclose or to withhold the requested records is plainly impossible. The Act should be revised so that the number of
working days in which the agency must determine the applicability of exemptions is flexible according to the magnitude of the request.
7. The present Freedom of Information Act is being used as a vehicle for
obtaining public records when litigation with the Government is pending to
circumvent the Boards or Courts rules with respect to discovery of documents.
For example, in one administrative proceeding where the Board of Contract
Appeals had ruled that the period for discovery of records had ended, the law
firm representing the private litigant nevertheless sought and obtained Navy
records subsequent to the closing of discovery through the Freedom of Information Act. The Act should be revised to provide that when a matter involving
the discovery of records is in litigation, the Freedom of Information Act should
not be available as a substitute for discovery under Court or Board rules.
47
8. Another consideration which has not been taken into account in the Act
is the inviolability of common-law privileges. The traditional common-law rule—
namley that confidential communications between an attorney and his client,
and documents, information and data acquired or prepared by an attorney in
preparation for litigation, are privileged and not subject to discovery by another
party to a litigation—has not been properly recognized in the Freedom of
Information Act. A literal reading of the Act would indicate that such traditionally privileged communications and documents may indeed be obtained by
an opposing litigant pursuant to the Act. A way to clarify this would be to
include the following as an exemption:
"Nothing herein shall be deemed to limit or abridge common-law privileges of
Counsel representing the Government in defense of civil claims, procurement
matters or other bona fide legal activities, nor shall the details of Government
preparation for defense of litigation before any court or administrative body
be required to be produced under this Act".
If the recommendations noted above are acted on, I believe it will go a long
way toward protecting valuable military technology and enabling Government
agencies to function effectively and efficiently.
SENATOR MONTOYA. Thank you very much, gentlemen.
We will stand in adjournment until 10 o'clock tomorrow morning.
Admiral EICKOVER. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. This is
the first time I have appeared with you chairing the session. I appreciate your courtesy.
Senator MONTOYA. I came here this afternoon for knowledge. I go
to my office a little wiser because of you.
Admiral RICKOVER. Thank you, sir. I go back to my office remembering my very fine treatment here.
[Whereupon, at 3:55 p.m., the hearing was recessed, to resume at
10 a.m., March 6,1975, the next day.]
APPENDIX I
NAVAL NUCLEAR PROPULSION PROGRAM
A JOINT PROGRAM OP THE ENERGY RESEARCH AND DEVELOPMENT ADMINISTRATION
AND THE NAVY
Under the direction of Admiral H. G. Rickover, U.S. Navy, Director,
Division of Naval Reactors, Energy Research and Development Administration, and Deputy Commander for Nuclear Propulsion, Naval
Sea Systems Command.
(49)
50
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O
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a
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51
Naval nuclear propulsion program
Nuclear ship in operation
112
Submarines
Surface warships
105
7
Additional nuclear ships authorized
Submarines
Surface warships
36
30
6
.
Land prototypes in operation (2 more under construction)
Reactors in operation
:
Years of reactor operating experience
.
_
_
Miles steamed (millions)
People trained at naval reactors prototypes
6
131
1,250
28
35,200
Officers
Enlisted men
5,200
30,000
Total investment in nuclear fleet through fiscal year 1975 (billion) :
AEC/ERDA R. & D
AEO/ERDA equipment and facilities
Navy R. & D
Navy ship construction including replacement cores and components—
Total investment
$2. 2
.5
1.0
23.1
26.8
Operating attack submarines
Nautilus first went to sea January 1955.
Operating nuclear attack submarines, 64.
Plant and1 number operating:
S2W, 2
S3W/S4W,
5
S5W,S 54
S5Wa, 1
S2C, 1
[Deleted], [Deleted]
*"*»•«* «WP
Nautilus (SSN^571).
Skate (SSN-578).
Skipjack (SSN-585).
GlenardP. Lipscomb (SSN-685).
Tullibee (SSN-£97).
[Deleted].
1
Explanation of plant designation :
1st symbol—ship type—S = submarine, D=destroyer/frigate, A=aircraft carrier.
2nd symbol—Sequential number of plant designed by the prime contractor for that
ship type.
3d symbol—prime contractor that designed plant—W=Westinghouse, G=General
Electric, C = Combusion Engineering.
2 For example, S1W—first submarine plant designed by Westinghouse.
One additional S5W submarine is under construction.
SSN-688 class high speed attack submarines
Ships authorized through fiscal year 1975, 26.
First ship delivered, 1975.
Additional ships planned at rate of five every 2 years.
Characteristics:
Reactor plant
Length (feet)
Diameter (feet)
Displacement (tons)
_.
Shaft horsepower
Maximum speed (knots)
Energy equivalent (millions of barrels of oil)
Sturgeon
SSN-637 class
Los Angeles
SSN-688 class
S5W
292
S6G
360
33
31.7
.
)
I
1
4,770
6,900
(deleted]
(deleted.)
52
Polaris/Poseidon submarines
In operation, 41. No new Polaris/Poseidon submarines under construction.
Poseidon conversions:
Conversions to date
Total to be converted
Range of Poseidon missile—2,500 miles. 16 missiles per ship.
Reactor plant S5W.
Energy in core equivalent to [deleted] million barrels of oiL
23
31
Trident submarines
Ships authorized through fiscal year 1975, three.
Expected shipbuilding program of 10 total through fiscal year 1980.
Range of Trident missiles permits freedom from foreign bases.
[Deleted].
Characteristics:
Poseidon
Lafayette
SSBN-616
class
Reactor plant
.
... ...
Length, feet
Diameter, feet
Displacement, tons
Shaft horsepower
Maximum speed
Missile tubes.
.
...
Maximum missile weight (pounds)
Missile Range
..
Missile Tube diameter (inches)..
S5W
425
.
33
""""
...
class
S8G
559
42
7,000
18,750
16
(deleted!
2,500
78
[deleted]
[deletedj
...
.
. _.
..
Trident
24
87
Authorized through fiscal year 1975, one.
Capable of operating at depths to [deleted] feet.
Unlimited propulsion endurance permits large scale exploration of ocean
bottom.
Characteristics:
Reactor plant
NR-1.
Length
137 feet.
Diameter
12.5 feet.
Displacement
[Deleted] tons.
Shaft horsepower
[Deleted].
Maximum speed
,
[Deleted] knots.
[Photograph of NR-1 follows:]
r< •
nvAxr o
{Enterprise (8 A2W type reactor plants)
earners L,VAJN, ^ ---- _ ----------- \Nimitz (2 A4W/A1G type reactor plants)
Cruiser CGN, 1—_____________— Long Beach (2 C1W type reactor plants)
Frigates DLGNS 4
_ \Bairibridge, Truxtum, California,
is
,
Carolina (2 D2G type reactor plants)
Nuclear surface ships have steamed over 2.2 million miles.
Increased tactical flexibility and freedom of independent action.
Capable of unlimited high speed deployments, examples :
Operation Sea Orbit, 1964.
54
Enterprise, Long Beach, Bainbridge, 30,000 miles around the world without
logistic support.
High speed special mission, Truxtun, 1971, nonstop 8,600 miles at average
speed of 28 knots across Indian Ocean twice—longest high speed run of surface
ship in history.
Enterprise and Long Beach core Ufe
Core life
Cores and year started shipboard operation:
(years)
First design cores, 1961
3
Second design cores, 1965
4
Third design cores, 1971 _—
10-13
Frigate core Ufe
Cores and year started shipboard operation:
First design cores, 1962
Second design cores, 1973—
.
Third design cores, 1983
.
Core life
(years)
5+
10-j~ 15+
Nimitz class aircraft carriers
Ship:
Delivery
Nimitz (CVAN68)
1975
Dwight D. Eisenhower (CYAN 69)
1977
Carl Vinson (CVN 70)
1980
A4W/A1G reactor plant.
Two reactors provide power equivalent to eight reactors in Enterprise—
[deleted].
Expected to operate 13 years of normal operation without refueling.
Energy in initial cores equivalent to 11 million barrels of oil, or train of tank
cars stretching from Washington to Boston.
Title VIII of the Department of Defense Appropriation Authorization Act,
1975, states that future major combatant vessels for the strike forces of the U.S.
Navy shall be nuclear powered.
Navy plans new carrier every 2 years starting in fiscal year 1978.
Virginia class frigates
Ship:
Delivery
Virginia (DLGN 38)
1976
Texas (DLGN 39)
..
1977
Mississippi (DLGN 40)
1977
DLGN 41
1978
DLGN 42
1979
D2G reactor plant.
Two reactors [deleted].
Anti-aircraft, anti-ship, and anti-submarine warfare capability for strike
force operations or independent missions.
Energy in initial cores equivalent to 2 million barrels of oil, provides for 10
years of normal operation.
Frigates to be redesignated cruisers—1 July 1975.
Navy seeking approval of new building program for 18 strike cruisers (CSGN).
CIVILIAN PBOOBAMS
SHIPPINGPOBT ATOMIC POWER STATION
December 1957, initial operation of first central station nuclear powerplant.
Basis for technology of most of commercial light water nuclear industry.
March 1964, first central station reactor plant chemical decontamination.
Light water breeder reactor core planned to start installation late 1975.
PWR power operations:
Core 1—1957 to 1964—1,798,581,700 kilowatt hours (gross).
Core 2—1965 to 1974—3,476,677,000 kilowatt hours (gross).
55
LIGHT WATER BREEDER REACTOR (LWBR)
Fabricating LWBR core for shippingport to confirm breeding using thoriumuranium-233 fuel cycle.
Planned startup—1976.
LWBR type cores could be used in existing or future PWR reactor plants.
Minimum expected Shippingport LWBR performance
Power
50MW (E) NET.
Fissile inventory ratio (FIR)
1.012.
Lifetime
..
15,000 EFPH.
Reduced U3O8 mining required for LWBR.
UsOi REQUIRED FOR 40-YR OPERATION OF 1,000 MEGAWATT (ELECTRICAL) PLANT
LWR
Original plant (tons)
1st replacement plant (tons)
2d replacement plant (tons)
Etc...
5,200
5,200
5,200
Etc.
LWBR
1,300-3,000
0
0
Etc.
ADVANCED WATER BREEDER APPLICATIONS PROJECT (AWBA)
Help industry evaluate and apply LWBR technology.
Pre-breeder core conceptual designs.
Develop improved fuel elements.
Investigate improvements in breeding including possible use of DSO.
BETTIS ATOMIC POWER LABORATORY, PITTSBURGH, PA.
Operated for ERDA by the Westinghouse Electric Corp.
Total employment as of January 1,1975—4,300.
Number of scientists and engineers employed as of January 1, 1975—1,350.
Current major programs:
Design and develop LWBR.
Design and develop propulsion plant for a [deleted] attack submarine.
Complete development of and support Nimitz class carrier propulsion plant.
Complete development of 15-year D2W reactor core for frigates [deleted].
Develop advanced test core.
Support S1W/S2W, S3W/S4W, S5W, S5G, A1W/A2W, C1W prototypes and
ships.
Operate and conduct training at three prototypes.
Operate expended core facility.
KNOLLS ATOMIC POWEB LABORATORY, SCHENECTADT, N.T.
Operated for ERDA by the General Electric Co.
Total employment as of January 1,1975—3,200.
Number of scientists and engineers employed as of January 1, 1975—1,280.
Current major programs:
Design and development of the Trident submarine propulsion plant.
Design and development of [deleted].
Complete development and support SSN 688 shipbuilding program.
Design and construct Trident prototype plant.
Design and construct MARF facility.
Support S1C/S2C, NR-1, S3G, S6G, D1G/D2G.
56
NAVAL REACTORS FACILITY, BETTIS ATOMIC POWER LABORATORY, IDAHO
Land prototypes:
Large ship reactor (A1W).
S1W reactor facility.
Natural circulation reactor (S5G).
Expended core facility.
KESSELRING SITE, KNOLLS ATOMIC POWER LABORATORY, WEST MILTON, N.Y.
Land prototypes
Submarine advanced reactor (S3G).
