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CC-BY-SA-4.0

Gerald P. Weiss Unit One

The rising sun lit up the bedsheets taped over the gaping door and window apertures. The chill salt air crept into the large room, bringing the cries of gulls as they hunted for breakfast. Bob Chou woke first. He stretched in his spiderweb hammock, yawned, rolled over, and dumped himself out, bare feet on the raw cement floor. He used the toilet in the enclosure at the back of the room. Actually, there was only a sewer pipe and a bucket of seawater for flushing, but he was able to wash his hands and face in a real sink, not just in the bucket as in past years. He toweled off the water where it had splashed on his coal-black hair and on his chest. Hearing movements from the other two hammocks, he called softly, Wake up, Mom and Dad. It's a big day today!

Mmf.

Bob put on his shirt, shorts and sweater. He folded his blanket and sheet and put them neatly in the hammock.

His mother, Meiko Chou, rose next. Have you thought what you're going to feed Mr. Mori?, she asked.

I'm going to catch a halibut for Mori-san!

Bob, please remember to call him 'Mr. Mori'. You're not Japanese, and for all I know, he's an ABJ.

George Chou, sticking his head from his hammock, added, Son, I hope you're lucky and the halibut bites, but I'm sure he'll appreciate anything you catch. Fish was Bob's contribution to the family and the project, but he only got a halibut every few weeks.

An odor wafted under the sheets and summoned them forth. They stepped through their makeshift door into a courtyard facing the sea where a number of people were already eating fried eggs and pancakes. A middle-aged man flipped pancakes expertly on a large aluminum plate over a furnace improvised from a chemical drum. Two teenagers alternately stuffed their faces and fed the fire with trash — yesterday's paper plates, packing boxes, broken pieces of wood. George greeted them. Good morning, John, Ted, Susan. John, is everything ready in fuel and reprocessing?

As ready as it's going to be.

Bob asked, Ted, are you fishing today? If you catch something special, can I have it and give you a good one later?

I'm planning to borrow a boat and take all our kids out to fish. About seven; don't be late. What's the occasion?

We have a guest today.

Is that the NRC bigwig?

John Thompson broke in. George, when is Mori coming?

At eight, with the other workers. I hope.

I wish I could figure what he wants to see. I hear he's anti-breeder, but that doesn't help much.

I'll work out an agenda and send it around, as soon as I get him figured out, so you can get your people ready. Um… your pancakes are curling.

John loaded them on people's plates and poured out more on the griddle. He was a South African engineer, but had lost his wife in a Boer raid on the Coalition territory in the Witwatersrand. Though his side eventually won the civil war, he emigrated to America with his son and daughter. He cooked often because he liked it and because it gave his teenagers a chance to get adequately fed. He said, I don't like these inspections. You never know where you stand. I just hope we can convince Mori of whatever needs convincing.

George moved to the low wall overlooking the sea, and ate. Bob finished quickly and dashed off to catch the early fish — I'll be on the cement plant, Ted.

Meiko said, If you show off the steam generator to Mori, come before three because I want to leave early to start the dinner with Bob.

I'll try to do that, but I doubt Mori will appreciate good welding. He seems like a management type.

So are you.

Well…

I wish our room weren't so crummy. At least we should have a door! And why can't we put in our carpet until after the inspection?

The only thing I'm sure of is that Mori worries about our finances. I want him to know where and how we're cutting costs, so he can believe that we can finish the project. And I want him to see our morale too.

Why? I thought it was a technical inspection. He can't do anything just because somebody isn't happy, can he?

He could and would. The NRC learned that after Three Mile Island. When everyone isn't working together, there's bound to be trouble, and the last few years they've forced some plant managers to be fired where morale was too bad.

Oh. Well, I'm sure the dinner will raise his morale. I'd better get going if we want to make any progress today. Good luck, dear. Meiko left George to await the arrival of his guest.

The hydrofoil boat sped over the ocean, carrying about fifty workers to their jobs. Ahead was a rare view of Catalina, for desert winds were blowing away the smog. Hiroshi Mori was not enjoying the view. This was going to be a demanding site inspection, and screwups in his OMB-mandated night coach flight, culminating in no hotel room, no breakfast and a mad taxi ride to catch this boat with minutes to spare, had deprived him of all but catnaps. He steadied his suitcase and briefcase as the boat changed course, and spied his destination ahead: Gerald P. Weiss Unit One, the Salt Breeder. Mori did not like breeders. His grandparents had been at Nagasaki when it was blown up, and his special interest was in weapons proliferation. He reviewed the points he would concentrate on in his inspection; security for reprocessed fuel was first on the list.

