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Conference Spotlight
Nuclear Energy Conference & Expo (NECX)
September 8–11, 2025
Atlanta, GA|Atlanta Marriott Marquis
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The Frisch-Peierls memorandum: A seminal document of nuclear history
The Manhattan Project is usually considered to have been initiated with Albert Einstein’s letter to President Franklin Roosevelt in October 1939. However, a lesser-known document that was just as impactful on wartime nuclear history was the so-called Frisch-Peierls memorandum. Prepared by two refugee physicists at the University of Birmingham in Britain in early 1940, this manuscript was the first technical description of nuclear weapons and their military, strategic, and ethical implications to reach high-level government officials on either side of the Atlantic. The memorandum triggered the initiation of the British wartime nuclear program, which later merged with the Manhattan Engineer District.
Reino Ekholm
Nuclear Technology | Volume 10 | Number 3 | March 1971 | Pages 249-256
Technical Paper | Reactor | doi.org/10.13182/NT71-A30957
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
An assessment of the relative merits of heliumsodiumand steam-cooled fast breeders was completed in Sweden in 1969. Breeders have the potential of reducing overall system power costs provided no more than 40 million tons of uranium can be mined below $15/lb U3O8. The breeders—particularly those cooled by Na or Heset reasonable upper limits to mining and enrichment capacity requirements. Fuel development is the outstanding problem for these breeders, and especially difficult for the steam-cooled type. Steam cooling shows the lowest capital costs, followed by helium cooling, and is relatively promising with low-cost uranium. Sodium cooling involves the most extensive research and development (R&D) program; the helium- and steam-cooled breeders are largely based on thermal-reactor technology and offer real potential as advanced next-generation plants. However, the uncertainties, even of the relative assessments, still overlap the estimated power cost differences of 0.4 mill/kWh.