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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.”
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The feasibility of 100% mixed-oxide (MOX) fuel recycling in a standard pressurized water reactor (PWR) is explored. The plutonium neutronic specificity is analyzed and compared with uranium. The objective is to identify the generic aspects that could lead to current PWR design modifications. The plutonium isotopic composition was taken as a parameter.

Accidents dealing with a change of the moderator density are of particular interest (especially considering that control worth is significantly reduced with MOX fuel). Study of core global draining leads to the following conclusion: Only very poor quality plutonium fuel (low fissile content) cannot be used in a 900-MW(electric) PWR because of a positive global draining reactivity effect. Study of the cooling accident (increase of moderator density) proves that the spurious opening of a secondary side valve is the most penalizing scenario in the case of MOX fuel utilization. The core reactivity was controlled in this study by 57 control rod clusters made of B₄C rods having a 90% ¹⁰B content and a hafnium clad. The hypothetical return to criticality depends on plutonium isotopic composition. But the core is kept subcritical for all isotopic compositions provided an increase of the soluble boron ¹⁰B content up to a value of 40%. No major obstacle to the 100% MOX 900-MW(electric) PWR feasibility was found.