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General Kenneth Nichols and the Manhattan Project
Nichols
The Oak Ridger has published the latest in a series of articles about General Kenneth D. Nichols, the Manhattan Project, and the 1954 Atomic Energy Act. The series has been produced by Nichols’ grandniece Barbara Rogers Scollin and Oak Ridge (Tenn.) city historian David Ray Smith. Gen. Nichols (1907–2000) was the district engineer for the Manhattan Engineer District during the Manhattan Project.
As Smith and Scollin explain, Nichols “had supervision of the research and development connected with, and the design, construction, and operation of, all plants required to produce plutonium-239 and uranium-235, including the construction of the towns of Oak Ridge, Tennessee, and Richland, Washington. The responsibility of his position was massive as he oversaw a workforce of both military and civilian personnel of approximately 125,000; his Oak Ridge office became the center of the wartime atomic energy’s activities.”
R. W. Moir, J. D. Lee, M. S. Coops, F. J. Fulton, W. S. Neef, Jr., D. H. Berwald, R. B. Campbell, B. Flanders, J. K. Garner, N. Ghoniem (Consultant, UCLA), J. Ogren, Y. Saito, A. Slomovik, R. H. Whitley, K. R. Schultz, G. E. Benedict, E. T. Cheng, R. L. Creedon I. Maya, V. H. Pierce, J. B. Strand, C. P. C. Wong, J. S. Karbowski, R. P. Rose, J. H. Devan, P. Tortorelli, L. G. Miller, P. Y. S. Hsu, J. M. Beeston, N. J. Hoffman, D. L. Jassby
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 4 | Number 2 | September 1983 | Pages 589-598
Fusion System Studies | doi.org/10.13182/FST4-2P2-589
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
Studies of the technical and economic feasibility of producing fissile fuel in tandem mirrors and in tokamaks for use in fission reactors are presented. Fission-suppressed fusion breeders promise unusually good safety features and can provide make-up fuel for 11 to 18 LWRs of equal nuclear power depending on the fuel cycle. The increased revenues from sales of both electricity and fissile material might allow the commercial application of fusion technology significantly earlier than would be possible with electricity production from fusion alone. Fast-fission designs might allow a fusion reactor with a smaller fusion power and a lower Q value to be economical and thus make this application of fusion even earlier. A demonstration reactor with a fusion power of 400 MW could produce 600 kg of fissile material per year at a capacity factor of 50%. The critical issues, for which small scale experiments are either being carried out or planned, are: 1) material compatibility, 2) beryllium feasibility, 3) MHD effects, and 4) pyrochemical reprocessing.