PLENTIFUL ENERGY

to the Laboratory that that was all that was going to be necessary, and certainly all
that would be supported.
Oxide fuel and the ―loop‖ configuration of the reactor cooling system similar to
the submarine reactor were now to be the designated design of the fast reactor. At
the time, these did not seem unreasonable choices. The possible advantages of
metallic fuel hadn‘t yet been identified and its disadvantages were well known and
thought to be serious. On the other hand, the disadvantages of oxide fuel in a
sodium-cooled reactor had not been recognized, and if they had, they probably
would not have been thought important. And the advantages of the pool,
particularly its possibilities for greater protection against serious accidents, were not
seen at all.
In this way the ―oxide-loop‖ variant of the fast reactor became the international
choice. U.S. influence was still strong at this time. Argonne, for almost twenty
years the R&D center for fast reactor development, was not convinced that the new
directions were sufficiently well researched. Argonne was not opposed to new
directions, but thought the whole field of fast reactor development still too new to
decide on a single direction and put all eggs in that one basket.
The decision to implement Rickover's methods was fateful. Everything followed
from it. It wasn't recognized at all that Rickover's mission was far different from the
appropriate mission of a breeder program at the stage it was, and that that
mattered. For submarine propulsion, a perfected version of the pressurized water
technology, and that only, robust in coping with movement, and with a very longlived
fuel, along with haste arising from defense needs to get on with its
introduction, were the main requirements. Perfection was vital in the hostile
environment of a submarine, perfection right from the start. Cost was secondary.
None of this applied to the breeder. The breeder program needed more research to
establish its best directions, needed to be developed in the way Argonne had done,
solving problems as they arose, and using, preferably, the experience and
developed skills of the nation‟s only proven fast reactor capability, by far its most
complete capability in any case, at Argonne. The unstated assumption in adopting a
version of the Rickover methodology was that the right breeder technology was a
settled issue, and it was only necessary to strictly enforce Rickover‟s methodology
to get it built perfectly. The need for haste, in the breeder case, was greatly
overstated; the very much expanded program resulted in costs for breeder
development that even now seem exorbitant. The constantly stated need for haste
was belied by the painfully slow progress of the program itself. There is little
evidence that these obvious facts were ever recognized.
EBR-II continued to run—and run—and run. In concentrating on the oxidebased
fast reactor technology, the new people in the AEC-HQ breeder program
offices overlooked the increasingly clear advantages demonstrated by EBR-II. After
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