The Next Step: Progress Report: The Clinch River Breeder Reactor Plant Project (1980)

1980-05-01 film, with transcript

Catalog description: This is a summary of the (now cancelled) Clinch River Breeder Reactor Plant Project.

This is film 7480017 in our catalog.

Show transcript
00:00 Today, some 4,000 Americans across the country are working on a project known as the Clinch River Breeder Reactor Plant.
00:14 The plant site is right here in Oak Ridge, Tennessee.
00:19 You can see the Clinch River there at that bluff.
00:25 The control room will be here where I'm standing.
00:28 With the resolution of licensing, construction could begin on the nation's first large-scale demonstration breeder in 1981.
00:37 The plant could start producing electricity in 1988.
00:40 The 350 megawatts of electricity from the Clinch River plant will be transmitted along these power lines,
00:47 bringing enough electricity to 200,000 homes in the Tennessee Valley Authority service area.
00:53 We're not turning earth here yet, but we've come a long way since the inception of the project.
00:58 This report focuses on that progress and why we call the breeder a step toward energy independence.
01:06 In fact, 753 utilities from across the country have pledged $257 million to build and operate this plant
01:26 because they believe the Clinch River project is the best way to do it.
01:28 This is the next logical step the United States must take in order to have a commercially feasible breeder ready when America needs it.
01:35 This venture remains the largest industry commitment ever made for a single research and development project.
01:41 More than likely, a utility in your area belongs to the partnership of utilities
01:45 known as the Breeder Reactor Corporation formed to support the project.
01:54 That brings us to the question, what is a breeder?
01:58 A breeder is a type of nuclear reactor that produces more fuel than it uses as it generates electricity.
02:05 How does it do this?
02:06 Well, it's not magic.
02:08 The breeder uses plutonium-239 and uranium-238.
02:12 Plutonium is the fissionable material.
02:15 Fissionable means that it can split apart.
02:17 Here, let me show you.
02:20 When a neutron hits an atom of plutonium-239,
02:25 it splits apart and creates a nuclear reactor.
02:28 This doesn't require a lot of heat.
02:29 The heat is used to boil water, to make steam, to produce electricity.
02:35 Also, we get three new neutrons.
02:39 Remember, we started with just one.
02:42 Now we have three.
02:43 One of these neutrons keeps our chain reaction going.
02:47 The remaining two can be used with uranium-238, a fertile material.
02:54 When an atom of uranium-238 absorbs one of these of these spare neutrons,
02:58 it becomes plutonium-239.
03:04 Now, if this is managed efficiently, we end up with more fissionable fuel than we started with.
03:12 Perhaps the real story of the breeder begins here, what we call a vast storehouse of energy waiting to be tapped.
03:20 What I'm leaning on is a canister of uranium hexafluoride.
03:24 This depleted uranium left over from the nation's weapons program
03:27 and the enrichment process used to make fuel for today's conventional light-water reactors
03:32 that now produce about 12% of the nation's electricity.
03:36 This U-238 is now being stored at three government reservations,
03:41 some 20,000 cylinders containing 280,000 tons of uranium.
03:46 It is already mined and waiting to be used, without strip mining or otherwise disturbing the land.
03:52 This existing stockpile of depleted uranium can't be used in today's reactors.
03:57 They use enriched uranium-235.
04:00 But in a breeder reactor, this leftover uranium-238
04:04 is equivalent to the estimated oil resources of the entire world.
04:08 This source alone could provide our total electrical energy needs
04:12 for several centuries.
04:13 But there's more than that to the breeder story.
04:16 If you take the uranium we know for sure is in the ground
04:19 and utilize this in the breeder, the energy content would be larger than all of the world's supply
04:25 of coal, oil, and gas.
04:27 It's no wonder, then, that virtually every major industrial nation in the world
04:32 is vigorously pushing ahead with their own breeders.
04:35 Great Britain, France, Japan, Soviet Russia, and West Germany
04:40 all have operating breeder reactors.
04:42 Belgium, the Netherlands, Italy, and Luxembourg
04:46 are taking part in breeder ventures.
04:48 The French plan to have a commercial-sized breeder in operation by 1983.
04:54 In all, there are nine breeder reactors now operating, four more under construction, and nine others planned.
05:01 Of these 22 breeders, Soviet Russia, which is the largest oil-producing nation in the world,
05:07 accounts for five.
05:09 They're planning for the future.
05:11 All these nations realize the vast potential of the breeder
05:15 and that time is running out on the age of cheap fossil fuels.
05:20 Meanwhile, the United States has only one small electricity-producing breeder.
05:26 Utilities with long experience in nuclear energy see breeder reactors as the next generation of nuclear power plants.
05:33 With light-water reactors and then breeders, the U.S. could be assured of safe, clean, reliable, and economical nuclear power
05:42 to meet the energy needs of this country well beyond the foreseeable future.
05:46 Many people are not aware that the breeder concept dates back to the very beginning of the nuclear era.
05:52 Nobel Prize-winning physicist Enrico Fermi, who pioneered the development of nuclear energy,
05:58 predicted in 1945 that the nation that develops the breeder reactor
06:02 will have a great competitive advantage.
06:05 That's because the breeder, in a core like this model, can extend the energy available from our present uranium resources
06:12 from 50 or so years to hundreds of years.
06:15 For a breeder can deliver 60 times as much electricity from uranium
06:19 as conventional nuclear reactors.
06:21 The U.S. has almost 35 years' experience in breeders.
06:25 Clementine, an experimental reactor, began operation in 1946.
