SPECIAL NUCLEAR MATERIALS
Table 2— Production Reactor
ees
Product and site
January — March 1958
April—June 1958
Plutonium
Hanford
Savannah River
Tritium
PELLETED.
Savannah River
Total
June. The resulting loss-in-pile operating time doubled in the April-June quarter over the preceding quarter, 6.5 percent compared with 3.1 percent.
At Savannah River, only three failures occurred in the April-June quarter, and they had no
significant effect on production. There were no failures in the preceding quarter.
Plutonium
The Hanford Purex plant was shut down in May for equipment modifications to convert the
plant process from three cycles to two cycles. The change is expected to reduce substantially
the waste losses, the consumption of chemicals, and the need for additional waste storage
tanks, The reduction in separations costs will be accompanied by a small increase in production
capacity.
Tritium
The quantity of tritium separated during the April-June quarter was 4 percent less than in
the preceding quarter because the material processed included a backlog of elements of low
tritium concentration.
New Production Reactor Study
A report on preliminary design of a new large-scale production reactor was submitted to
the Joint Committee on April 1. The report was based on a study by the General Electric Company in which several alternative cases were considered, ranging from a plutonium-only
reactor to a dual-purpose unit capable of producing a large amountof electric power as well
as substantial amounts of plutonium. The estimated costs of the reactors considered, together
with required auxiliaries, ranged from $126 million for a plutonium-only reactor to $256
million for a large reactor producing plutonium plus 700,000 kilowatts of electric power...
_ The reactor type on which the study was based was a pressurized-water, graphitemoderated unit fueled with slightly enriched uranium and designed to operate at high temperature. The report concluded that a reactor of this concept is feasible, but that a number of
difficult development problems would require solution in order to achieve the predicted
performance.
DOE ARCHIVES
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