The boat approached the project. The concrete side loomed overhead; Mori estimated it must be four or even five meters high. A wooden platform floated on the water with boats tied to it, and a stair led upward. When the boat docked, Mori followed the workers up. At the top a youngish Oriental greeted them, mostly by name, Mori noticed. Ah, Dr. Mori!, he said. I'm George Chou. They shook hands. Let me take your bag. We can leave it in my room.

This they did. The room turned out to be just that: big, eight by ten meters, with a kind of kitchen counter under the big, glassless front windows that faced the sea and the rising sun, and with not much else inside except two desks, a low Japanese-style dinner table with tatami mats to kneel on, and some oddments of unconventional furniture. Neighboring rooms apparently were also occupied. When will you put up the windows and doors?, asked Mori.

When the Teamsters strike is over. It's really messed up delivery schedules, but the important items for the reactor are already on board, so it's a nuisance, not a threat to the project.

This director would probably say, if his place were burning down, that the firemen's hoses would clean the walls nicely. Mori said, Let's plan our schedule for today. I want to tour the facility in general and make some spot checks. Then I want to go over the fuel reprocessing facility in detail; the equipment is, um, very compact.

In other words, you have to see it to believe it. Most people react that way. What after that?

I am quite concerned about security for your fuel. I will want to discuss that in connection with the reprocessing. Then I want to audit your books — informally. Eighty cents per watt — I know, you have the upgrade capability to 40 megawatts, plus the industrial stuff, and I'm counting those correctly — eighty cents is a reasonable goal for a conservative plant using proven methods, but you're using so much new technology at once, plus the non-reactor construction. I want to be sure you can finish your project. The worst thing for safety is to run short of money at the end and then to try to cut corners.

I'm sure you'll approve of our cost reduction methods.

Hmph. Now, another thing. I've reviewed your control procedures for the reactor, and they seem simple to the point of being naive. Similarly, you have rejected most engineered safety features, and particularly an emergency core cooling system. A number of questions on these points were raised when you got the construction license, and I want to review the progress you are making on answering them, and to check the answers you have already submitted. That about covers my major concerns.

We're ready for you on the normal and emergency controls. We have a full-scale test setup for the reprocessing, and if you would like to operate it yourself I'll have the staff warm it up. The salt will be melted by lunchtime. Shall I?

That would be very informative.

George called John Thompson and told him he was on after lunch, then led the way off the float containing the apartments, over a bridge spanning a ten meter klong, and onto the second float which held the reactor. They traced a tortuous route among pipes and valves, then down a ladder and into the steel-lined reactor vault. Heavy shield blocks, which later would form the roof, were stacked around the top of the pit.

Is that it?, asked Mori. I hadn't really appreciated how small the vessel is. The upper section is the main vessel, right? Then separate dump tanks for the core and blanket. The pipes to the dump tanks are awfully small, I think.

The salt has the viscosity of kerosene and the density of iron. It flows fast.

It's all so small. The vessel can't be more than a meter high.

There will be only eighteen kilos of U-233 plus about 220 kilos of thorium in the inner core, and 260 kilos more of thorium in the blanket. With everything, the total salt mass is only about 1400 kilos. You're used to seeing a hundred tons of fuel in a solid-fuelled reactor, plus as much water. Smaller volume means lower costs. Besides, it's at ten atmospheres pressure, not 150 — another cost advantage.

With such a small fuel load you must push it to very high burnup, and wastes will absorb a lot of neutrons. How do you breed that way?

We reprocess continuously, remember, unlike in a PWR where the wastes accumulate for three years until the fuel is changed. Xenon-135 exits instantly in the vapor stream, U-233 produces almost no waste actinides, and we turn over the europium, gadolinium and suchlike just over once a day, so our core is practically pristine, and that's how we can breed with such a high equivalent burnup. That's also a safety advantage: very little of the waste is around if an accident happens.

That's true; I like a few features of this design, though a one-day residence time is surprisingly short. I look forward to seeing your full-scale test handle 1400 kilos a day. Now, this pipe carries the zinc vapor?

That's the zinc to rubidium heat exchanger. It's zinc vapor up to this weld, and rubidium above.

So the small tube is the liquid return. Why rubidium? Why not something more available, like potassium?

It boils at the right temperature for conventional turbines.

Come to think of it, why didn't you cut costs by putting the steam generator right on top of the reactor and omitting the rubidium entirely?

Like in a solution reactor, the zinc mixes with the fuel, so this exchanger will be extremely radioactive. Steam generators are always having tubes leak, and maintenance would be a nightmare. It's not so bad on a PWR where the coolant is separate from the fuel.

And if this one leaks?

Then it's a pain in the butt. It's only at ten atmospheres so the stresses are fairly low and we anticipate excellent reliability. We may be cheap, but we do expect to end up with a functioning reactor.