Destroyer reactor (DIG).
Trident submarine reactor (S8G) (under construction).
MARP.
WINDSOR SITE, KNOLLS ATOMIC POWER LABORATORY, WINDSOR, CONN.
Small submarine reactor (SIC) land prototype.
INDUSTRIAL BASE
Prime contractors for procurement of reactor components
Plant apparatus division, Westinghouse Electric Corp., Pittsburgh, Pa. Total
employment—510.
Machinery apparatus operation (MAO), General Electric Co., Schenectady, N.Y.
Total employment—430.
Two naval reactor core manufacturers
Naval Nuclear Fuel Division, Babcock and Wilcox, Lynchburg, Va.
Naval Products Division, United Nuclear Corp., Montville, Conn.
Over 1,300 industrial contractors—300 large and 1,000 small—provide components and equipment.
Most reactor component suppliers for commercial nuclear plants started in
naval nuclear business.
NEWPORT NEWS SHIPBUILDING & DRY DOCK Co., NEWPORT NEWS, VA.
Total employment—23,500.
Built or under construction, 22 nuclear-powered submarines.
Built or under construction, 9 nuclear-powered surface warships.
Refueling overhauls, 16.
ELECTRIC BOAT DIVISION, GENERAL DYNAMICS CORP., GHOTON, CONN.
Built or under construction, 48 nuclear-powered submarines.
Nonref ueling overhauls, 9.
INGALLS SHIPBUILDING CORP., PASCAGOULA, Miss., EAST BANK YARD
Built 9 nuclear-powered submarines.
Nonref ueling overhauls, 4.
57
Naval shipyards—nuclear qualified
Portsmouth Naval Shipyard, Portsmouth, N.H
Norfolk Naval Shipyard, Portsmouth, Va
Charleston Naval Shipyard, Charleston, S.C
Puget Sound Naval Shipyard, Bremerton, Wash
Mare Island Naval Shipyard, Vallejo, Calif
Pearl Harbor Naval Shipyard, Pearl Harbor, Hawaii
TENDERS—NUCLEAB QUALIFIED
Submarine tenders, 11; destroyer tenders, 2.
ADVANCE BASES
LaMaddalena, Italy ; Rota, Spain; Holy Loch, Scotland; and Guam.
Employees
6, 860
10, 390
7,100
10,800
_ 9,420
5,080
58
APPENDIX II
LIGHT WATER BREEDER REACTOR
59
CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION.
Objective.
Background
Importance of Breeding
Improved Fuel Utilization of LWBR Concept
Use of Shippingport Plant
«
Advantages of a Breeder VJhich Uses the Proven Light Water
Technology
LWBR Contributions to Reactor Technology.
1
2
h
$
$
8
THE LWBR DEMONSTRATION REACTOR DESIGN
Fuel Module Design
Variable Geometry Control
Simulating a Large Breeder Environment in the Shippingport
Reactor Vessel
;•.';
Design Features.,
Performance Characteristics
13
13
l£
THE LWBR DEMONSTRATION REACTOR IN THE SHIPPINGPORT STATION..
22
BREEDING IN THE LIGHT WATER BREEDER REACTOR (LWBR)
2£
How is it Possible to Breed in a Light Water Reactor?
Fuel Nuclear Properties Necessary to Permit Breeding
Development of Refined Nuclear Data and Their Exploitation
in Low Water Content Reactors
Use of Zirconium Alloy for Fuel Element Cladding
and Structurals
*.
The Seed-Blanket Concept with the Associated Movable
Fuel Reactivity Control Concept
Low Neutron Leakage
What is the Appropriate Criterion to Measure Practical
Breeding Performance?
What Performance Could Be Expected in Future 1000 MWe
LWBR Plants?
9
9
9
2J?
2f>
-26
27
2?
28
29
30
60
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
Figure
1
2
3
k
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
ill
l£
Title
Effect of Fissile Inventory Ratio on Fuel Utilization
Energy Potential Comparison
Shippingport Atomic Power Station
LWBR Demonstration Core in Shippingport Vessel
LWBR Demonstration Core Cross Section
Typical LWBR Fuel Module Cross Section
Variable Geometry Nuclear Control Concept
LWBR Demonstration Core Module, Vertical View
LWBR Demonstration Core Control Drive Mechanism
Typical LWBR Seed Rod Support Grid
Typical LWBR Blanket Rod Support Grid
Typical Fissile Inventory Ratio vs Life - LWBR Demonstration
Core
Minimum Expected LWBR Demonstration Reactor Performance
Characteristics
Shippingport Plant Operating Cycle with LWBR Breeding
Demonstration Core
Shippingport Plant Reactor Coolant System with LWBR
Breeding Demonstration Core..
Page
3
6
7
10
11
12
li;
16
17
18
19
20
21
23
21;
61
INTRODUCTION
OBJECTIVE
The objective of the Atomic Energy Commission (AEC) Light Water Breeder
Reactor (LWBR) Program is to develop the technology necessary to significantly
improve the fuel utilization of light water thermal reactors. To achieve this
objective, this technology is being evolved by developing, designing, and then
fabricating a breeding reactor core that can be installed and operated in the
AEC owned reactor plant at Shippingport, Pa. The operation of this reactor
core is expected to demonstrate that breeding can be achieved in a light water
reactor system using the thorium-uranium-233 fuel system in a seed-blanket core
configuration. If the breeding demonstration is successful, it will confirm
the technical feasibility of installing breeder cores in existing and future
pressurized water reactors and will provide basic technology which can be used
directly in large scale light water breeder applications.
BACKGROUND
The LWBR program was initiated in December 1965, when the Atomic Energy
Commission approved VADM H. G. Rickover's recommendation to reorient the work
on the Large Seed Blanket Reactor (LSBR) to a research and development program
on the thermal breeder type reactor.
The LSBR program was a joint AEC - State
of California effort directed toward development and construction of a large
nuclear central station of about 5>00 Mw(e) with a long life (nine years between
refuelings) converter-burner core with a central breeding demonstration region.
The LSBR program was reoriented when it was established that developing a proven
fuel element design to meet the long life objectives of the converter-burner
section was not likely within the desired schedule for the planned State of
California application.
Much of the technology developed in the LSBR program
is directly applicable to the LWBR concept.
The design and development work to date under the LWBR program continues
to show potential for breeding in a light water cooled and moderated seedblanket reactor using the thorium-uranium-233 fuel cycle. However, breeding
on a practical scale can be proved only by operating a power reactor for a
meaningful lifetime and comparing final and initial fissionable material
inventories.
54-038 O - 75 - 5
This is the primary objective of the LWBR program.
62
IMPORTANCE OF BREEDING
Most reactors designed and built to date have utilized uranium-23f> (IT )
as the fissionable (fissile) material since it is the only naturally occurring
material with adequate nuclear characteristics to produce a nuclear chain
reaction. However, the amount of U^5 available is quite limited since it
represents only 0.7 percent of naturally occurring uranium. The total energy
potentially available from reasonably assured U. S. reserves of economically
recoverable tr-*5 is less than the energy potentially available from known U.S.
fossil fuel reserves. Thus plans for a nuclear power industry which will make
a significant contribution to total energy resources have looked to two fertile
materials, uranium-238 (U ^ ), which makes up over 99 percent of all natural
uranium, and thorium. While these materials themselves cannot be used to
produce a nuclear chain reaction, they will, under irradiation, be converted
into the chain reacting fissile fuels plutonium-239 or uranium-233, respectively.
The energy potentially available from these fertile nuclear materials is many
times greater than the energy potential of fossil fuel resources.
OOD
Present power reactors convert some fertile U J or thorium into fissile
fuel material. However, the over-all nuclear resource utilization is only
1 to 2 percent of the energy potentially available from the mined ore.
It is theoretically possible to design power reactors that create more
fissile nuclear fuel from fertile nuclear material than they burn during operation; such reactors are called breeders. Breeding reactors would make a major
fraction of the energy potentially available from the fertile nuclear materials
available for power production.
The importance of breeding is illustrated in Figure 1, which shows the
fuel utilization (the percent of mined fuel that can be turned into useful
electrical energy) plotted for typical light water breeder reactor parameters
as a function of the ratio of the amount of fissile fuel in the core at the
end of life to that at the beginning of life (the Fissile Inventory Radio FIR), and of the assumed loss in recycling the fuel to a new core loading.
It is evident from Figure 1 that if the FIR exceeds unity by enough to compensate for recycle losses (both reprocessing and refabrication), then about
£0 percent of the total energy potential of our thorium resources could be
utilized. Figure 1 further shows that when the FIR is less than 1.00 plus the
63
%'NOijLVznun
64
assumed recycling losses, the percent of available fuel which can be turned
into useful energy is drastically reduced. The reason for this abrupt decrease
in fuel utilization is primarily that, when the cycle is not self-sustaining
in terms of fissile inventory, makeup fissile material (ultimately 11^35) must
be supplied. Because U -^ represents only about 0.7 percent of natural
uranium, diffusion plants must process approximately 200 kilograms of natural
uranium to produce one kilogram of enriched fissile U -^ (the uranium in the
tailings being essentially discarded). Thus, only about half of one percent
of the uranium in the mined ore is actually utilized when makeup fissile fuel
is required. Consequently, breeding by achievement of a Fissile Inventory
Ratio (FIR) at least a small amount above unity is of the utmost importance
if nuclear fuel is to be a significant energy resource in the history of man.
On the other hand, once the FIR is high enough to avoid the need for makeup
fissile material, all the fertile material can eventually be burned except that
lost in reprocessing. The over-all fuel utilization will then depend only on
the fractional burnup obtained in each core reloading cycle and the reprocessing
loss each time the fuel is recycled. A higher FIR will increase the fissile
fuel supply more rapidly but will not affect the ultimate value of the fuel
utilization.
The LWBR program, building on the well established light water reactor
technology upon which the present growth of the nuclear utility industry is
based, is expected to provide the technology required for ultimately making
available for power production a major source of energy, which at present
cannot be exploited to anywhere near its full potential.
IMPROVED FUEL UTILIZATION OF LWBR CONCEPT
The work in the LWBR program indicates that it is possible to breed in a
completely light-water moderated-and-cooled reactor system, using the thoriumuranium-233 fuel system and the seed-blanket concept. In this breeder, the
amount of fissile material available at the end of core life is expected to be
sufficiently greater than that originally put into the reactor to offset the
loss of fissile material experienced during fuel reprocessing and refabrication
of a replacement core. A self-sustaining breeding fuel cycle would thus be
attained in which the only fuel makeup is fertile thorium, without the need for
additional fissile fuel makeup. This is the only known approach for significantly
increasing the utilization of nuclear fuel in light-water thermal reactor plants
beyond the 1 to 2 percent of the potential energy of uranium or thorium ore
resources that can be made available for power production using present types
U
65
of light water reactors. The development of a light-water seed-blanket breeder
reactor can ultimately make available for power production about ]?0 percent of
the potential energy of thorium resources. Figure 2 compares the energy
potentially obtainable from nuclear fuel reserves by use of the light water
breeder reactor to the energy that could potentially be obtained using presentday reactors or from known reserves of fossil fuels.
USE OF SHIPPINGPORT PLANT
The LWBR program is aimed at developing and demonstrating the necessary
technology by carrying out an actual breeding demonstration in an existing
light water reactor plant. The detailed design of a breeding demonstration
core suitable for installation in the Shippingport plant is nearing completion.
Fabrication is well along on hardware necessary for the breeding demonstration
including core barrels, control mechanisms, closure head, and the fuel. The
LWBR program is oriented towards the thorough development of the supporting
technologies required for the successful demonstration of breeding, including
(l) the development of a thorough basic understanding of the nuclear and
materials characteristics of the thorium and uranium-233 fuel system, (2)
analytical and experimental development supporting improved performance of
zirconium clad oxide fuel, (3) the engineering design of a practical variable
geometry control system which will accomplish all normal control functions
without parasitic loss of neutrons, and (k) the design of a reliable fuel rod
support system with minimum detrimental effect on neutron economy.
