U.S. Energy Officials Say It Couldn’t Happen Here

As the Chernobyl disaster continues to unfold, increasing attention is focusing on a federal nuclear reactor here in the state of Washington that is strikingly similar to the Soviet plant that apparently experienced a meltdown over the weekend. But U.S. energy officials said Wednesday there is virtually no chance that a similar disaster can happen here.

The weapons-producing Hanford Government Reservation facility, like a commercial nuclear power plant in Colorado, bears similarities to the Chernobyl reactor, including the use of graphite as a “moderating” agent.

But U.S. officials said there are significant differences between graphite reactors in this country and those in the Soviet Union, and that those differences make the American facilities far safer--even though the Platteville, Colo., plant has been plagued with operational and management problems since its completion in December, 1976.

“Based upon our system, we would not have or could not have a graphite fire,” said Michael J. Lawrence, manager of the Energy Department’s Richland operations.

“Even under the worst circumstances postulated, it would not result in an off-site release of radioactivity beyond the . . . standards,” Lawrence said in an interview.

The Energy Department announced that next week it will begin an inspection of the reactor’s safety at the request of Sen. Slade Gorton (R-Wash.)

Under questioning Wednesday, Hanford officials conceded that the annual nuclear-emergency-training sessions, involving local government, industry and federal emergency personnel, have never taken into account any possibility of a graphite fire like the one in Chernobyl that is reportedly still burning out of control.

“It’s so damn hard to get a fire that it’s not a credible accident,” insisted W.G. Ruff, vice president of reactor operations at the Hanford site, near this town of 30,000 in the eastern Washington desert.

Late Wednesday, the Department of Energy authorized a news media tour of the Hanford reactor site, situated 35 miles north of Richland on a remote, 570-square-mile government reservation.

The Hanford reactor, known as the “N reactor,” began operating Dec. 31, 1963. Like the Chernobyl plant, it is a light-water, graphite-moderated reactor. It is used to produce plutonium for nuclear weapons, and it also generates 860 megawatts of electricity for the Bonneville Power Administration.

And, like the Soviet reactor, the Hanford reactor is not covered by a concrete containment structure that typifies all commercial nuclear plants in the United States, with the exception of the Platteville plant. Such structures are intended to contain any accidental radioactive release.

Instead, the Hanford plant is housed in a much smaller “confinement building.” Unlike a containment structure, a confinement building allows no pressure buildup. Instead, the pressure is released by venting it directly into the atmosphere while activated carbon filters are supposed to prevent radioactive isotopes from escaping.

“It is totally safe and appropriate for the type of reactor,” Lawrence said. He also said the N reactor has three separate cooling systems, as opposed to two in commercial reactors. And there are 2,000 additional safety devices, he said, meaning that any problems would be detected long before a graphite fire was possible.

Lawrence noted that graphite burns at 2,200 degrees Fahrenheit and that the operating temperature of the N reactor is 600 degrees. He said that even with a loss of coolant, the maximum temperature would not exceed 1,000 degrees.

“We’ve got the capability to flood the reactor with inert gas (helium or nitrogen)--and that’s always sitting there ready to go--(as is) water to cool the reactor in case of a heat buildup,” he said.

The Colorado plant is called a high-temperature, gas-cooled reactor. It was once viewed as the wave of the future in nuclear power plants. Like the four graphite reactors at Chernobyl, it does not have a concrete dome enclosing the plant. But the reactor core is inside a pre-stressed concrete housing.

“Ours is a very different reactor,” said a spokesman for GA Technologies of San Diego, which built the plant, known as Fort St. Vrain, for the Public Service Companies of Colorado.

During the decade since it was completed, the plant has been forced to shut down repeatedly because of a wide range of problems.

“There’s no question the plant has been down more than it’s been up,” said Mark Severts, spokesman for the utility that owns the 330-megawatt plant.

In spite of its poor performance over the years, Severts said, his organization still has faith in the reactor.

The plant has been advertised as far safer than other nuclear reactors because it uses helium instead of water as the primary coolant.

Water used as a coolant absorbs some radioactivity, creating clean-up problems, but the helium does not, Severts said. In the event of a major accident, the helium coolant would simply dissipate upward, free of radioactivity.