I hope so. I also hope your reprocessing works as advertised. These things are the electrolytic cells, right? He indicated a set of pot-shaped vessels attached to the side of the reactor. The smallest one had a volume of about a liter, while the largest was perhaps thirty liters.

Right. You can look at the electrodes; the covers aren't bolted down. This chamber will normally contain 2.5 kilos of protactinium-233, and as it decays the U-233 is moved to the inner core. The big pot — watch your fingers, the cover is heavy — it will hold 200 kilos of thorium as the fluoride, which is a five year fuel supply at 40 megawatts. There should be no need to open the reprocessing pots except at major overhauls.

What happens to the surplus U-233?

It accumulates in the reserve pot, 1.5 kilos per year at 40 megawatts.

So in ten years or so you have enough for a bomb. I'm going to tell you, I don't like nuclear weapons, and I don't like facilities that can make fuel for nuclear weapons. I have personal reasons, besides a rational desire to stay alive. Now let's hear your scheme for keeping the surplus from being misused.

We intend to preload the reserve pot with 30 kilos of natural uranium fluoride. When the pot is emptied after five years it will be 20% fissile, irreversibly, and useless for bombs but fine for starting up a new reactor. You could give a salt breeder to Moammar Qaddafi and he couldn't make bombs with it.

You're being naive. If the pot were preloaded with salt base, lithium fluoride I suppose, Moammar gets his bomb after only trivial work.

But it takes ten years. It would be far easier to nationalize spent LWR fuel and extract the plutonium bred in place. Besides, the amount would be ten times more per megawatt-year.

A fact I am quite aware of. But you can't ignore security just because you breed slowly. I want to review your security planning — later — and I expect it to be tight, with overlapping protection from intrinsic safeguards, automatic machinery, and people. I may have some bias, but I believe that diversion of fuel is the prime hazard of fission reactors, not accidental radiation release, which 1 think is a little overblown.

Mori got down on his hands and knees and closely inspected the white magnesium oxide bricks which lined the crucible surrounding the two dump tanks, as an additional barrier for the hot fuel in the remote chance that the tanks ruptured. Now, 1 am used to water injection for emergency core cooling. I don't really trust your dump tank concept.

Why not? The sodium loops keep them cool, and what could be more reliable than natural convection? Also they are in constant use to cool the gaseous fission products so they couldn't break with nobody being aware. I think our emergency cooling is much safer than in water moderated reactors.

I'll have to think about it for a while to form a good opinion. I'll discuss it with you later, you can be sure. Mori dusted off his trousers, and the two people followed a pair of small pipes, conduits for the fission wastes, through a small temporary hole in the wall of the reactor vault. It was a claustrophobic squeeze through two meters of steel, firebrick and concrete, but was better than going the long way out of the reactor containment to the waste separation area, which was in a completely separate containment zone. Mori had to dust himself off again.

The tour continued with the waste tanks, in which the fission products were to be segregated by element. Some lose all their radioactivity in a year or two, and it is economically attractive to purify and sell the xenon and the rhodium, which is more valuable than gold. Mori was curious about a water bath about the size of a hot tub, in a separate room.

That's where we'll put the strontium-90 and cesium-137. We find that the mixed fluoride, diluted 2:1 with fluorspar, is quite insoluble. We'll weld it in titanium cans and put it here, where it will preheat the feedwater.

That form isn't qualified for the National Radwaste Repository. Your license application specified dispersing the wastes in glass and shipping them out.

We weren't satisfied with the glass; it corroded in seawater, probably because of radiation damage. We expect to qualify the fluoride mix before the vat fills up.

How long will that be?

Thirty years.

A PWR would need… OK, you explain it.

At 40 megawatts electrical we produce two kilos a year of the two materials. Canned, it's about twelve kilos. In volume, think of it as two six-packs of beer per year. The limiting factor is heat transfer, not volume. We plan to keep as much waste on-site as possible; why waste the power it produces?

And in an accident?

Remember, there's a meter and a half of concrete, plus steel and insulating brick, between here and the reactor. The waste will be spread out enough that it can air-cool in an emergency.

Why haven't you requested a license amendment?

We expect to file in two or three months. We haven't finished all the tests we want to on the cans. Have you seen enough here? Let's go and look at the steam generators.

Fine.

Do you want to see the ones that are complete, or the ones in progress?

I want to see your welding.

Follow me. George Led Mori out of the waste area and they climbed one level up, for all liquid circulated by gravity, even the fuel salt itself, propelled by zinc boiling in the middle annulus of the core. Pumps cost money and they break, while gravity is free and totally reliable, but to use it you have to string the equipment out vertically.

An airlock, standing open during construction, let them out of the waste containment zone into a large hall, in the middle of which a polyethylene tent inflated with argon covered a tube bundle and four welders clad in space suits. Lurid light leaped forth as the arc hissed, first at one end and then at the other, as the production team welded the boiler tubes into the tubesheet.