The LWBR design is based on the use of the existing Shippingport Atomic
Power Station (shown in Figure 3) for the breeding demonstration because of
the suitability of that facility and because of Bettis experience with the
detailed plant design characteristics. No major changes to the Shippingport
plant will be required to accommodate the demonstration core and the associated
vessel closure head and control drive mechanisms. Based on the present status
of design and procurement efforts, the demonstration core can be in operation
in Shippingport in 1976, and significant results can be available by the
late 1970's.
ADVANTAGES OF A BREEDER WHICH USES THE PROVEN LIGHT WATER TECHNOLOGY
For many years in the future, the utility industry will be committed to
basing the expanding nuclear central station electrical generating capacity
on water type reactors. Therefore, there will be a great reluctance by the
utilities to change to a reactor using a new coolant.
66
400
300
ENERGY
OBTAINABLE
0 UNITS
(10 = I018 BTU)
200
100
FOSSIL
FUEL
(I)
PRESENT
LOW -CON VERSION
REACTORS
(2)
SEEDBLANKET
BREEDER
NOTES:
(1) KNOWN FOSSIL FUEL RESERVES FROM 1962 AEC
REPORT TO PRESIDENT, APR I, TABLE 2.
(2) BASED ON REASONABLY ASSURED RESERVES OF U
S T h COSTING LESS THAN IOO$/LB. TO RECOVER 1962 AEC REPORT TO PRESIDENT P. 23
(3) BASED ON 1% FUEL LOSSES DURING RECYCLE
OPERATIONS
Figure 2.
Energy Potential Comparison
67
ft
t
CO
68
A successful demonstration of the LWBR concept would show that it is
feasible to install breeder cores in existing and future pressurized water
reactor plants. Thus, introduction of the concept could be much more rapid
than for any of the other advanced converters or breeders all of which require
totally new plants.
The LWBR is the only breeder reactor system that promises significant
improvement in fuel utilization while being devoid of many of the technical
problems that must be solved to obtain high fuel utilization using other
reactor systems. Therefore, in the long term, the LWBR may turn out to be the
most practical approach to obtaining high percent fuel utilization needed to
make nuclear power fulfill its promise of providing mankind with an essentially
unlimited energy source.
LWBR CONTRIBUTIONS TO REACTOR TECHNOLOGY
The LWBR program is providing important contributions to general reactor
technology—just as development work accomplished for the original Shippingport
project provided basic technology on which current application of nuclear power
in industry is based. The technology developed in the LWBR program has an
assured application to the present expanding nuclear industry, which for many
years will be based on light water reactors, as well as to the development of
new reactor types including fast reactors.
The extensive theoretical and experimental work in physics'Will provide
needed information to support use of the thorium-uranium-233 fuel system. The
work on analyses and irradiation testing of fuel elements will provide needed
information to support light water reactors presently being sold and projected
for the future.
69
THE LWBR DEMONSTRATION REACTOR DESIGN
A design for the LWBR demonstration core has been evolved, working within
the 'constraints of the Shippingport Plant. This design provides a good
simulation of a large core environment in the interior of the demonstration
core, and permits net breeding in the entire core. In the design (Figure U)
hexagonal modules are arranged in a symmetric array surrounded by a reflector
blanket region (Figure £)•
FUEL MODULE DESIGN
A typical fuel module cross section is shown in Figure 6. Each module
contains a central, axLally-movable, hexagonal seed and a stationary, annular,
hexagonal blanket. The seed is made up of full length fuel rods about
0.3 inch in diameter; the Zircaloy-1). cladding on these seed rods is designed
for free standing operation considering the effects of long term material creep.
The seed fuel consists of solid thorium oxide (Th02) pellets of about 97 percent
theoretical density (TD). containing zero to about 6 weight percent (w/o)
uranium-233 oxide (U233°2). The blanket fuel rods are about 0.6 inch in
diameter and the Th02 pellets contain zero to about 3 w/o U °g at nominal
97 percent TD. The Zircaloy-lj. cladding of the blanket fuel rods is not free
standing. The fuel height in both the seed and blanket rods is 8-1/2 feet,
including about 9-inch long natural thoria (Th02) reflector blanket regions
at the top and bottom of each rod. The seed and blanket rods also contain
gas plenums designed to accommodate fission gas release.
VARIABLE GEOMETRY CONTROL
The nuclear design is such that the more highly loaded seed has a k,,,
greater than one and the lower loaded blanket has a k^ less than one.
Reactivity is controlled by varying the leakage of neutrons from the small
seed regions into the subcritical blanket regions. This is achieved by
axially positioning the seed section of the core so as to change core
geometry rather than by using conventional parasitic neutron-absorbing
poisons. With this method of control, which is one of the major advantages
of the seed-blanket concept, excess neutrons will be absorbed in fertile
thorium material, and good neutron economy will be achieved. The reactivity
70
LWBR REACTOR
vessel. ASSEMBLY
MECHANISM
VESSEL
HEAD
OUTLET
NOZZLES
VESSEL
FUEL
INLET
NOZZLES
Figure lu LWBR Demonstration Core in Shippingport Vessel
10
71
11
72
a
UJ
CO
UJ
i
a
o
•H
-P
O
CD
co
CO
CO
8
o
CD
1
H
CD
12
73
worth of the movable seed is increased by using partial lengths of natural
thoria in some of the seed and blanket rods; this concept is shown in
Figure 7. During normal power operation all seeds are aligned as a uniform
bank. At the beginning of core life, critical operation should occur with
the seeds down about 2 feet lower than the stationary blanket; as the core
operates, the fuel is moved upward toward a position 2 feet higher than the
blanket at the end of core life.
SIMULATING A LARGE BREEDER ENVIRONMENT IN THE SHIPPINGPQRT REACTOR VESSEL
The three central modules are identical and symmetrical. However, the
nine modules surrounding these central modules have a thicker outer blanket
region that is fueled with a somewhat higher U^33 content (about 3 w/o) than
the blanket regions of the inner modules (about 2 w/o) (Figure £). Use of
this higher loaded blanket region produces a relatively uniform power distribution within the interior of the core, thereby accurately simulating a large
breeder environment. This power flattening increases the relative U^33 loading
required for the small demonstration core by about 30 percent; to power flatten
a large breeder core would require relatively less U^3 fuei loading.
Surrounding the twelve fuel modules is a natural thoria region about 8
inches thick, which serves as a reflector blanket. The reflector blanket will
limit neutron leakage from the core to less than about 0.8 percent of all
neutrons. This amount of leakage is typical of larger seed-blanket reactors
in the range of about 300 Mw(e) without reflector blankets. Higher power
light water breeder cores can be designed with leakage of 0.1 percent or less,
thereby achieving even better breeding performance than in the LWBR demonstration. Use of this peripheral reflector blanket in the small LWBR demonstration
core assures an unambiguous quantitative demonstration of breeding within the
entire core.
DESIGN FEATURES
Axial positioning of the individual movable seeds is accomplished by a
collapsible-rotor, reluctance-type drive mechanism connected to a drive screw
supporting the seed. Safety shutdown is accomplished by deenergizing the
drive mechanism stator, thus collapsing the rotor and releasing the roller
nuts from the drive screw; this permits the movable fuel to fall to its least
reactive position. A continually-engaged out-motion latch is incorporated in
the mechanism to provide positive prevention of any unsignaled up motion of a
seed. A net downward force on the seed is achieved under all conditions of
13
74
ThO,
STATIONARYBLANKET
U02(UP TO ABOUT 3*/o)
n
\
MOVABLE SEED
OPERATING POSITION
LOW LEAKAGE GEOMETRY
l
U02 (UP TO ABOUT 6 w/o)
-Th02
Th02
SHUTDOWN POSITION
HIGH LEAKAGE GEOMETRY
Figure 7. Variable Geometry Nuclear Control Concept
1U
75
flow by the use of a balance piston within each module to counterbalance the
upward flow of coolant through the seed. A buffer region is incorporated to
prevent excessive terminal velocities of the movable assemblies following
release of the drive screw. Figure 8 shows the overall module, including the
balance piston; Figure 9 shows the drive mechanism.
The reactor is cooled by pressurized light water, flowing in a single
pass through the entire core. Blanket flow is orificed to balance the flow
in seed and blanket in accordance with heat transfer requirements.
The core will normally be fueled and defueled by removing complete
modules after the vessel closure is removed. It is also possible to remove
the seed of an individual module through the hole in the vessel•closure
following removal of the associated control drive mechanism.
An improved fuel rod support system is being developed for LWBR. The
support system consists of a series of grids with springs which provide
enough force on a fuel rod to prevent fretting yet not so much force as to
prevent axial movement or to induce rod bowing. The design will accommodate
the effects of maximum fuel rod creep, shrinkage, or fission-induced fuel
growth as well as the maximum relaxation of .springs at high temperature and
full fast-neutron flux exposure. Typical grid support system designs for
the seed and blanket rods are shown in Figures 10 and 11, respectively.
: The in-core instrumentation includes means for measuring neutron flux,
coolant flow, and coolant temperature rise. The in-core instrumentation will
be used only to provide information about the behavior of the core during its
lifje since this instrumentation is not required for operational or protection
purjposes.
PERFORMANCE CHARACTERISTICS
In evaluating the fuel utilization performance of the LWBR demonstration
core or any other reactor, one of the most important characteristics is the
Fissile Inventory Ratio (FIR), which is the ratio of fissile fuel inventory
at any specified time to the initial fuel inventory. Figure 12 shows a
typical curve of FIR as a function of time for the LWBR demonstration core.
In addition to good breeding, the nuclear performance analysis shows
that the LWBR core exhibits a relatively uniform power distribution and a
76
LEAD SCREW
CONNECTOR
MECHANISM
LEAD SCREW
•TORQUE RESTRAINT
KEY
BALANCE PISTON
BUFFER CYLINDER
Figure 8. L¥BR Demonstration Core Module, Vertical View
16
77
POSITION INDICATOR COILS
MOTOR TUBE
EXTENSION
TIE ROD
LEAD SCREW
RADIAL BEARINGS
SYNCHRONIZER
BEARING
STATOR COOLING JACKET
STATOR
MOTOR TUBE
THRUST BEARING
OUT-MOTION LATCH
LOWER COOLING
JACKET
THERMAL BARRIER
VESSEL NOZZLE
Figure 9.
LWBR Demonstration Core Control Drive Mechanism
17
54-038 O - V5 - 6
78
FUEL ROD
Figure 10.
18
Typical LWBR Seed Rod Support Grid
79
SPRING
Figure 11.
Typical LWBR Blanket Rod Support Grid
19
80
LJ
O
i
o ±
LL.
O
tf)
UJ
o:
o
x
a:
ui
I
a.
o
d
O
ZJ
O
LL
U_
U_
LU
o u
o I
m
5
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CVJ
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20
to
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81
high degree of power stability. The thermal evaluation of the core is
based on lifetime studies of the reactivity insertion transient and the
complete loss-of-flow accident. The fuel element evaluation is based on
lifetime studies of power operation during steady-state and transient
conditions. Both the thermal and fuel element evaluations are conservative
to cover uncertainties. Including provisions for these uncertainties, the
minimum expected performance characteristics of the LWBR reactor are presented in Figure 13.
MINIMUM EXPECTED LWBR DEMONSTRATION
REACTOR PERFORMANCE CHARACTERISTICS
POWER
50 MW (e) NET
FIR
1.012
LIFETIME
I5.00O EFPH
Figure 13
21
82
THE LWBR DEMONSTRATION REACTOR IN THE SHIPPINGPORT STATION
The LWBR breeding demonstration will be accomplished in the Shippingport
Atomic Power Station, which was designed for a core with a nominal net electrical generation rating of 60 MWe (Shippingport Core 1). Although the plant has
been modified for the higher output of Shippingport Core 2, the basic design
is compatible with the conservatively designed LVfflR core, which has an output
rating similar to Core 1. The LWBR breeding demonstration can be accomplished
in the Shippingport reactor plant without major plant modifications.
