Boiling Water Reactor The Boiling Water Reactor type continues to leok quite promising as an The BER (Boiling Experimental Reactor), pt eb ew be eet me mm 5 . early achievement of nuclear power. to be constructed at Argonne, is scheduled to go critical by December 31, 1956, It will be a slightly enriched reactor, rated at 20 megawatts of heat and producing 5000 kw of electricity. The estimated cost of $3.5 million includes a semi-spherical building, 80 ft in diameter, which will hold 15 lbs per square inch pressure. There are many questions still to be resolved, notably the corrosion resistance and permissible burn-up of the fuel elements, the amount of radioactive contamination of the steam system and its effects on operations and maintenance, and the nuclear stability of the reactor system under a variable demand for steam. com ee “= <8 merBoreexperiment at Arco this summer which was a deliberate "testto-destruction" prior to installing a new reactor was apparently most instructive; the "destruction" being far more comprehensive and spectacular than anticipated. However, the results of this test, which was designed to introduce 4% excess reactivity as rapidly as practicable, should not be interpreted as casting doubt on the workability of a boiling reactor. Considerable progress is occurring in fuel element composition and fabrication, although Argonne does not yet have an element which can assuredly stand the burn-up demanded for reasonably economic operation and has very little indication of the effects of pile irradiation on corrosion and on stability of the elements. The design for the BER element is a sandwich net {VES poe BROH