Idaho National Laboratory Cultural Resource Management Plan

Related to the SNAP program, the AEC prepared to conduct experiments with a Lithium Cooled
Reactor (LCRE). The AEC envisioned a nuclear reactor that could power an electrical generator. It would
have to be small and light-weight, but able to generate high-power levels. The AEC contracted Pratt and
Whitney (P&W) in 1962 to modify the TAN hangar building for the lithium-cooled-reactor concept.
P&W already had done preliminary development of the concept.
P&W started on the modifications. The hangar building would house the experiment, while the
hangar's control building, parts of the A&M building, the Health and Safety Building (TAN-607), and
other buildings would house ancillary features of the project. But the work had barely begun before the
AEC and NASA redirected the SNAP program, and the remodeling stopped abruptly. 201
After the SL-1 reactor accident in January 1961, many TAN shops and laboratories were used in the
analysis and clean-up that followed the accident. The AEC gave GE the contract to decontaminate and
dispose of the debris, and GE used its many hot shops and laboratories for this work, glad to supply
employment to at least a few of its ANP personnel. 202
With its truncated staff, GE also took overflow work from some of the other contractors at the NRTS
and did hot cell work for them. SUSIE was particularly popular. Now that the unique “swimming pool”
was available to the rest of NRTS, it was in demand 24 hours a day all week long. 203
GE operated the Fast Spectrum Refractory Metals Reactor, a low-power critical facility, in the LPTF
from March 1962 to 1968. The main work of this reactor was to collect data for a proposed reactor
concept called the 710 Reactor. This was another concept for developing a compact, high-temperature
reactor for generating power in space. The reactor was to use tungsten and tantalum. The project was
discontinued in 1969 when it was determined that existing non-nuclear technology could provide power
needs in space. 204
Also at the LPTF, GE operated the 630-A Reactor Critical Experiment to explore the feasibility of an
air-cooled, water-moderated system for nuclear-powered merchant ships. Further development was
discontinued in December 1964 when decisions were made to lower the priority of the entire
nuclear-powered merchant ship program.
Other experiments at TAN in the late 1960s were the Cavity Reactor Critical Experiment (CRCE) and
Thermal Reactor Idaho Test Station (THRITS). Both of these were operated for the AEC by the Idaho
Nuclear Corporation. The CRCE was installed in one cell of the LPTF. It was a nuclear mock-up of a
reactor having complete spatial separation of its low-fuel-density core and surrounding moderator—a
concept proposed by the NASA Lewis Research Laboratory for more efficient rocket propulsion. The
THRITS experiment was housed in the second cell of the LPTF and served as a thermal neutron source
for several short-term tests. 205
In May 1963, modifications were made to the Shield Test Pool Facility to house the Experimental
Beryllium Oxide Reactor (EBOR). The project's objective was to develop the technology for using
beryllium oxide as a neutron moderator in high-temperature, gas-cooled reactors. TAN-645 was built as
the control and administration center, and TAN-646 was for the reactor building. While EBOR was under
construction, progress was made elsewhere on developing graphite as a moderator, reducing the
importance of developing an alternate moderator.
201. Stacy, Hangar HAER, p. 57.
202. Stacy, Hangar HAER, p. 56.
203. To Henry Dworshak from John W. Morfitt, GE Idaho Test Station, September 26, 1961; Dworshak Papers, Box 122 B, File:
AEC Idaho Plant.
204. Thumbnail Sketch 1969, p. 38.
205. For an illustration of the gas-core reactor concept, see p. 127 of Stacy, Proving the Principle.
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