A schematic diagram of the Shippingport reactor and steam plant is shown
in Figure lU. The principal elements of the reactor plant are the reactor
vessel containing the nuclear core, and four reactor coolant loops. A typical
reactor loop is shown in Figure 11?. Each reactor coolant loop contains a pump
to circulate the coolant which transfers core heat from the reactor vessel to
the loop steam generator. Steam produced in the steam generators, in turn, is
carried by steam lines to a turbine generator unit to generate electrical
power for distribution by the utility power transmission system.
Each loop contains four coolant stop valves; two in the inlet and two in
the outlet piping of the reactor. A vertical single-stage canned-motor centrifugal, pump is installed in each reactor coolant loop. Each coolant loop contains
a horizontal steam generator consisting of a single heat exchanger, a separate
steam drum, and interconnecting risers and downcomers. Heat is transferred
from the reactor coolant, through the tubes to the secondary side of the heat
exchanger, to generate steam in the boiler water. The reactor coolant piping
for the system is 18-inch nominal outside diameter seamless stainless steel,
hollow-forged, and turned and bored to a nominal 1^-inch inside diameter.
The existing reactor coolant pumps used for Shippingport Core 2 operation
can be retained for the demonstration since they are adequate to meet the LWBR
flow requirements. In addition to minor changes to some of the existing
Shippingport auxiliary and support systems, the following modifications will
be required; a flywheel driven generator will be provided for each reactor
coolant pump to improve flow coastdown characteristics following a loss-offlow accident; modifications will be made to the safety injection system to
suit the demonstration core arrangement; and the existing facilities for adding a neutron absorbing agent to the primary coolant will be upgraded to meet
the requirements of the new core.
22
83
23
84
85
BREEDING IN THE LIGHT WATER BREEDER REACTOR (LWBR)
This section addresses three frequently asked questions regarding the Light
Water Breeder Reactor (LWBR) - 1) how is it possible to breed in a light water
reactor? 2) what is the appropriate criterion to measure practical breeding,
performance? and 3) what performance could be expected in extrapolating the
LWBR demonstration reactor to future 1000 MWe LWBR plants?
I. How is it Possible to Breed in a Light Water Reactor?
The accepted view in the early 1950's was that breeding was not feasible in
a light water reactor. The LWBR program (and its predecessor LSBR) has developed
a very high level of confidence that breeding is both feasible and practical in
pressurized water reactors. Although LWBR has involved many developments, four
of these are particularly important to breeding - refined basic nuclear data for
uranium-233 showing enhanced breeding in a reactor with low water content (close
fuel rod spacing); zirconium alloy rather than stainless steel for fuel element
cladding and structuralsj the seed-blanket concept with the associated movable
fuel control concept to eliminate neutron losses for reactivity control; and
evaluation of large reactors (of the size now being built) which have significantly lower neutron loss by leakage from the reactor than did the plants studied
in the 1950's.
Fuel Nuclear Properties Necessary to Permit Breeding
The nuclear parameter most critical to breeding is the neutron regeneration
factor, n, which is the average number of neutrons produced in fission for each
neutron absorbed in fissile fuel. To achieve breeding, this ratio must be
greater than 2.0 since the maintenance of a critical condition in the reactor
takes 1.0 of these neutrons for absorption in fissile fuel, leaving (n - 1)
neutrons to be distributed among the various parasitic losses and the fertile
fuel. Unless at least 1.0 of these neutrons are captured in fertile fuel to
produce new fissile fuel, the total fissile fuel content will decrease as the
reactor operates, and breeding will not occur. The parameter (n - 2) for a
given fuel indicates the margin for parasitic losses in a breeder using that
fuel. The value of n is different for each fissile material and even for a
given material, n varies markedly depending on the average energy level of the
neutrons being absorbed in fuel to cause fission. The n for fast neutrons is
quite different than that for thermal neutrons.
86
Early work indicated that n for uranium-23£ and plutonium-239 for purely
thermal neutrons is only slightly greater than 2.0 and that this quantity
decreases as the moderator temperature increases to practical levels required
for power reactor operation.
Further, there was evidence that the values of n
for uranium-235 and plutonium-239 were less than 2.0 for neutrons in the
so-called intermediate energy range.
These early data showed that breeding with
uranium-23^ or plutonium-239 would be possible only if a very high energy neutron
environment could be maintained.
That is, they implied that breeding was pos-
sible only in fast reactors, which cannot operate with a neutron moderating
coolant like ordinary (light) water.
On the other hand, uranium-233 (U-233), which does not occur naturally but
rather is formed by neutron capture in plentiful thorium, was observed to have
a value of n of about 2.3 for thermal neutrons, large enough to breed if a
thermal neutron spectrum could be maintained.
However, it was thought that the
value of n dropped to about 2.0? for intermediate energy neutrons.
Because of
the large amount of moderator required to achieve a thermal neutron energy
spectrum, it did not appear to be practical to breed even with the U-233-thorium
cycle using relatively highly absorbing light water which would cause too much
parasitic neutron loss.
Development of Refined Nuclear Data and Their Exploitation in Low
Water Content Reactors
In recent years, more accurate experimental work at Bettis, KARL, and ORNL
using a number of different experimental techniques has clearly indicated that
n of U-233 for intermediate neutrons is about 2.13 as compared with the earlier
value of 2.07, significantly enhancing the possibility of breeding with light
water.
In addition, extensive reactor analyses at Bettis - and confirmed at
KAPL - indicated that improved breeding characteristics are achieved if a U-233thorium reactor is designed with a minimum of water content so as to minimize
the neutrons "lost" by being captured in water.
In such a reactor, a relatively
large fraction of the neutrons absorbed in U-233 are of intermediate energy,
implying a rather low value of n - that is, a value closer to the 2.13 for intermediate energy neutrons than the 2.3 which applies to the thermal neutrons.
However, there is an additional effect which was not adequately accounted for in
early studies.
That is, as the neutron energy spectrum is shifted from thermal
toward the intermediate energy range, additional neutrons are produced, both by
fast fission in thorium and by (n, 2n) reactions, so that the effective value
of n is more than 2.26, while the neutron losses by absorption in water and
other parasites are significantly reduced.
26
87
Thus, the refinement of nuclear data for uranium-233 made possible the
discovery of the concept of a reactor with low water content (close fuel rod
spacing), and this design approach is one important development which has led
to breeding in LWBR.
Use of Zirconium Alloy for Fuel Element Cladding and Structurals
A second crucial development which was necessary for breeding in a light
water reactor relates to cladding material. In the early 19^0's, the leading
candidate materials for fuel cladding were stainless steel and aluminum. For
power reactors, the use of aluminum is not promising because of its poor high
temperature properties. Thus, stainless steel was assumed in most studies.
Stainless steel has a significant cross section for capture of thermal and
intermediate energy neutrons. It, therefore, acts as a poison, causing many
neutrons to be "lost" rather than being used to produce new fuel and enhance
breeding.
Zirconium was not seriously considered as a cladding material in these
early studies because of its apparent high neutron absorption and exotic nature.
However,, Pomerance of ORNL discovered that- the neutron poisoning in natural
zirconium was due to the 2 to 3% of hafnium which was present. Zirconium itself
absorbs relatively few neutrons. The Naval Reactors program developed practical
production processes for removal of hafnium and other impurities and developed
high performance zirconium alloys. These developments introduced the practical
use of a highly corrosion-resistant and low neutron absorbing clad material,
Zircaloy.
Use of purified Zircaloy rather than stainless steel as a cladding and
structural material is the second crucial contributor to breeding in a light
water reactor.
The Seed-Blanket Concept with the Associated.Movable Fuel Reactivity
Control Concept
The early studies of breeding in light water reactors did not consider the
seed-blanket reactor concept. This concept was originally developed by the
Naval Reactors program for the first two reactors for Shippingport Atomic Power
Station. It provides flexibility for separately optimizing the two regions seed and blanket - to carry out their individual functions. The primary role
of the seed is to provide neutrons as efficiently as possible in the burning
of fissile fuel. The primary role of the blanket is to use these neutrons
27
efficiently in producing new fissile fuel by neutron absorption in fertile fuel.
In LWBR, the seed and blanket have each been optimized to maximize neutron production and minimize neutron loss.
An additional major advantage of the seed-blanket reactor is that it permits
the practical use of movable fuel reactivity control. Early studies of the light
water breeder demonstrated that neutron losses by absorption in reactivity control elements, a feature common to all other reactors, could prohibit breeding.
An important feature in the development of the light water breeder is to minimize this loss.
Reactivity of a seed-blanket reactor is dominated by the seed. Thus, small
changes in seed geometry can cause large reactivity variations. This characteristic of a seed-blanket reactor has been exploited in developing the axially
movable seed control concept. With this unique control concept, all necessary
reactivity control is achieved without loss of neutrons. In effect reactivity
is controlled by adjusting neutron absorption in thorium, where it produces U-233.
Full scale tests of this control system under actual operating conditions have
demonstrated its practicality.
Thus, use of the seed-blanket concept with the associated movable fuel control is the third contributor to breeding in a light water reactor.
Low Neutron Leakage
Neutrons which escape or "leak" out of the reactor are lost and are not
available to produce new fissile fuel to enhance breeding. Early.studies of
breeding showed significant loss of neutrons due to leakage. Neutron leakage
is minimized to LWBR in three ways. First, the larger size of modern reactors
is a significant aid. Second, the seed-blanket concept provides inherently less
leakage since the neutron producing seed is surrounded by the neutron absorbing
fertile blanket. Finally, surrounding the entire reactor with a thin peripheral
region fueled with natural'thoria reduces neutron loss by leakage to less than
0.1$. The resulting total neutron loss by leakage affects the breeding margin
by only 0.001.
Thus, the reduction of neutron leakage by using a large seed blanket reactor
is the fourth factor leading to breeding in a light water reactor.
28
H. What is the Appropriate Criterion to Measure Practical Breeding Performance?
The primary purpose of breeding is to conserve fuel resources. Thus in
evaluating breeding performance, it is essential to use criteria which properly
measure the effect on fuel conservation.
A commonly cited breeding criterion is the conversion ratio, which is the
instantaneous rate of production of new fissile fuel divided by the rate of
destruction of fissile fuel. So long as this ratio exceeds 1.0, the fissile
fuel content in a reactor will increase, and breeding is said to have been
achieved. In the case of large LWBR's, the initial conversion ratio ranges
from 1.15 to 1.18. That is, at the beginning of life, from l£ to 18$ more U-233
is produced than is burned. Thus it is certain that breeding will occur in LWBR.
However, the achievement of breeding for a brief period is not enough to have
any significant effect on fuel conservation.
To achieve a practical breeder and have a real effect on fuel conservation,
it is necessary to maintain an integrated conversion ratio greater than 1.0 for
a practical lifetime of energy production. That is, the criterion for a practical breeder is that the amount of fissile fuel present at the end of a practical lifetime of energy production must be greater than the amount of fissile
fuel initially built into the reactor. The ratio of fissile fuel content at any
time to the initial fissile fuel content has been named the Fissile Inventory
Ratio, or FIR.
In fact, to be practical and achieve substantial fuel utilization, the FIR
must exceed 1.0 by enough to accommodate irrecoverable fissile fuel losses in
reprocessing and refabrieating the fuel for another cycle in the reactor. Once
such a self-sustaining condition is achieved, the only makeup fuel required is
fertile fuel - in the case of LWBR, this is the plentiful thorium. No net
expenditure of fissile fuel will occur, and the only expenditure of fertile
fuel will be for production of energy or for unrecoverable losses of fuel during
reprocessing and refabrication. Some breeder concepts are said to have higher
conversion ratios or FIR. If an excess of fissile fuel beyond that required to
cover losses is produced in a breeder, that is if it has a FIR greater than
(1 + irrecoverable losses), this extra fuel could be used to fuel another reactor
if it is needed, but this higher FIR does not improve the -fuel utilization. On
the other hand, if the fissile fuel at end of life is less than the amount needed
for a subsequent cycle, the differences must ultimately be made up by uranium-235
taken from natural uranium. Since typically about 200 units of natural uranium
90
must be rained to produce one unit of enriched uranium-235, the total amount of
nuclear fuel which must be mined to provide makeup for a non-breeder rises very
rapidly as the quantity (FIR minus losses) drops below 1.0. This is illustrated
in Figure 1 (See Page 3). In conventional light water reactors, the makeup is
so great that the fuel utilization is only 1 to 2%, with associated rapid
depletion of our nuclear fuel resources. By comparison, in a large LWBR, the
fuel utilization is projected to be about %Q%.