What's with the tent and bubble suits?, asked Mori. Don't tell me that's zircalloy. You're kidding! Why? Why not stainless steel, which is cheaper and is weldable in air?

Stainless steel can't survive hot chloride solutions.

Most people have pure water in boilers.

Most people have a condenser with a million itty bitty titanium tubes that get plugged with algae and barnacles. Apparently you didn't appreciate what's going to be in the boiler — seawater!

Mori was speechless. He thought he had failed to understand the reactor plans, and expected to jump on George for a lack of clarity. But the plans had been perfectly clear — just unbelievable. It was like eating shit. Seawater would ruin any reasonable boiler in minutes.

Think about it, said George. We boil off half the water, and blow down half. You're thinking of boiling it all. At 345 degrees C there's no solubility problem, so virtually no scale. This boiler plus a heat exchanger for the blowdown, even made of zircalloy and welded in an argon atmosphere, are a lot cheaper and give much less maintenance trouble than the cheaper stainless boiler plus a big condenser. Right? By the way, the superheater is of stainless.

You certainly have a unique design approach. I suppose you vent the steam to the atmosphere.

No, we have a condenser, but we spray water in a big chamber. You waste a little over ten percent of thermal power by venting at atmospheric pressure.

I was just being sarcastic. But a spray box sounds just your style — cheap. Have you tested the method?

It's generating the electricity you see in use here. Our solar mirror field boils rubidium, either for heating the cement kiln or for electricity. One steam generator on the other side of the building is complete, and the rubidium is piped to that one. We have had no problems at all with boiling seawater.

I'm glad you're getting plenty of experience now. When you come up for your operating license, we'll see whether there's anything left of your boiler. You will certainly get a lot of questions about it in the license review. Now, how do I get a close look at the welds?

The nearest worker was welding, and George waited until he or she finished, then whistled loudly. Take a break, people. Dr. Mori wants to see the tubesheet.

Oh, George. I didn't know you were there. I'm over here. It was hard to see outside the tent, and impossible to recognize who was inside, because of the translucency of the polyethylene and the enveloping suits and helmets. And voices were muffled, though communication was practical in loud tones.

George said, Dr. Mori, I'd like to introduce my wife, Meiko Chou.

I'm very glad to meet you, said Mori. I'd shake hands if I could.

Meiko laughed, and told Mori, Push one of the viewports over to the tubesheet and see what we've done. Acrylic sheets, highly transparent, were provided at intervals around the tent.

Mori looked closely, for quite a long time and, seemingly, at each of the several hundred tubes done so far. Then he went to the other end and looked some more. Finally he pronounced judgment: It's very neatly done, very nice work. I congratulate you all. How will you check for leaks?

Meiko answered, Helium leak detection, then a hydrostatic test which may open up cracks, then helium check again.

No X-ray?

No. We did it on the first boiler, and it showed nothing, even though there were two very small leaks that helium detection found after the hydrostatic test. It's too much trouble, tying the film around the tubes one at a time, particularly in the middle of the bundle, and then sticking a radioactive source in.

It's accepted practice to X-ray all welds in safety-related equipment.

It's a waste of time. Our tests are more stringent while being easier to do. The boiler on the other side has been operating for six months already with no failures.

In thirty years a buried crack would creep open.

It would pop open in the hydrostatic test. We do it at 70% of the yield strength of the material.

You have a point there, but it's still not the accepted procedure. But accepted or not, you've all done a very good job.

Thank you very much. I hope you like the dinner tonight equally much.

Why, thank you. I look forward to it. I'll let you get back to work now. George, what's next?

George led Mori back down to see the control rooms. Two of them?

Either one can run the plant, and the other can be connected to a simulator for operator training, or the technicians can fix things.

It's expensive to duplicate all the instruments,

The sensors mostly have built-in signal conditioning, or the signals are within the range of the integrated amplifier in the readouts. The thermocouple conditioning units are duplicated. The picoammeters for the ion chambers aren't; that really would be too expensive, and there is redundancy because you have to have several chambers.

Can you turn on the simulator?

Only this corner is connected now. Stickers on the back of the panel label the building blocks, and colored tape shows what connects to what. See, this is for the rubidium vapor isolation valve. In the middle row the red LED means it's open, or a pump is on, or liquid flowing. Green means off. Yellow means it's out of action for maintenance. The top row shows what the computer thinks should be happening. Those lights blink on an inconsistency. The bottom row is for operator commands, which the lights echo. You use this magnet. Try it, put it over a light. See, it comes on, then the top light blinks until the computer simulates valve closing, then all the green lights are on steady You can lock a device for maintenance by taping an iron strip over the bottom row.

