The BORAX Experiments were a series of safety experiments on boiling water nuclear reactors conducted by

Argonne National Laboratory Argonne National Laboratory is a Federally funded research and development centers, federally funded research and development center in Lemont, Illinois, Lemont, Illinois, United States. Founded in 1946, the laboratory is owned by the United Sta ...

in the 1950s and 1960s at the National Reactor Testing Station in eastern

Idaho Idaho ( ) is a landlocked U.S. state, state in the Pacific Northwest and Mountain states, Mountain West subregions of the Western United States. It borders Montana and Wyoming to the east, Nevada and Utah to the south, and Washington (state), ...

.Light Water Reactor Technology Development
Argonne National Laboratory They were performed using the five BORAX reactors that were designed and built by Argonne. BORAX-III was the first nuclear reactor to supply electrical power to the grid in the United States in 1955.

Evolution of BORAX

This series of tests began in 1952 with the construction of the BORAX-I

nuclear reactor A nuclear reactor is a device used to initiate and control a Nuclear fission, fission nuclear chain reaction. They are used for Nuclear power, commercial electricity, nuclear marine propulsion, marine propulsion, Weapons-grade plutonium, weapons ...

. BORAX-I experiment proved that a reactor using direct boiling of water would be practical, rather than unstable, because of the bubble formation in the core. Subsequently, the reactor was used for power excursion tests which showed that rapid conversion of water to steam would safely control the reaction. The final, deliberately destructive test in 1954 produced an unexpectedly large power excursion that "instead of the melting of a few fuel plates, the test melted a major fraction of the entire core." Data from this core meltdown and release of

nuclear fuel Nuclear fuel refers to any substance, typically fissile material, which is used by nuclear power stations or other atomic nucleus, nuclear devices to generate energy. Oxide fuel For fission reactors, the fuel (typically based on uranium) is ...

and

nuclear fission product Nuclear fission products are the atomic fragments left after a large atomic nucleus undergoes nuclear fission. Typically, a large nucleus like that of uranium fissions by splitting into two smaller nuclei, along with a few neutrons, the releas ...

s helped improve mathematical models. The tests proved key safety principles of the design of modern nuclear power reactors. Design power of BORAX-I was 1.4 megawatts thermal. The BORAX-I design was a precursor to the

SL-1 Stationary Low-Power Reactor Number One, also known as SL-1, initially the Argonne Low Power Reactor (ALPR), was a United States Army experimental nuclear reactor in the Western United States, western United States at the Idaho National Laborato ...

plant, which began operations nearby in 1958. The principles discovered in the BORAX-I experiments helped scientists understand the fatal meltdown at SL-1 in 1961. The BORAX-II reactor was built in 1954, with a design output of 6 MW(t). In March 1955, BORAX-II was intentionally destroyed by taking the reactor "prompt critical". BORAX-III added a turbine to the BORAX-II design, proving that turbine contamination would not be a problem. It was linked to the local power grid for about an hour on July 17, 1955. AEC Press release for BORAX-III lighting Arco, Idaho. BORAX-III provided 2,000 kW to power nearby Arco, Idaho (500 kW), the BORAX test facility (500 kW), and partially powered the National Reactor Testing Station (after 2004, the

Idaho National Laboratory Idaho National Laboratory (INL) is one of the national laboratories of the United States Department of Energy and is managed by the Battelle Energy Alliance. Historically, the lab has been involved with nuclear research, although the labora ...

) (1,000 kW). Thus, Arco became the first community solely powered by nuclear energy. The reactor continued to be used for tests until 1956. BORAX-IV, built in 1956, explored the

thorium fuel cycle The thorium fuel cycle is a nuclear fuel cycle that uses an isotope of thorium, , as the fertile material. In the reactor, is transmuted into the fissile artificial uranium isotope which is the nuclear fuel. Unlike natural uranium, natural ...

and

uranium-233 Uranium-233 ( or U-233) is a fissile isotope of uranium that is bred from thorium-232 as part of the thorium fuel cycle. Uranium-233 was investigated for use in nuclear weapons and as a Nuclear fuel, reactor fuel. It has been used successfully ...

fuel with a power of 20 MW thermal. This experiment used fuel plates that were purposely full of defects to explore long-term plant operation with damaged fuel plates. Radioactive gases were released into the atmosphere. BORAX-V continued the work on boiling water reactor designs, including the use of a

superheater A superheater is a device used to convert saturated steam or wet steam into superheated steam or dry steam. Superheated steam is used in steam turbines for electricity generation, in some steam engines, and in processes such as steam reforming. ...

. It operated from 1962 to 1964.

BORAX-I destructive test and cleanup

Test synopsis: The destruction of BORAX-I caused the "aerial distribution of contaminants resulting from the final experiment of the BORAX-I reactor" and the likely contamination of the topmost 1 foot of soil over about 2 acres in the vicinity. The site required cleanup before it could be used for subsequent experiments. The 84,000-square foot (7,800 m²) area was covered with 6 inches of gravel in 1954, but grass, sagebrush, and other plants reseeded the area since then. Debris from BORAX-I is buried about northwest of the

Experimental Breeder Reactor-1 Experimental Breeder Reactor I (EBR-I) is a decommissioned research reactor and U.S. National Historic Landmark located in the desert about southeast of Arco, Idaho. It was the world's first breeder reactor. At 1:50 p.m. on December 2 ...

, a publicly accessible national monument. Since 1987, the

United States Environmental Protection Agency The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is an independent agency of the United States government tasked with environmental protection matters. President Richard Nixon proposed the establishment of EPA on July 9, 1970; it began operation on De ...

has classified the burial ground as

Superfund Superfund is a United States federal environmental remediation program established by the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act of 1980 (CERCLA). The program is administered by the United States Environmental Pro ...

site Operable Unit 6-01, one of two such sites (along with

) at the

. In 1995, the EPA ordered the primary remedy of the burial ground to be: "Containment by capping with an engineered barrier constructed primarily of native materials." The site is expected to produce no more than a 2 in 10,000 increase in cancer risk for long-term residential use after 320 years, with no significant increase after that time. This risk calculation ignores the shielding provided by the soil cover, which at the time of the EPA decision had reduced exposure to little more than background level, and makes very pessimistic modeling assumptions that greatly increase the projected risk, to deliberately focus on the high rather than low effect side.

References

;Notes ;Bibliography *

External links

*
BORAX-I reactor
description at

site.
BORAX-II reactor
description at Argonne National Laboratory web site.
BORAX-III reactor
description at Argonne National Laboratory web site.
BORAX-IV reactor
description at Argonne National Laboratory web site.
BORAX-V reactor
description at Argonne National Laboratory web site.
Summaries of BORAX experiments
in Appendix B of Idaho National Laboratory's histor
''Proving the Principle''
* {{authority control Nuclear technology in the United States Nuclear research reactors Nuclear safety and security

Evolution of BORAX

BORAX-I destructive test and cleanup

See also

References

External links