The LWBR reactor in the Shippingport plant is expected to demonstrate
breeding for lifetimes of from 2 to 3 full-power-years. Demonstrations of
breeding in other breeder concepts to date have really been merely experiments
under low power conditions to show that the instantaneous conversion ratio at
the beginning of life is greater than 1.0. However, conversion ratio in any
reactor tends to decrease with reactor operation. A real demonstration of
breeding requires that after operation at a practical power level for a practical
lifetime under realistic conditions, the reactor contains enough more fissile
fuel than it originally contained to fuel a subsequent cycle and cover recycle
losses, and this is the kind of demonstration planned for LWBR.
Ill. What Performance Gould be Expected in Future 1000 MWe LWBR Plants?
The major effort in LWBR has been directed toward developing a conservative
engineering design for the demonstration reactor and refining the accuracy of
basic physical properly data and analytical methods. The importance of conservative engineering design cannot be overemphasized ~ a major objective of the
demonstration reactor program is to assure that the demonstration reactor will
operate successfully over its full lifetime. With the program providing only
one demonstration reactor rather than a series of evolutionary designs, such a
conservative approach is necessary to assure that the major objective (practical
demonstration of breeding) is achieved. However, this conservative approach to
the engineering design prohibits realization of the ultimate nuclear potential
in terms of breeding performance, high power density, and high specific power
(power per unit of fissile fuel inventory). Specific areas in which the LWBR
demonstration reactor is conservative are: 1) it uses a stainless steel rod
support system although work is continuing on development of a Zircaloy support
system; 2) it operates with fuel rod heat loads, fuel temperatures, and fuel
depletions which are less than in commercial reactors now being sold and much
less than those projected for other breeders. There is no reason that these
higher heat fluxes, temperatures, and depletions — if proven acceptable —
could not be used in future LWBR'sj 3) further optimization of fuel element
30
91
cladding thicknesses may permit future reduction of Zircaloy volume assigned to
cladding and structure; U) the thermal design criteria are conservative requiring
more water (and parasitic neutron absorption); and f>) since this ie the first
LWBR design, future developments in materials data, nuclear constants, design
techniques can be expected to permit design optimization. When these conservatisms are exploited to improve performance of a future 1000 MWe reactor, the
peak fissile inventory ratio (FIR) is expected to be about 1.02.
The above breeding performance is representative of a large light water
breeder reactor during the first few decades of repeated recycle of the fissile
fuel. Over a long time (more than 100 years), uranium-23U, uranium-23i>, and
uranium-236 will build up and reach equilibrium concentrations relative to the
uranium-233. As this happens, the breeding performance is reduced. It is
expected that even when the final equilibrium condition is achieved, the peak
FIE will exceed 1.01. On the other hand, there is reason to believe that even
better breeding could be 'achieved in future plants, since it is reasonable to
assume technological developments and improvements over the 100 or more years
required for this equilibrium fuel content-to be approached. Thus, once a selfsustaining LWBR plant is started up, its fuel will continue to produce 'energy so
long as thorium makeup fuel is available, and this can be expected for centuries.
31
92
APPENDIX III
Report NT-75-1
May 1975
ENVIRONMENTAL MONITORING AND
DISPOSAL OF RADIOACTIVE WASTES
FROM U. S. NAVAL NUCLEAR-POWERED SHIPS
AND THEIR SUPPORT FACILITIES
1974
Prepared by
M. E. Miles, G. L. Sjoblom, J. D. Eagles
Nuclear Power Directorate
Naval Sea Systems Command
Department of the Navy
Approved by
H. G.
Deputy Commander
for Nuclear Propulsion
93
ABSTRACT
The environmental effect of disposal of radioactive wastes
originating from U. S. Naval nuclear propulsion plants and their
support facilities is assessed. The total radioactivity in liquids,
less tritium, discharged to all ports and harbors from the more than
one hundred Naval nuclear-powered ships and supporting tenders,
Naval bases and shipyards was less than 0.002 curie in 1974. The
total tritium released to all ports and harbors was less than one
curie in 1974. This report confirms that procedures used by the
Navy to control releases of radioactivity from U. S. Naval
nuclear-powered ships and their support facilities are effective
in protecting the environment and the health and safety of the
general public.
54-038 O - 75 - 7
94
TABLE OF CONTENTS
SUMMARY
1
RADIOACTIVE LIQUID WASTE DISPOSAL
3
Policy and Procedures Minimizing Release of Radioactivity
in Harbors
Source of Radioactivity
Radioactivity Removal From Liquid Wastes at Shore Facilities
Liquid Waste Releases in Harbors
Short-Lived Radionuclides
Fission Product Radionuclides
Tritium
Liquid Waste Releases at Sea
.
LOSS OF USS THRESHER AND USS SCORPION
3
3
4
4
7
7
7
8
9
SOLID RADIOACTIVE WASTE DISPOSAL
10
ENVIRONMENTAL MONITORING
12
Navy Environmental Monitoring Program
12
AUDITS AND REVIEWS
19
CONCLUSIONS
20
REFERENCES
21
LIST OF TABLES
TABLE 1 RADIOACTIVE LIQUID WASTE RELEASED TO HARBORS FROM U.S.
NAVAL NUCLEAR-POWERED SHIPS AND THEIR SUPPORT FACILTIES FOR 1970 THROUGH 1974
6
TABLE 2 TOTAL RADIOACTIVE LIQUID WASTE RELEASED AT SEA BY ALL
U.S. NAVAL NUCLEAR-POWERED SHIPS AND SUPPORTING TENDERS
8
TABLE 3 RADIOACTIVE SOLID WASTE FROM U.S. NAVAL NUCLEAR-POWERED
11
SHIPS AND THEIR SUPPORT FACILITIES FOR 1970 THROUGH 1974
TABLE 4 SUMMARY OF 1974 SURVEYS FOR COBALT 60 IN BOTTOM SEDIMENT
OF U.S. HARBORS WHERE U.S. NAVAL NUCLEAR-POWERED SHIPS
HAVE BEEN REGULARLY BASED, OVERHAUL OR BUILT
14
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
ILLUSTRATION 1 SIMPLIFIED DIAGRAM OF WASTE PROCESSING SYSTEM
5
ILLUSTRATION 2 DREDGE FOR SAMPLING HARBOR SEDIMENT
13
ILLUSTRATION 3 GAMMA SPECTRA OF HARBOR BOTTOM SEDIMENT SAMPLES
17
95
SUMMARY
The radioactivity in wastes discussed in this report originates
in the pressurized water reactors of U. S. Naval nuclear-powered
ships. As of the end of 1974, the U. S. Navy had 105 nuclear-powered
submarines and six nuclear-powered surface ships in operation;
Support facilities involved in construction, maintenance, overhaul and
refueling of these nuclear propulsion plants include nine shipyards,
eleven tenders, and two submarine bases. This report describes
disposal of radioactive liquid wastes, disposal of solid wastes and
monitoring of the environment to determine the effect of radioactive
releases. This report concludes that radioactivity associated with
U. S. Naval nuclear-powered ships has had no significant or discernable
effect on the quality of the environment. A summary of the radiological information supporting this conclusion follows:
From the start of the Naval nuclear propulsion program the policy
of the U. S. Navy has been to reduce to the minimum practicable the
amounts of radioactivity released into harbors. Navy procedures to
accomplish this have been reviewed with the U. S. Energy Research and
Development Administration (formerly the U. S. Atomic Energy Commission) and the U. S. Environmental Protection Agency. The total
radioactivity discharged within twelve miles from shore from all
U. S. Naval nuclear-powered ships and their support facilities in
recent years is shown in the following table:
Year
1970
1971
1972
1973
1974
Number of Ships
In Operation
96
100
104
107
111
Volume
Thousand Gallons
2571
1089
289
less than 25
less than 10
Radioactivity-Curies
(less tritium)
less
less
less
less
than
than
than
than
0.024
0.002
0.002
0.002
0.002
As a measure of the significance of these data, if one person were
able to drink .the entire amount of radioactivity discharged into any
harbpr in 1974, he would not exceed the annual radiation exposure
permitted by the U. S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission for a licensee.
Although of less significance than the amount of radioactivity,
the table also shows that the volume of liquids released within twelve
miles has been reduced from millions of gallons per year to less than
ten thousand gallons in 1974. This reduction was achieved by reduction
of waste generation and by processing and reuse of waste water.
Environmental monitoring is conducted by the U. S. Navy in U. S.
and foreign harbors frequented by U. S. Naval nuclear-powered ships.
96
This monitoring consists of analyzing harbor water and sediment
samples for radioactivity associated with Naval nuclear propulsion
plants, radiation monitoring around the perimeter of support
facilities and effluent monitoring. Environmental samples from
each of these harbors are also checked at least annually by a
U. S. Energy Research and Development Administration Laboratory
to ensure analytical procedures are correct and standardized. The
U. S. Environmental Protection Agency has conducted independent
surveys in U. S. harbors; results have been consistent with Navy
results. These surveys have confirmed that U. S. Naval nuclearpowered ships and support facilities have had no significant
effect on the radioactivity of the marine environment.
-2-
97
RADIOACTIVE LIQUID WASTE DISPOSAL
Policy and Procedures Minimizing Release of Radioactivity in Harbors
The policy of the U. S. Navy is to reduce to the minimum
practicable the amounts of radioactivity released to the environment
but particularly within twelve miles from shore including into harbors.
This policy is consistent with applicable recommendations issued by
the Federal Radiation Council (incorporated in Environmental Protection Agency in 1970), U. S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (formerly
the U. S. Atomic Energy Commission), National Council on Radiation
Protection and Measurements, International Commission on Radiological
Protection, International Atomic Energy Agency, and National Academy
of Sciences—National Research Council (references 1 through 7*).
Keeping releases small minimizes the radioactivity available to build
up in the environment or to concentrate in marine life. To implement
this policy of minimizing releases, the Navy has issued standard
instructions defining the radioactive waste disposal limits and procedures to be used by U. S. Naval nuclear-powered ships and their
support facilities. These instructions were reviewed and concurred
in by the U. S. Energy Research and Development Administration
(formerly the U. S. Atomic Energy Commission) and the U. S.
Environmental Protection Agency.
Source of Radioactivity
In the shipboard reactors, pressurized water circulating through
the reactor core picks up the heat of nuclear reaction. Reactor
cooling water circulates through a closed piping system to heat
exchangers which transfer the heat to water in a secondary steam system
isolated from the primary cooling water. The steam is then used as the
source of power for the propulsion plant as well as for auxiliary
machinery. Releases from the shipboard reactors occur primarily when
reactor coolant water expands as a result of being heated to operating
temperature; this coolant passes through a purification system ion
exchange resin bed prior to being transferred from the ship.
The principal source of radioactivity in liquid wastes is from
trace amounts of corrosion and wear products from reactor plant metal
surfaces in contact with reactor cooling water. Radionuclides with
half-lives greater than one day in these corrosion and wear products
include tungsten 187, chromium 51, hafnium 181, iron 59, iron 55, nickel 63,
zirconium 95, tantalum 182, manganese 54, cobalt 58, and cobalt 60.
* References are listed at end of report
-3-
98
The most predominant of these is cobalt 60, which has a 5.3 year halflife; cobalt 60 also has the most restrictive concentration limit
in water listed by organizations which set radiological standards
in references 1, 2, and 3 for these corrosion and wear radionuclides.