What happens when the computer breaks? Does everything go dead?

Only the top row. On some blocks you can use the magnet to set the top lights manually and they will blink if different from the actual condition. But that kind of block is expensive and we only use it for the most important functions.

I like this light-bar meter.

That's a nice one, isn't it? It came out just last year, and we redesigned the analog panel modules to use it. It's self-contained, with 128 dots on the light bar, built-in scale dots, and an analog to digital converter in the package. $18.25 each in quantities of a hundred.

Not bad. How do you read the module? Set point, actual position or whatever, limit lights, drive up, drive down, maintenance lockout. Right?

Right. See, even you can interpret it, without training. We expect few operator screwups in this plant.

I wish this kind of instrumentation could be in some of the older plants I've inspected. Boy, what a mess! Half the indicator lights are either burnt out or covered by maintenance tags. Like at Three Mile Island; remember how the operators didn't see the PORV discharge temp light?

We figure we spent fifty thousand dollars extra for the maintenance lights and switches. We hope we can avoid a lot of the screwups — you can't eliminate them, but if too many happen at once you get into something like Three Mile Island. See, the computer keeps the record of who is doing what to whom, so you don't need tags, and the maintenance techs spend less time on paperwork and more on fixing things. The yellow switch on the building blocks turns on a light on the valve or whatever, so the tech knows for sure which one he is to fix — they're forever fixing the wrong pump, or opening the wrong valve, because everything looks the same and the labels are illegible — or equipment isn't even labelled. Then a switch on the equipment turns on the middle yellow light in the control room, so the operator can see when the tech is actually working. Also, a tech who happens to find something wrong can just flip the switch, and the operator is supposed to turn his switch right away if possible. That way the tech can get right to work on something he discovers, rather than having to go all the way back to the control room to get the operator's permission to work on it.

Your reactor isn't that big, and the design is super-simple. You don't really need all that complication. And I had no trouble reading the labels on your valves.

I expect we'll save that fifty thousand dollars in the first year of operation.

I'm not criticizing. I wish all fission plants were built with that kind of attitude. Mori's stomach growled audibly. Quiet down there, he said.

Getting hungry?

I thought you'd never ask. I'm starving. My flight was late and I didn't get any breakfast.

You should have told me and I would have gotten some food when you arrived. They climbed up stairs to the outside deck of the reactor float, and crossed over to the residential area, where the cook was already in action. Let me leave you with my kid, said George. My wife and I usually run and take a bath before lunch.

Do you mind if I run with you?

I thought you were starving.

I know what I need, after eight hours sitting in waiting rooms and in a crowded airplane, and four hours of … it was very interesting, but hard on the legs. I should change clothes.

They turned into the Chous' room. Mori took running shorts from his suitcase and put them on, laying his suit and his tie over a convenient hammock. George asked, Why did you bring your suitcase here? Haven't you any hotel room?

No, I leaped from the plane to a taxi to your boat. I barely made it.

Would you like to stay here tonight? My kid can sleep on the floor. This isn't exactly the Beverly Hilton, but you'll be comfortable here, I think.

Oh, I'd put you to too much trouble.

Come on. It will save you the boat ride. Also, you're invited to dinner tonight and there's no way back to the mainland after dark.

OK, but I'll sleep on the tatami. I'm used to it from vacations in Japan.

Great. Now let's find… In walked Meiko and Bob. There you are. You've met Meiko Chou, and this is my son Bob.

How do you do, Mr. Mori. May I run with you?

Mori looked at George, who answered, Sure, if you keep up. Come on.

They ran along the row of apartments where the workers lived, through the crowd of people also running, or getting lunch, or just resting and chattering. Their bare feet went pat-pat-pat on the artificial track surface of the walkway. Seagulls screeched overhead, waiting for someone to leave a hamburger unattended. George gave a running travelogue. Not all the space is occupied: About half the workers commute on the boat. We plan to have businesses below deck — we have a commitment from a microwave components firm — and here we're putting a second story on the apartments. We plan eventually to have ten stories on this float, and maybe more on others.

They ran along the klong between the reactor float and the residences, and then crossed the bridge and cut across the corner of the reactor building. Here the concrete is painted so it can be cleaned if contaminated. Remember cesium-137 at Three Mile Island? Then over another bridge. This is the cement plant. It's small, but we don't have that many people to lay concrete either. See up there, the receiver for the solar mirror field. Rubidium boils, and heats the air in the kiln via a heat exchanger. What the kiln doesn't use goes to the steam generator I told you about, for electricity. They circled the float's perimeter. One could walk under the mirrors, and the space underneath was used for storing random items. Each float is ninety meters on a side and the klongs are ten meters wide, so if we go twice around two floats it's about a mile. Coming? Bob slowed down to a more reasonable pace for a kid, but Mori had no trouble keeping up the second time around. Aah, that was a good run, said George. Now for a bath.