06:29 The first nuclear power plant to produce electricity was a breeder.
06:33 The four light bulbs you see glowing here were illuminated by breeder power back in 1951.
06:39 The plant was called EBR-1 for experimental breeder reactor number one.
06:45 Its successor, EBR-2, began operating in 1963.
06:50 It's in its 17th year of successful operation and is still producing electricity.
06:56 This year in Richland, Washington, the Fast Flux Test Facility went into operation.
07:01 This is the largest breeder test reactor in the world.
07:04 This long experience underscores the fact that breeder technology is not new,
07:09 but it does have to be demonstrated in a utility environment.
07:13 This is why utilities from across the country, in partnership with the government,
07:17 want to build and operate the Clinch River Plant.
07:20 Project Management Corporation General Manager,
07:22 Mr. Bill Roth.
07:24 Hello, Calvin.
07:25 Hello, Bill.
07:26 Your progress, Bill.
07:27 How far along have you come?
07:28 Calvin, since 1972, the project has come a long way.
07:31 The research and development for the project is about 90% complete.
07:36 The design is 80% complete.
07:40 About $80 million worth of equipment has already been delivered.
07:44 The value of major components and test items on order is over half a billion dollars.
07:49 The total investment in the project by government and industry now stands at over $850 million.
07:55 And you're building more components every day.
07:57 That's right.
07:58 The project has now over $250 million worth of components completed
08:05 or in the fabrication pipeline.
08:08 Thank you, Mr. Roth.
08:10 Now let's look at some specific examples of our progress in component procurement and fabrication.
08:15 The $22.6 million reactor vessel for the Clinch River project
08:19 was completed six months ago.
08:21 That's a lot of costs ahead of schedule and $2.7 million underestimated cost.
08:26 Standing over five stories high and weighing 505 tons,
08:30 the stainless steel vessel will contain the nuclear core that is the heart of the power plant.
08:36 The three intermediate heat exchangers for the Clinch River project are nearing completion.
08:41 All three are scheduled for shipment later this year.
08:44 The three units will cost almost $40 million.
08:48 The drive systems for the main sodium pumps have also moved along over the past year.
08:52 The huge 45-ton drive motor is now in Oak Ridge.
09:10 Other major components have also been delivered.
09:13 These include components such as the protected water storage tank,
09:17 the pump drive system, the heat exchanger guard vessels,
09:21 the reactor guard vessel, the pump guard vessel,
09:25 the in-vessel transfer machine, the plug drive and control system,
09:30 and the primary sodium overflow vessel.
09:33 Now let's take a look at the Clinch River project's technical merit.
09:37 Over the past several years, numerous independent studies have taken a close look
09:41 at the Clinch River project.
09:43 The latest is this report by the General Accounting Office.
09:47 The studies have found that the Clinch River project's is sound and up-to-date.
09:51 Our engineers have incorporated the most advanced breeder technology available in the United States and abroad,
09:57 and the design has been constantly updated to keep it at the forefront of breeder reactor plant development.
10:11 A good example is its core design.
10:14 A heterogeneous core design was adopted just last year.
10:17 The design improves the breeding capability of the reactor.
10:20 The design is evidence of U.S. leadership in breeder technology.
10:24 Core designs based on alternate fuel cycles have also been developed.
10:29 This means that the Clinch River breeder project could be utilized in the nation's ongoing liquid metal fast breeder reactor program
10:36 as a testbed to examine proliferation, limiting concepts,
10:40 and advanced fuel designs for future power plants.
10:44 Multiplexing is another innovation.
10:46 This modern data communication system has proven its reliability
10:51 in the telephone, petrochemical, military, and aerospace industries.
10:56 Multiplexing makes it possible for one cable to carry as many signals
11:00 as are ordinarily carried by 8,000 cables.
11:03 The system will save 1.6 million feet of cable in the plant and reduce costs.
11:08 Safety has been a paramount consideration in the design of the Clinch River project.
11:13 As part of the continuing work on safety assurance, a comprehensive integrated review of key plant systems began last April
11:20 to examine the plant design in light of the lessons learned at Three Mile Island.
11:25 The full-scale mock-up of the main control room for the Clinch River plant
11:29 is now installed in a building near the project office headquarters in Oak Ridge.
11:33 Engineers are presently employing the model to check out the man-machine interfaces
11:38 to ensure that the operators can perform control plant procedures
11:42 with optimum efficiency and effectiveness.
11:45 Another model, some 1,000 miles away, is also playing an important role
11:50 in the development of the Clinch River plant.
11:52 Under direction of the project office, this scale model of the plant
11:56 is being built at the Burns and Rowe facility in Oroville, New Jersey.
12:00 This is one of over 300 modules under construction.
12:03 The model is currently being used to establish final arrangements
12:07 of piping and components to assure correct placements.
12:10 The model will later be used to train employees in the operation of the plant.
12:15 The fabrication of components, our advanced technology,
12:19 the state of our readiness to address licensing issues,
12:23 all indicate very clearly the accomplishments of the Clinch River project.
12:27 But the payoff for the American consumer in terms of energy availability for the future is here.
12:38 And here, where the plant to demonstrate the nation's breeder will be built.
12:41 The breeder is an insurance policy to preserve our energy options.
12:45 And it's an important step toward energy independence.