Therefore, radioactive waste disposal is conservatively controlled by
assuming that all the long-lived radioactivity is cobalt 60.
Radioactivity Removal From Liquid Wastes at Shore Facilities
Radioactive liquid wastes at shore facilities are collected in
stainless steel tanks and processed through a processing system to
remove most of the radioactivity (exclusive of tritium) prior to
collection in a clean tank for reuse. Even after processing to
approximately 10~8 microcuries per milliliter, reactor coolant is
reused rather than discharged. Illustration 1 shows a simplified
block diagram of the waste processing system which consists of
particulate filters, activated carbon bed filters, mixed hydrogen
hydroxyl resin and colloid removal resin beds. This type of processing
system has been developed and used successfully to produce high
quality water containing very low radioactivity levels. This water
is reused in the Naval nuclear propulsion plants rather than
discharged.
Liquid Waste Releases in Harbors
The total amounts of long-lived radioactivity released into
harbors and seas within twelve miles from shore during the past five
years are summarized in Table 1, which updates information in
references 8 through 16. Included are data on releases from U. S.
Naval nuclear-powered ships and from supporting shipyards, tenders
and submarine bases. Locations in Table 1 include all operating
bases and home ports in the U. S. and overseas as well as
all other ports which were visited by Naval nuclear-powered ships.
The quantities of radioactivity listed in this table are conservatively
reported as if the entire radioactivity consisted of cobalt 60,
which is the predominant long-lived radionuclide and also has the
most stringent concentration limits.
Although of less significance than the amount of radioactivity, the
volume of waste has also been reduced. The average volume released
into all harbors in the middle nineteen sixties was five million
gallons per year. In 1974 the volume released was less than 10,000
gallons. This reduction was achieved by reduction of waste generation
and by processing and reuse of waste water.
The table shows that the total amount of radioactivity released
within all U. S. and foreign harbors by the more than 100 nuclearpowered ships in the U. S. Navy has been less than 0.002 curie per
year since 1971. To put this small quantity of radioactivity into
perspective, it is less than the quantity of naturally occurring
-4-
99
•WASTE
WATER
INLET
CARBON
BED
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BED
OR
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FILTER
FILTER
PUMP
REUSE
CLEAN
TANK
FILTER
a-r
SAMPLE
CONNECTION
PUMP
TO WATER REUSE
SAMPLE
CONNECTION
RECIRCULATION
ILLUSTRATION 1
SIMPLIFIED DIAGRAM OF WASTE PROCESSING
SYSTEM
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101
radioactivity (reference 17) in the volume of saline harbor water
occupied by a single nuclear-powered submarine.
Short Lived Radionuclides
Reactor coolant also contains short-lived radionuclides with
half-lives of seconds to hours. Their highest concentrations in
reactor coolant are from nitrogen 16 (7 second half-life), nitrogen
13 (10 minute half-life), fluorine 18, (1.8 hour half-life), argon 41
(1.8 hour half-life) and manganese 56 (2.6 hour half-life). For the
longest-lived of these, about one day after discharge from an
operating reactor the concentration is reduced to one thousandth of
the initial concentration and in about two days the concentration is
reduced to one millionth. Therefore since most of the water is
transferred to shore facilities for processing prior to reuse, these
short-lived radionuclides are not important for water disposal considertions.
Fission Product Radionuclides
Fission products produced in the reactor are retained within the
fuel elements. The fission gases krypton and xenon are also retained
within the fuel elements. However, trace quantities of naturally
occurring uranium impurities in reactor structural materials release
small amounts of fission products to reactor coolant. The concentrations of fission products and the volumes of reactor coolant
released are so low,.however, that the total radioactivity attributed
to long-lived fission product radionuclides strontium 90 and cesium
137 in releases from U. S. Naval nuclear-powered ships and their support
facilities has been less than 0.001 curie per year for all harbors
combined. Fallout of these same fission products has often been more
than this in one rainfall in a single harbor.
Tritium
Small amounts of tritium are formed in reactor coolant systems as
a result of neutron interaction with the approximately 0.015 percent
of naturally occurring deuterium present in water, and other nuclear
reactions. Although tritium has a 12 year half-life, the radiation
produced is of such low energy that the radioactivity concentration
guide issued by the International Commission on Radiological Protection,
the U. S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (formerly the U. S. Atomic
Energy Commission) and by other standard-setting organizations is one
hundred times higher for tritium than for cobalt 60. This tritium is
in the oxide form and chemically indistinguishable from water;
therefore it does not concentrate significantly in marine life or
collect on sediment as do other radionuclides.
-7-
102
Tritium is naturally present in the environment because it is
generated by cosmic radiation in the upper atmosphere. Reference 18
reports that the production rate from this source is about six million
curies per year, which through rainfall causes a tritium inventory in
the oceans of about one hundred million curies. Because of this
naturally occurring tritium, much larger releases of tritium than are
conceivable from Naval nuclear reactors would be required to make a
measurable change in the background tritium concentration.
The total amount of tritium released during each of the last 5
years from all U. S. Naval nuclear-powered ships and their supporting
tenders, bases and shipyards has been less than 200 curies. Most of
this has been into the ocean greater than twelve miles from shore.
The total tritium from the entire nuclear Navy is less than single
electrical generating nuclear power stations typically release each
year (reference 19). Total tritium released into harbors within
twelve miles was less than one curie in 1974. Such releases are too
small to increase measurably the tritium concentration in the environment. Therefore tritium has not been included in the data in other
sections of this report.
Liquid Waste Releases at Sea
Radioactive liquid wastes are released at sea under strict controls.
These ocean releases are consistent with recommendations the Council on
Environmental Quality made in 1970 to the President in reference 20.
Procedures and limits for ocean disposal have been consistent with
recommendations made by the National Academy of Sciences—National
Research Council in reference 5 and by the International Atomic Energy
Agency in reference 6. These releases have contained much less
radioactivity than these reports considered would be acceptable. Total
long-lived radioactivity excluding tritium, released farther than twelve
miles from shore by U. S. Naval nuclear-powered ships and supporting
tenders is shown in Table 2 for recent years. This is the total amount
released from over 100 ships at different times of the year in the open
sea at long distances from land in small incremental amounts, and under
rapid dispersal conditions due to wave action. The quantity of radioactivity released to the open ocean in 1974 was 0.4 curie, which is less
than the naturally occurring radioactivity in a cube of sea water
approximately 100 yards on a side.
TABLE 2
TOTAL RADIOACTIVE LIQUID WASTE RELEASED AT SEA BY ALL U. S. NAVAL
NUCLEAR-POWERED SHIPS AND SUPPORTING TENDERS
1970
1971
1972
1973
1974
Thousand Gallons
1220
1840
1970
1480
1890
Curies
0.8
0.8
0.6
0.4
0.4
103
Two U. S. Navy nuclear-powered submarines have been lost at sea in
the Atlantic Ocean. The submarine THRESHER sank 10 April 1963, 100
miles from land in water 8,500 feet deep at latitude 41°45'N and longitude 65°00'W. The submarine SCORPION sank between 21 and 27 May 1968,
400 miles southwest of the Azores in more than 10,000 feet of water.
The reactors used in all U. S. Naval submarines and surface ships are
designed to minimize potential hazards to the environment even under
the most severe casualty conditions such as actual sinking of the ship.
First, the reactor core is so designed that it is physically impossible
for it to explode like a bomb. Second, the reactor fuel elements are
made of materials that are extremely corrosion resistant, even in sea
water. The reactor core could remain submerged in sea water for
decades without releases of fission products while the radioactivity
decays, since the protective cladding on the fuel elements corrodes
only a few millionths of an inch per year. Thus, in the event of a
serious accident where the reactor is completely submerged in sea water,
the fuel elements will remain intact for an indefinite period of time
and the radioactive material contained in these fuel elements should
not be released. The maximum rate of release and dispersal of the
radioactivity in the ocean, even if the protective cladding on the
fuel were destroyed, would be so low as to be insignificant.
Radioactive material could be released from this type of reactor
only if the fuel elements were actually to melt and in addition the
high-strength, all-welded reactor system boundary were to rupture.
The reactor's many protective devices and inherent self-regulating
features are designed to prevent any melting of the fuel elements.
Flooding of a reactor with sea water furnishes additional cooling
for the fuel elements and so provides added protection against the
release of radioactive material.
Radiation measurements, water samples, bottom sediment samples
and debris collected from the area where THRESHER sank were analyzed
for radioactivity shortly after the sinking and again subsequently
by various laboratories with highly sensitive equipment.
Similarly, sea water and bottom sediment samples taken near SCORPION'S
hull were analyzed for radioactivity. None of these samples showed
radioactivity above naturally occurring background levels and none
showed evidence of radioactivity released from either THRESHER or
SCORPION.
-9-
104
SOLID RADIOACTIVE WASTE DISPOSAL
During maintenance and overhaul operations, solid low-level radioactive wastes consisting of contaminated rags, plastic bags, paper,
filters, ion exchange resin and scrap materials are collected by
nuclear-powered ships and their support facilities. Transfers of
these low level radioactive materials from nuclear-powered ships to
support facilities are required to be strictly controlled in accordance
with-Navy accountability procedures to prevent loss, including serialized
tagging and marking and signatures required by radiologically trained
personnel.
Solid radioactive waste materials are packaged in strong tight
containers, shielded as necessary and shipped to burial sites licensed
by the U. S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission or a State under agreement
with the U. S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission. Shipyards and other
shore facilities are not permitted to dispose of radioactive solid wastes
by burial on their own sites.
Solid radioactive materials from Naval nuclear-powered ships have
not been dumped at sea since 1970 when the Navy issued procedures
prohibiting sea disposal of solid radioactive materials. The Navy
procedures require all packaging and shipping of radioactive
materials to be performed in strict compliance with U. S. Nuclear
Regulatory Commission requirements.
Table 3 summarizes total radioactivity and volumes of radioactive
solid waste disposal for the last five years. Table 3 includes
material generated at the listed facilities and all other radioactive
waste generated by U. S. nuclear-powered ships and transferred to the
listed facilities. The quantity of solid radioactive waste in any one
year from a particular facility depends on the amount and type of
support work performed that year. Table 3 does not include expended
fuel or high level wastes associated with expended fuel. These
materials are shipped from the refueling shipyard to U. S. Energy
Research and Development Administration facilities for processing in
the same manner as other expended nuclear fuel. The high level
radioactive material is retained metallurgically within the fuel.
Expended fuel is required to be shipped in specially designed shielded
shipping containers in accordance with the requirements of the
Department of Transportation and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
Because of efforts to minimize solid waste and the utilization of
compaction equipment, total volumes have remained nearly constant in
spite of increasing work caused by increasing numbers of ships. The
average annual volume for the entire Naval nuclear propulsion program
could be contained in a cube measuring fifteen yards on a side. The
total annual volumes of solid radioactive waste from the Naval nuclear
propulsion program listed in Table 3 are less than one tenth of the
total volumes of radioactive solid waste buried in all U. S. commercial
burial grounds each year (reference 21).
-10-
105
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-11-
106
ENVIRONMENTAL MONITORING
To provide additional assurance that procedures used by the U. S.
Navy to control radioactivity are adequate to protect the environment,
the Navy conducts environmental monitoring in harbors frequented by its
nuclear-power ships. Environmental monitoring surveys for radioactivity are periodically performed in harbors where U. S. Naval nuclearpowered ships are built or overhauled and where these ships have home
ports or operating bases. Samples from each harbor monitored are also
checked at least annually by a U. S. Energy Research and Development
Administration (USERDA) laboratory (formerly of the U. S. Atomic Energy
Commission) to ensure analytical procedures are correct and standardized.
These USERDA laboratory results have been consistent with shipyard and
operating base results.
Navy Environmental Monitoring Program
The current Navy environmental monitoring program consists of
analyzing samples of harbor water and sediment, supplemented by shoreline surveys, posted dosimeters and effluent monitoring. Sampling
harbor water and sediment each quarter year is emphasized since these
materials would be the most likely affected by releases of radioactivity.