Mori asked, Don't you have showers?

Meiko answered, Many things aren't finished. Everyone bathes in the ocean.

They walked along the klong of the cement plant, letting their hearts idle down, to where a stairway led down to a floating dock. Splashing and children's commotion echoed between the sheer walls of the floats. Bob ran by them saying, See, I'm not so slow! He dashed down the stairs, pulled off his shorts, and jumped in. His parents did the same, more sedately, and Mori, a bit embarrassed, copied them. The water was not exactly warm.

Bob surfaced next to Mori. Want to race? I'll bet I can beat you.

No, thanks, I got enough exercise by running. Where's the soap?

Bob popped out onto the dock and squeezed soap out of a bottle; Mori joined him. They cleaned off skin grease, then splashed vigorously in the water to rinse.

Mori thought about the kind of designs he had seen this day, of the primary coolant circulation, the waste disposal, the boiler and condenser; and he recognized a common pattern which was also visible in this bath facility: George Chou put a lot of thought into being simple, unconventional and practical. That was a wise quality, thought Mori, if not carried too far.

Later, over hamburgers, Mori summarized his impressions for George and Meiko, while Bob listened attentively. I like what I've seen so far. I saw careful and complete work in all parts of the plant, and that is extremely important. But there are some points that I do want to dig into further, particularly the fuel handling…

Somebody cried out, Listen to this! Turn it up, Alvin!

On the radio: …from the Gator River. The National Guard has formed a cordon all along the banks, and nobody is being allowed within twenty feet of the water. There is no panic in the town, but a number of people, perhaps fifteen families so far, have evacuated. I should emphasize that the authorities have not ordered the town to evacuate; these people are leaving on their own. Here with me is Mr. Josiah Fletcher. Mr. Fletcher, why are you leaving at this time?

That plant was a turkey from the day it was built. They promised that it would be safe, but every time you turn around there's something going on. Now they've busted something big and gone and poisoned the river. If it blows up, I don't want to be anywhere around.

Thank you, Mr. Fletcher. That pretty well sums up the mood of the people in the town of Gator River. Mr. Harvey Gubbell, in charge of public relations for the utility, has issued this statement:

The reactor is shut down and is under the complete control of its operators. There is no danger of further release of radiation. A small amount of radioactive material was released to the Gator River as a result of a pipe break, but this release is now ended. The river has been quarantined, but the current will carry the impure water downstream where it will disperse harmlessly in the ocean. No lasting contamination will remain. The utility is cooperating fully with Federal, State and local authorities and will keep the public fully informed of efforts to return the plant to service.

The reporter repeated the story from the top, in different words. George groaned: That's all we need.

Bob asked, What happened? Did somebody blow up a reactor? Where is Gator River?

Meiko explained, It's in Florida. The reactor didn't explode, but it had a bad accident.

Mori inquired, Can I call Washington from here? No, forget it. They probably have their hands full. But I should let Region V know how to reach me by phone. Let's call them now.

George and Mori went off to make the call. Bob went to fish again, and at the same time to do some homework, for he had come up empty-handed in the morning, even from Ted's boat. Meiko thought about the accident. She had a bad feeling about it, for anti-nuke sentiment was strong and getting stronger these days. The man interviewed on the radio had said that the Gator River plant was a turkey, and from what she read in Nuclear News, she agreed. Most nuclear plants were competently designed and operated, and screwups at bad ones should not reflect on the whole industry. But Meiko was not naive. The public doesn't think evenhandedly like that, especially when educated by anti-nukes. This was going to be a bad scene.

After Mori talked with Region V headquarters, he and George went to see the fuel reprocessing department. John Thompson was there ready to begin the demonstrations. He and George and Mori went at it with hammer and tongs, from the beginning and all through the various procedures. Not that Mori wasn't attentive. He was very impressed with the speed, control, specificity and compactness of the electrolytic reprocessing technique. But technological marvels do not protect fuel from theft. Even the furnace temperature of the reactor vault and the hellish radioactivity inside, not to mention the intense radiation from the U-233 decay products, is only an annoyance for the thief, not an absolute safeguard, for technology can be used for bad ends as well as good, a point which Mori made repeatedly and loudly. Finally, one of Thompson's assistants, an Indian named Lal Something-or-Other, could stand it no longer. I am sorry to stick my nose in, sirs, but I am afraid you are not talking about the same question. Dr. Thompson is saying how the equipment protects the fuel from theft, but Dr. Mori, you are saying that people can get around any difficulties with the equipment. Now, is it not true that days of effort would be needed to remove any amount of fuel from this reactor, by several technicians highly skilled in operating the maintenance robots?

