,
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vy See SS
a substantially higher g/T level than the present standard production;
and the acceptance of this level win make it possible to produce the .
high quality material in addition without boo much trolible,
It wil not
be necessary to undettake new| process plant. cotslailctdon beyond that now
planned,
The requirement for high quality material will not be met in
1955, and probably not in 1956, but will be in 1957.
-
There was some consideration of whether still higher quality
plutonium would be needed, as suggested in Dr. Bradbury's letter, Dr.
Mark summarized the situation by saying that material of better than -
200 g/T quality was not needed for present designs, but that its lack
would place a limitation on future design possibilities, .
Dr. Pittman reviewed the U-233 situation,
According to a recent -
study, the cost of U-233 would be comperable to that of 20 n/g-sec
plutonium, It was planned to commence some production by loading an
enriched Savannah River reactor with thorium next year.
There is_ some
indication that the supply of thorium metal wil‘be’ a‘bottleneck.
For
a separation plant,3a Savannah River Purex plant will probably be convert
.
to the Thorex process,
Upgrading plutonium by isotope separation did not appear economicall
Plutonium
advantageous, under any conditions, in comparison to U-233.
(Dr. Pittman
referred the Committee to an Operations Analysis report by Mr. Herron,
which compared low g/T, isotope separation, and ‘U-233. However, the
report was not available during the meeting.)
~
DOE ARCHIys
vt
Kt "
The lithium-6 production plans had not been altered, and the plan “te
construct a second plant was going along.
The capacity for converting
LiOH to LID might be a bottleneck.
a
142