Marine life samples have also been collected from some harbors.
Five water samples are taken in each harbor once each quarter year
in areas where nuclear-powered ships berth and from upstream and downstream locations. These samples are analyzed for gross gamma radioactivity and for cobalt 60 content. A sodium iodide scintillation
detector with a multichannel analyzer is used to measure gross gamma
activity in an energy range from 0.1 MeV to 2.1 MeV expressed in terms
of cobalt 60 equivalent and to analyze the resulting gamma data
for the presence of cobalt 60. Procedures for analysis will detect
cobalt 60 if its concentration exceeds one three hundredth of the
U. S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission limit of reference 1. No cobalt 60
has been detected in any of the water samples from all harbors monitored.
A radiological laboratory of the Environmental Protection Agency
analyzed samples from harbors to identify radionuclides present in
sediment. These analyses showed cobalt 60 was the predominant radionuclide added to sediment from Naval nuclear reactor operations.
Therefore, Navy monitoring procedures require collecting in each harbor
approximately 20 to 120 sediment samples once each quarter year for
cobalt 60 and gross gamma analyses. Locations and numbers of sediment
samples for a particular harbor depend on the size of the harbor and the
number and separation of locations where nuclear-powered ships berth.
Sampling points are selected to form a pattern around ship berthing locations
and to provide points in areas away from these berthing locations. The
sampling locations are selected individually for each harbor considering
characteristics of the harbor. Sediment samples are collected using
the dredge shown in Illustration 2. The dredge samples a surface
-12-
107
area of 36 square inches and has been modified to collect only the top
one-half to one inch of sediment. The top layer was selected because
it should be more mobile and more accessible to marine life than deeper
layers. After the dredge is lowered to the harbor bottom the messenger
weight lowered on the support from the surface causes the springloaded jaws on the dredge to close and trap the sediment. The samples
are placed directly in a one quart container lined with a plastic bag.
Each sediment sample is analyzed for gamma activity in the container
in which collected using a sodium iodide scintillation detector with a
multichannel analyzer. Gross gamma activity in an energy range from 0.1
MeV to 2.1 MeV i s expressed in terms of equivalent cobalt 60 and the
resulting gamma data is analyzed for the presence of cobalt 60 activity.
Results of the sediment samples from harbors monitored by the Navy in
the U. S. and possessions for 1974 are summarized in Table 4.
Support Line
Messenger Weight
ILLUSTRATION 2
DREDGE FOR SAMPLING HARBOR SEDIMENT
-13-
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-14-
109
Evaluation of the data summarized in Table 4 shows that low-level
cobalt 60 radioactivity in harbor bottom sediment is detected around
a few piers at operating bases and shipyards where nuclear-powered ship
maintenance and overhauls have been conducted over a period of several
years. The activity detected is from operations in the early 1960's
since releases such as shown earlier in Table 1 are too small to be
detectable in the harbors. Cobalt 60 is not detectable above background
levels in general harbor bottom areas away from these piers. Maximum
total radioactivity observed in a U. S. harbor is less than 0.1 curie
of cobalt 60. This radioactivity is small compared to background; based
on the typical concentrations of naturally occurring radioactivity such
as potassium 40, radium, uranium and thorium which are described in
reference 17 for marine sediment, the natural radioactivity in the
sediment of a typical harbor amounts to hundreds of curies. Comparison
to previous environmental monitoring data in references 8 through 16
shows that these environmental cobalt 60 levels have been steadily
decreasing.
The first data column in Table 4 includes all samples with less
than three picocuries of cobalt 60 per gram of sediment. Most of the
sediment samples did not contain detectable cobalt 60 and are tabulated
in this range. In this range cobalt 60 is difficult to distinguish from
the levels of naturally occurring radioactivity such as potassium,
radium, uranium and thorium. Cobalt 60 in sediment in this low range
may also be detectable as a result of world wide dispersion from
atmospheric nuclear weapons testing.
The value of 30 picocuries per gram was selected for the top of
the second range of data in Table 4. A measure of the significance
of this range is that if a person's food consumption were to contain
cobalt 60 in this range of activity throughout the year, he would
not exceed radiation exposure levels permitted in references 1 » 2, and 3
for members of the general public. Only a small fraction of the
sediment samples are in this second range and none of the samples
exceeded this range in 1974. Data on uptake of cobalt 60 by marine life
obtained to date show that in the salt water harbor bottom environments,
no significant buildup of cobalt 60 occurs in marine life. EPA
evaluation in reference 22 shows that the cobalt 60 from Naval nuclear
propulsion plants is in the form of metallic corrosion product particles
which do not appear to be concentrated in the food chain. Because of
the nature of the radioactivity and low concentrations noted in Table 4,
extensive monitoring of radioactivity in marine life has not been
necessary as part of routine environmental monitoring programs in these
harbors.
In addition to Navy analysis of environmental samples at least two
sediment samples have been sent each year to a laboratory of the U. S.
Atomic Energy Commission, now the U. S. Energy Research and Development
Administration, as a check of Navy results. The samples were analyzed
for gamma radionuclides in a manner similar to Navy procedures but
with greater sensitivity. Illustration 3 depicts the gamma spectra for
two such samples. Both spectra show the presence of abundant naturally
-15-
54-038 O - 75 - 8
110
occurring radionuclides which contribute to measured radioactivity even
if cobalt 60 were not present. The upper spectrum is for a sample to
which cobalt 60 has been added to an activity of approximately 3 pi cocuries per gram and shows recognizable energy peaks due to the presence
of this small activity of cobalt 60. The second spectrum depicts the
appearance in the cobalt 60 energy range of most of the sediment
samples in the first column in Table 4.
In addition to the extensive routine monitoring of harbor water
and sediment selected samples of marine life such as mollusks, bottomfeeding fish, barnacles and starfish have been collected infrequently
from harbors. Marine life samples are also analyzed using a sodium
iodide scintillation detector with a multichannel analyzer. No cobalt 60
associated with U. S. Naval nuclear-powered ships has been detected in
samples of marine life.
Estimates of the radiation exposure to members of the general public
from radioactivity released into river and harbor waters and sediment
and in air exhausted from facilities have been made as discussed in
references 17 and 23 by analyzing the pathways whereby radioactivity
might be transmitted from the marine environment to man. These analyses
considered direct exposure, such as from sediment along shorelines and by
drinking harbor water, and indirect pathways such as consumption of
bottom feeding fish or shellfish. These analyses showed that personnel
exposure from this radioactivity would be far too low to measure and
could only be estimated. Based on radioactivity released including
the amounts and concentrations reported in Table 1 of this report, the
estimated maximum whole-body radiation exposure in a year to any member of
.the general public would be less than 0.01 millirem. This is less than
one ten thousandth of the average annual exposure of 125 millirem
(reference 7) to members of the general public from natural radioactivity or from exposure to medical diagnostic x-rays. Reference 24
contains proposed guidelines for effluents from water-cooled nuclear
power reactors including more restrictive exposure guidelines of 3 mrem
per year from radioactivity in liquid effluents for members of the public
outside the facility. These new guidelines do not apply to nuclearpowered ships and support facilities; however, the dose from radioactivity
releases from these facilities as estimated above is far less than the
new guidelines.
For comparison, references 25, 26 and 27 contain evaluations by
laboratories of the Environmental Protection Agency and of the Energy
Research and Development Administration (formerly the U.S. Atomic
Energy Commission) of the effects on the environment from the accumulation near points of discharge of radionuclides from several nuclear
facilities. The referenced reports conclude for these other facilities
that radioactivity levels much greater than shown in Table 4 have
caused no significant radiation exposure to the general public.
-16-
Ill
SAMPLE WEIGHT: 338 grams
COUNTING TIME: 200 MINUTES
1024 CHANNELS: 0-2.4 MEV
U s N A T U R A L U - 238 DAUGHTER
Th'NATURAL Th-232 DAUGHTER
U 4-Th (X-RAY)
Ra-226(U)
I
|
r
Pb-2l2(Th)
Pb-2l4(U)
Th-208(Th)
-214 (U)
Ac-228(Th)
SAMPLE WEIGHT: 1468 grams
COUNTING TIME: 200 MINUTES
1024 CHANNELS: 0-2.4 MEV
UNNATURAL U-238 DAUGHTER
Th = NATURAL Th-232 DAUGHTER
20-
0.3
0.9
1.2
1.5
1.8
2.1
GAMMA ENERGY IN MEV
ILLUSTRATION 3 GAMMA
SPECTRA OF HARBOR BOTTOM SEDIMENT SAMPLES
-17-
112
In all monitored harbors, twice per year shoreline areas uncovered
at low tide are surveyed for radiation levels with sensitive radiation
detectors to determine if any radioactivity from bottom sediment
washed ashore. All results were the same as background radiation levels
in these regions, approximately 0.01 millirem per hour. Thus, there is
no evidence in these ports that radioactivity from sediment is washing
ashore.
Ambient radiation levels are measured using sensitive dosimeters
continuously posted at locations outside the boundaries of areas where
radioactive work is performed. More sensitive thermolumin2scent
dosimeters have replaced film dosimeters at most facilities. These
dosimeters are also posted at locations remote from support facilities
to measure background radiation from natural radioactivity. Results
of dosimeters posted at support facilities between radiologically controlled areas and the general public are compared with dosimeters posted
at remote background locations up to several miles away. These results
showed that radiation exposure to the general public from radioactive
work on Naval nuclear propulsion plants was not above that received
from natural background radiation levels.
Naval nuclear reactors and their support facilities are designed
to ensure there are no significant discharges of radioactivity in
airborne exhausts. Radiological controls are exercised in support
facilities to preclude exposure of working personnel to airborne
radioactivity exceeding limits such as specified in reference 1.
These controlsinclude a total containment concept for radioactive
materials and provide a barrier to prevent significant radioactivity
from becoming airborne. Further, all air exhausted from these facilities
is passed through high efficiency particulate air filters and
monitored during discharge. There were no discharges of airborne
radioactivity above concentrations normally present in the atmosphere.
-18-
113
AUDITS AND REVIEWS
The requirements and procedures for control of radioactive
waste are important parts of the training programs for everyone
involved with radioactivity in the Navy nuclear propulsion
program. Such training is part of the initial qualification of
shipyard workers and of Naval personnel assigned to ships and
bases, and is required to be repeated regularly. Emphasis on
this training is part of the concept that radiological control
personnel alone cannot cause radiological work to be well performed; production and operations personnel and all levels of
management are required to be involved in the control of radioactivity.
Checks and balances of several kinds are also set up to help
ensure control of radioactivity. First, written procedures
exist which require verbatim compliance. Radiological control
personnel monitor various steps in radioactive waste processing.
In each shipyard an independent organization, separate from the
radiological control organization, audits all aspects of radioactive waste processing. Audits are performed by representatives
from Naval Reactors headquarters who are assigned full time at
each shipyard. Radiological control personnel from headquarters
also conduct periodic inspections of each shipyard. Similarly,
there are multiple levels of audits and inspections for the other
Navy shore facilities, tenders, and nuclear-powered ships.
The Navy has reviewed radioactive waste disposal and radiological
environmental monitoring with the states where Navy nuclear-powered
ships are based or overhauled. The Navy is continuing its longstanding policy of ensuring that state radiological officials are
notified of occurrences that might cause concern because of
radiological effects outside the ships or shore facilities.
Although there were no occurrences in 1974 which did cause radiological effects to the public outside these facilities, states were
notified when inquiries showed public interest in the possibility
that such events had occurred. The Navy has encouraged states to
conduct independent radiological environmental monitoring in harbors
where Naval nuclear-powered ships are based or overhauled.
The U. S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) conducts detailed
reviews of the Navy's procedures for radioactive waste and for
radiological environmental monitoring. An EPA laboratory has conducted detailed environmental surveys of selected U. S. harbors
(references 22, 28, 29, 30). This laboratory has performed these
surveys in the harbors at Charleston, South Carolina; Pearl Harbor,
Hawaii; San Diego, California; Vallejo, California; New London,
Connnecticut; Newport News, Virginia; Norfolk, Virginia; and
Bremerton, Washington. At the Navy's invitation in 1974 the EPA
also conducted a detailed evaluation of the adequacy of shipyard
radiological controls to protect the environment. Navy monitoring
results have been consistent with these EPA surveys.