Certainly, said Thompson. Mori did not contradict him.

And would not everyone on the station know what was happening, long before the theft was complete?

Mori said, Maybe not everybody, but it's not really credible that it could be done secretly.

Then the pirates would have to coerce the whole staff to cooperate. The matter comes down to this: Are we willing to die for our fuel? I believe I would, because of what the pirates would do with the fuel. Several of the other fellows feel the same way.

Mori thought about Lal's point. He thought quite a long time. Then he said, Intrinsic safeguards, engineered safeguards, and staff. If any of these is missing, the system fails Your intrinsic safeguards are awesome, and your engineered safeguards are labyrinthine. Please schedule a chat with your personnel director tomorrow.

All after that was anticlimactic. With Lal's help, George, Thompson and Mori had gotten over what they thought was the main sticking point of the inspection. Mori summarized: I didn't like this breeder when the construction license was granted, but you've shown me several features that give me a better impression in cold hardware than on paper. And I'm pleased with your attention to detail in testing your methods. But I'm still concerned about your people. Remember, in virtually every accident or near-miss, people contributed to messing it up and better people could have avoided all trouble.

Supporting the human needs of the workers, George said, is one of the main goals of this project. Watch as you make your inspection for how we make this place into a community. You know, it's getting around time to quit. John, you're coming to dinner with us, right? And your teenagers are invited too.

Great. They never pass up a free meal. The three of them returned to the Chous' apartment.

Mr. Mori, Mr. Mori, come see the fish I caught! It's a halibut! Bob dragged Mori over to the sink to see the fish. It weighed five or six kilos, and Meiko had whacked it in half with a Chinese meat ax; they would eat the aft end tonight. Mori ooed and aahed over it a suitable amount. I cleaned it and scaled it too, and I'm making the sauce now. Um, Mom, what ingredient was I on? I forgot.

La dou ban jiang.

Oh, right. Bob measured out a spoonful of hot bean paste, looked at it, then took a little more. Dinner will be ready in half an hour, he said. Maybe you and Dad can find a nice game to play until then.

Thanks, Bob. What I really want to do is find out the news.

We have a radio. Over there.

George turned it on. … called on Israel to protect them from what they called 'crude provocations and wanton murder in our territorial waters'. The government of Saudi Arabia reported that a Saudi patrol boat was checking fishermen's catches in the Gulf of Aqaba, in accordance with a recently signed agreement on fishing quotas, when it was fired upon by a Palestinian boat; the Saudis returned fire. Two people are reported dead and three injured.

On the national scene, the top story of the day is the accident at the Gator River nuclear power plant. That accident occurred at 2:30 Eastern time this afternoon, dumping thousands of gallons of radioactive water into the Gator River. Dr. Harry Fenton, chief of the NRC emergency response team which immediately flew from Washington, just minutes ago announced the results of his initial inspection of the plant:

What we have here is a large-break loss-of-coolant accident. One of the primary coolant return pipes ruptured; the hole is about half a meter across, and all the water coolant left the reactor very rapidly. The plant is designed to survive precisely this kind of accident, and there was surprisingly little consequential damage. The emergency core cooling system operated automatically, and there was no damage to the core that we can detect. There is, however, one very worrisome problem. The emergency core cooling system has its own reserve tank of water, but when that is used up the system is supposed to recirculate water, which is leaving the reactor through the hole, from the reactor sump. In this case, though, water is draining rapidly from the sump into the basement of the auxiliary building and from there into the river. Maintenance people are trying to locate and plug the leak, so far without success. Naturally there is a backup; cooling water is now being drawn in from the river so there is no danger of the core overheating. By itself this is no big problem, for our measurements show only barely detectable radioactivity in the water now entering the river. Or to put it perhaps more crudely, the core has already been washed clean. But it is necessary to add a neutron absorbing material, such as boron, to the water to bring the fuel's reactivity within the range that the control rods can control. This is being done, but the plant will need more borate within 48 hours.

To summarize, the reactor is safely shut down, and essentially no radioactive material is escaping. And assuming the additional borate is delivered as expected, the reactor will stay under control.

During the broadcast, Ted and Susan Thompson came in. They waved at their father, but being teenagers they were more attracted by the smell of food. The radio continued:

That was Dr. Harry Fenton of the NRC. And in Washington we have a statement by Democratic Senator Ralph Tomlin of Wisconsin:

This accident at Gator River is only the latest in a long series of incidents of NRC and utility collusion to foist an unsafe and uneconomic technology on an unsuspecting public. I have documented evidence that the NRC has known for over three months about the crack which split open today, and it did absolutely nothing. And I have first-hand testimony that the utility is using kamikaze tactics to try to get their white elephant plant back in operation — they send a worker into their radioactive pit to look for the leak now spewing thousands of gallons per minute of radioactive water into the Gator River. They don't even know where the leak is. He looks around until he is burnt out by the radiation; then they throw him away and send in another. And the NRC allows this! This kind of reckless operation is unacceptable. They said it couldn't happen again after Three Mile Island, but it did. When the Senate convenes tomorrow I will introduce emergency legislation for a moratorium on all operation and construction of nuclear plants, until hearings can be held on a permanent solution to the nuclear power problem. I confidently expect that my colleagues in the Senate and the House of Representatives will support this legislation.

