Historians Fight for Nuclear Reactor
By Hannah Lepow | Online Only | Aug. 11, 2008
The Hanford B reactor is open for tours.
Credit: State of Washington
UPDATE: On Aug. 25, the Hanford B Reactor was designated a National Historic Landmark.
In Hanford, Wash., almost 200 miles from Seattle, a nuclear reactor is coming back into the public eye.
The Hanford B Reactor, completed in 1944, was the world's first full-scale plutonium production reactor. It produced plutonium for the Trinity test in New Mexico and for Fat Man, the bomb that was dropped on Nagasaki on August 9, 1945, killing approximately 75,000 people.
The Department of Energy, which owns and operates the site, wanted to "cocoon" the B Reactor in concrete and steel but has decided to wait until 2009 to make this decision.
In 2004 Congress authorized a National Park Service study to determine whether or not to build a national monument to the Manhattan Project. This monument would include three major national park sites in Los Alamos, N.M., Oak Ridge, Tenn., and the B Reactor in Hanford.
"One hundred and twenty-five thousand people were living and working at these three sites," says Cindy Kelly, president of the Atomic Heritage Foundation, and the proposed monument would recognize their efforts.
Results of the study will be presented to the public this fall or next spring.
The Hanford B reactor was on the Washington Trust for Historic Preservation's Most Endangered list in 2004 and on its "Watch List" this year. Tim Cowan, an architect in Portland, Ore., who helped nominate the site, wrote his thesis about the Hanford B Reactor. Through his research, he became interested in preserving the site and began working to establish an interpretive center.
"When you're in the building or in the control room, you're two or three degrees of separation from Einstein or Enrico Fermi," Cowan says. "It's amazing every time." The exhibit includes video interviews of Manhattan Project veterans and explanations of what occurred in each room of the B Reactor.
According to Kelly, the number of tours has quadruped since the B Reactor Museum Association began organizing tours in the 1990s. This year, the Department of Energy offered 48 public tours; all of them were filled within the first few weeks of being announced. The site attracts not only locals but visitors from all around the world.
"[The atomic bomb] was an event that changed the course of world history and the world we live in today," Kelly says. "It's worth understanding and grappling with its legacy."
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Comments
Submitted by Tim Cowan at: January 25, 2009
Update correction: B Reactor was officially designated a National Historic Landmark on August 19, 2008.
Submitted by oldman at: August 14, 2008
Excellent artilce; but, it dfoesn't tell the whole story. Yes, B Reactor produced plutonium used in the second atomicv bomb used against Japan in World War II. It was also the first time mankind had controlled the energy release from the splitting of large atoms, in this case an isotope of uranium. Whee do we get the energy used to power our factories, trasnportation systems, warm our houses, heat our water, etc.? Well, most comes directly or indirectly from the sun. Electricity from hydro-electric projects and from windmills are examples of the indirect route. Other energy sources come from the burning of materials such as coal and oil (which, by the way were formed by energy of the sun interacting with terrestial elements). But, splitting large atoms is altogether new-to-mankind source of energy. When big atoms split, the mass of the fragments is less than the mass of the origianl atom plus the mass of the neutron that triggered the fission (a neuron is an uncharged sub-atomic particle). Where does that missing mass go? Einstein in the eartly 20th centurty said that mass and energy were related, that mass could be transformed into energy and vice versa. In 1942, Enrico Fermi acheived and controlled such a trasnformation. But his device's ourtput amounted to just a few watts of heat. B Reactor was a gigantic scale-up of Fermi's machine, it produced hudreds of millions of watts of heat. Anything practical from this? Yes, the US generates about 20% of our electricity that way and France more than half of their electrical generation. And the reaction doesn't release any carbon dioxide. Wil this application help address global warming. The true answer is no oine knows; but, many engineers and orther technologists believe it will be a key part of the solution. So, B Reacgtors role of producing a World War II atoimic bomb just maybe eclipsed in the futrue by being the pioneer of harnssing the energy of atomic nuclei fissioning and producing energy that doesn't create greenhouse gases. Think of it. If we found the two sticks that primitiuve mankind rubbed together to start a fire, would we want to preserve them? Of course. But, on the sdame level, we still have the B Reactor.
Submitted by past at: August 14, 2008
The monument on the site should be for those who lived and worked there that lost their lives, or the lives of loved ones. It should also memorialize the lives lost in Nagaski, Japan. This site should be treated as a historical landmark like any of the concentration camps from WWII. As a reminder of the evil that can come from human intelligence and creativity.
Submitted by Anonymous at: August 14, 2008
I worked at Hanford almost 60 years ago. Such a vivid experience it seems like yesterday. Forgot to add this to an earlier comment. Vernon Holt, Mendham, NJ
Submitted by Anonymous at: August 14, 2008
Preserving historical records is so important because they help us understand the continuous road maps to the present and help us plan with more intelligent insight for the future. - Vernon Holt, Mendham, NJ
Submitted by JLB at: August 14, 2008
I've been to the B Reactor and, although not a scientist by trade myself, I felt the weight of the structure and its significance to not only local heritage, but National as well. Understanding its existence and implications through interpretive study is important, in my civilian opinion, to the success of future projects. Thank you for the article.
Submitted by Watson at: August 14, 2008
My fellow Dupont engineer Robert Forrest Stewart was in charge of constructing the B Reactor! I worked on the design of the Separation buildings in Wilmington DE and transferred to Hanford to build them taking his wife and infant baby son by train Februay 1944 to join him. I am 91 and visited the B Reactor on a public tour Oct 15,2005 wearing my HEW aluminum hard hat and photo identification construction badge-both now at the CREHST Museum- Richland WA-a wonderful visit and I made the local news!!! Watson C Warriner Sr August 14,2008
Submitted by JDC at: August 14, 2008
No doubt. However, there are many living in the area around Hanford who are dealing with serious illness because of radiation that was released at a time when the effects of fallout were not well understood, and more who have lost loved ones to cancer. That makes the public-relations aspect of preservation even more challenging than usual.
Submitted by Harley at: August 12, 2008
Excellent article. This is a building that seriously deserves protection and must be made available to the public. I have been to the B Reactor three times. It is a singular piece of U.S. and World History.