-19-
114
CONCLUSIONS
1. The total radioactivity in liquids, less tritium, released into all
ports and harbors from the U. S. Naval nuclear propulsion program
was less than 0.002 curie in 1974. The total tritium released into
all ports and harbors was less than one curie in 1974.
2. No increase of radioactivity above normal background levels has
been detected in harbor water where U. S. Naval nuclear-powered
ships are based, overhauled, or constructed.
3. Liquid wastes from U. S. Naval nuclear-powered ships and support
facilities have not caused a measurable increase in the general
background radioactivity of the environment.
4. Low-level cobalt 60 radioactivity in harbor bottom sediment is
detectable around a few piers at operating bases and shipyards
from low level liquid releases in the 1960's. Cobalt 60 is not
detectable above background levels in general harbor bottom
areas away from these piers. Maximum total radioactivity
observed in a U. S. harbor of less than 0.1 curie of cobalt 60
is small compared to the naturally occurring radioactivity.
Comparison to previous environmental data summarized in references
8 through 16 shows that these environmental cobalt 60 levels are
continuing to decrease.
5. Procedures used by the Navy to control discharges of radioactivity
from U. S. Naval nuclear-powered ships and their support facilities
have been effective in protecting the environment and the health
and safety of the general public. Independent evaluations and
radiological environmental monitoring performed by the U. S.
Environmental Protection Agency have confirmed the adequacy of
these procedures.
-20-
115
REFERENCES
(1) Code of Federal Regulations, Title 10 (Nuclear Regulatory Commission),
Part 20, "Standards for Protection Against Radiation".
(2) National Council on Radiation Protection and Measurements, Report
No. 22, "Maximum Permissible Body Burdens and Maximum Permissible
Concentrations of Radionuclides in Air and in Water for Occupational Exposure", (Published as National Bureau of Standards
Handbook 69, Issued June 1959, superseding Handbook 52).
(3) International Commission on Radiological Protection, Publication
2, "Report of Committee II on Permissible Dose for Internal
Radiation (1959)", with 1962 Supplement Issued in ICRP Publication 6; Publication 9, "Recommendations on Radiation Exposure
(1965)"; and ICRP Publication 7 (1965), amplifying specific
recommendations of Publication 9 concerning environmental
monitoring.
(4) Federal Radiation Council Memoranda, approved by President
Eisenhower on May 13, 1960, President Kennedy on September 20,
1961, and President Johnson on July 31, 1964.
(5) National Academy of Sciences—National Research Council, Publication 658, "Radioactive Waste Disposal from Nuclear-powered
Ships", 1959.
(6) International Atomic Energy Agency, "Radioactive Waste Disposal
into the Sea", Safety Series No. 5, Vienna 1961.
(7) National Council on Radiation Protection and Measurements,
Report No. 39, "Basic Radiation Protection Criteria", January
1971.
(8) U. S. Navy Report—"Disposal of Radioactive Wastes from U. S.
Naval Nuclear-powered Ships and Their Support Facilities, 1965",
by J. W. Vaughan and M. E. Miles issued in Radiological Health
Data and Reports, May 1966.
(9) U. S. Navy Report—"Disposal of Radioactive Waste from U. S.
Naval Nuclear-Powered Ships and Their Support Facilities, 1966",
by M. E. Miles and J. J. Mangeno, issued in Radiological Health
Data and Reports, December 1967.
(10) U. S. Navy Report—"Disposal of Radioactive Wastes from U. S.
by M. E. Miles and J. J. Mangeno, issued in Radiological Health
Data and Reports, April 1969.
-21-
116
(11)
U. S. Navy Report—"Disposal of Radioactive Wastes from U. S.
Naval Nuclear-Powered Ships and Their Support Facilities,
1968", by M. E. Miles and J. J. Mangeno, issued in Radiological
Health Data and Reports, September 1969.
(12)
U. S. Navy Report—"Disposal of Radioactive Wastes from U. S.
by J. J. Mangeno and M. E. Miles issued in Radiological Health
Data and Reports, August 1970.
(13)
U. S. Navy Report--"Environmental Monitoring and Disposal of
Radioactive Wastes from U. S. Naval Nuclear-Powered Ships and
Their Support Facilities, 1970", by M. E. Miles, J. J. Mangeno
and R. D. Burke, issued in Radiological Health Data and Reports,
May 1971.
(14)
U. S. Navy Report—"Environmental Monitoring and Disposal of
Their Support Facilities, 1971", by M. E. Miles, G. L. Sjoblom
and R. D. Burke, issued in Radiation Data and Reports, September
1972.
(15)
Their Support Facilities, 1972", by M. E. Miles and 6. L. Sjoblom,
issued in Radiation Data and Reports, September 1973.
(16)
Their Support Facilities, 1973" by M. E. Miles, 6. L. Sjoblom
and J. D. Eagles, issued in Radiation Data and Reports,
October 1974.
(17)
National Academy of Sciences—National Research Council, "Radioactivity in the Marine Environment," 1971.
(18)
U. S. Atomic Energy Commission Report--"Sources of Tritium and
Its Behavior Upon Release To The Environment," by D. G. Jacobs,
T1D-24635, 1968.
(19)
U. S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission Report—"Summary of Radioactivity Released in Effluents From Nuclear Power Plants During
1973," NUREG-75/001 National Technical Information Service, 1975.
(20)
Council on Environmental Quality Report to President Nixon-"Ocean Dumping: A National Policy," October 1970.
(21)
U. S. Environmental Protection Agency Report--"A Summary of LowLevel Radioactive Waste Buried at Commercial Sites between
1962-1973, With Projections to the Year 2000" by M. F. O'Connell
and W. F. Holcomb, issued in Radiation Data and Reports,
December 1974.
-22-
117
(22)
U. S. Public Health Service Report--"Radiological Survey of
Major California Nuclear Ports," by D. F. Cahill, D. C. McCurry
and W. D. Breakfield, Clearinghouse for Federal Scientific
and Technical Information No. PH178728, April 1968.
(23)
"Final Environmental Statement Concerning Proposed Rule Making
Action: Numerical Guides for Design Objectives and Limiting
Conditions 1for Operation to Meet the Criterion 'As Low as
Practicable for Radioactive Material in Light-Water-Cooled
Nuclear Power Reactor Effluents," Directorate of Regulatory
Standards, U. S. Atomic Energy Commission, July 1973.
(24)
Code of Federal Regulations, Title 10 (Nuclear Regulatory
Commission), Part 50, "Licensing of Production and Utilization
Facilities, Appendix I, "Radioactive Material In Light-Water
Cooled Nuclear Power Reactor Effluents" published in Federal
Register, May 5, 1975.
(25)
Oak Ridge National Laboratory Report—"Clinch River Study"
ORNL-4035, April 1967.
(26)
U. S. Environmental Protection Agency Report—"Environmental
Radiation Effects of Nuclear Facilities in New'York State," by
M.S.Terpilak and B. L. Jorgensen, issued in Radiation Data and
Reports, July 1974.
(27)
U. S. Atomic Energy Commission, Savannah River Laboratory—
"Radioactivity From Savannah River Plant Operations in a
Downstream Savannah River Swamp, "DP-1370 by W. L. Marter,
September 1974.
(28)
U. S. Public Health Service Report—"Radiological Survey of
Hampton Roads (Norfolk—Newport News), Virginia," by
H. D. Harvey, Jr., E. D. Toerber and J. A. Gordon, Clearinghouse for Federal Scientific and Technical Information No.
AD683208, January 1968.
(29)
U. S. Environmental Protection Agency Report—"Radiological
Surveys of Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, and Environs," by D. F. Cahill,
H. D. Harvey, Jr., et al., issued in Radiation Data and Reports,
June 1972.
(30)
U. S. Environmental Protection Agency Report--"Radiological
Survey of New London Harbor, Thames River Connecticut and
Environs," by S. T. Windham and C. R. Phillips, issued in
Radiation Data and Reports, November 1973.
-23-
APPENDIX IV
HEARINGS AND KEPORTS
The following hearings and reports on the naval nuclear propulsion program have been published by the Joint Committee on Atomic
Energy:
Feb. 25,1974, hearing: "Naval Nuclear Propulsion Program—1974."
Feb. 8, 1972, and Mar. 28, 1973, hearings: "Naval Nuclear Propulsion Program—1972-73."
May 5, 1971-Sept. 30, 1972, hearing and subsequent inquiry of the Subcommittee
on Military Applications : "Nuclear Propulsion for Naval Warships."
Mar. 10,1971, hearing: "Naval Nuclear Propulsion Program—1971."
Mar. 19, 20,1970, hearings: "Naval Nuclear Propulsion Program—1970."
April 23,1969, hearing: "Naval Nuclear Propulsion Program—1969."
July 25,1968, hearing: "Nuclear Submarines of Advanced Design," pt. 2.
June 21,1968, hearing: "Nuclear Submarines of Advanced Design."
Feb. 8, 1968 and Mar. 16, 1967, hearings: "Naval Nuclear Propulsion Program,
1967-68."
Jan. 26,1966, hearing: "Naval Nuclear Propulsion Program."
June 26, 27, July 23, 1963, and July 1, 1964, hearings: "Loss of the U.S.S.
Thresher."
December 1963, report: "Nuclear Propulsion for Naval Surface Vessels."
Oct. 30, 31, and Nov. 13, 1963, hearings: "Nuclear Propulsion for Naval Surface
Vessels."
Mar. 31 and Apr. 1, 1962, hearings: "Tour of the U.S.S. Enterprise and Report
on Joint AEC-Naval Reactor Program."
Apr. 9, 1960, hearing: "Naval Reactor Program and Polaris Missile Sytems."
Apr. 11 and 15, 1959, hearings: "Review of Naval Reactor Program and Admiral
Rickover Award."
Mar. 7 and Apr. 12, 1957, hearings: "Naval Reactor Program and Shippingport
Project."
(118)
INDEX
Brussels Convention:
Brussels Convention of 1962
Importance of excluding warships
Contribution of naval program to commercial nuclear industry
r
Cost of naval nuclear program
Cost of oil
Cost of power
Freedom of Information Act:
Congressional concern over release of naval nuclear propulsion
information
Freedom of Information Act being used to bypass normal legal
procedures
Letters from law center
Professional people will quit
Request for vast quantities of records
Scope of recent request
.
Importance of keeping naval reactors in ERDA
LWBR:
Advanced water breeder applications
Development cost of LWBR
Light water breeder reactor
LWBR will not breed plutonium
Need for breeding
Naval reactors amass over 1,250 reactor years of accident free operation
Naval Reactor Laboratories
Need for more than self-inspection
NR-1
NR-2
Nuclear aircraft
Nuclear Attack Submarines:
Funding for SSN-688 class submarines
New design submarine propulsion plant
SSN-688 class submarines
U.S. nuclear attack submarines
Nuclear surface ships:
Cost of oil
Cost of power
Nimitz sea trials
Nuclear surface warships
Size of U.S. Navy
Title VIII
Two reactors vs. four or eight
.
Which ships should be nuclear
Young crewmen performed like veterans
Nuclear trained naval personnel valuable to industry
Radioactive discharges from nuclear propulsion program are insignificant
Size of U.S. Navy
Soviet threat:
Special safety precaution at Shippingport plant
Title VIII
(119)
Page
11
12
24
2
17
19
41
42
30
42
29
40
27
23
22
20
22
21
25
23
26
13
14
19
5
5
2
3
3
3
17
19
6
14
15
2
15
7
18
7
24
28
15
9
3
25
2
15
120
Trident:
Advantages of Trident
Alternatives to present Trident design
Cost of Trident program
Trident
O
9
11
9
9
8

Naval nuclear propulsion program, 1975

Transcription

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