That statement from Senator Tomlin. Locally, the Teamsters… George turned it off.

What documented evidence?, asked John Thompson sarcastically.

Mori replied, The Licensee Event Reports, probably. I seem to remember reading something in the LER's about cracking at Gator River. I'd like to look for it tomorrow.

Sure, said George. That kamikaze business is really a cheap shot.

John said, Those reporters ought to interview a burnt-out worker and show what it really means.

Hey, that's a great idea, said Mori. It's your idea. Do you want to call up the network?

I wouldn't know who to talk to.

Do you mind if I do? I know a reporter; he calls me sometimes.

How about after dinner, interjected Meiko. Come and eat.

Bob proudly served the fish while Meiko brought over the vegetables and the teenagers brought the steamer full of rice, and soup. They all sat seiza, that is, kneeling Japanese style, on tatami mats around the low table. Chopsticks flew and the food was devoured.

Oh, I love Szechuan style fish, said Mori. Do you fish often, Bob?

Every day. It's one of my jobs. I like it too.

Ted added, Everybody has some kind of job except the real little ones. Most kids fish, and many have another job if they have a skill.

Do you get paid?

Sort of. Like, that fish — the whole thing — is worth half to three quarters of a pengo. That's the play money unit we use. Bob gets the money, but he has to give some of it to his parents for food and living space, and people don't sell much on the station, so mostly we save it. We can convert it to dollars, but the adults don't like that.

George explained, The pengo is a deferred compensation credit. We'll pay them off when the project is earning money, but now we're trying to hold onto as many dollars as possible for contingencies. So far, we've managed to pay almost half the salaries in pengos.

Neat, said Mori. What does 'pengo' mean?

It's an old Hungarian currency unit. It inflated an incredible amount during World War I. I chose the name because I thought it sounded funny.

When the food was gone, the people licked the platters clean -a custom Mori found disturbing. Maybe it looks gross, said Bob, but it makes washing the dishes a lot easier. And why waste food?

George volunteered, Bob, I'll do the dishes and you show Dr. Mori your slides.

Thanks, Dad. Come and see my ecology slides. This is my project job. I sample plankton every week, and I count the organisms, by species, on these slides. I also count the fish people catch. One of the grown-ups dives a lot, and she counts bottom animals and plants. It's for reports that the project has to make, so we can be sure we aren't wrecking the environment.

Yes, I read the reports. They were quite complete. Mori hadn't expected to inspect the work of an eleven year old kid, particularly not after dinner, but… May I see your records?

I keep the data in this book.

Mori checked it over. It looks well done.

Bob beamed. Would you like to look at some of the slides?

I guess no, Bob. I couldn't tell a, what's that, globigerina from a globorotalia. And I might break something. That's a nice microscope you have.

Yes. The project bought it, and I can use it for biology. See?

Bob brought out from his desk drawer a book, Laboratory Manual of the Frog, and an extensively disassembled preserved frog pinned to a board. Look, I embedded the kidney and made these sections. Mori couldn't refuse to look through the microscope this time, with that damned frog leering at him all the while. Why could he watch with equanimity while, say, a high pressure injection pump was stripped down at his order, while a little frog bothered him so much? He got Bob to put it back in the drawer as fast as possible without hurting Bob's feelings You're learning a lot on your summer vacation.

Susan, who had been watching, broke in. We don't have summer vacation. In biology, Mrs. Olson — that's the one who dives — she tells us what to do and what to read. Then she looks at our work, and boy does she tell you if it's sloppy.

Ted amplified, It's not like the teachers are slave-drivers. They find out what you're interested in. They have a list of basics, like spelling, essays, arithmetic, biology, like that, and they suggest things to do that make you learn the basics while you do your interest. Like Bob's job…

I'm not allowed to use a calculator for the arithmetic. I get lots of practice. And I have to write up my dissections clearly, with good grammar and spelled correctly. I get punished for misspelled words — Mrs. Olson says the spelling isn't really that critical, but I have to learn to recognize when I'm not sure of something. She says that around here, if anyone tries to slide by he'll kill us all.

Mori replied, That may be a bit overstated. Look at what happened at Three Mile Island and now at Gator River, and nobody got killed. But it's a good attitude to have. I like your school, and I'd like to talk with this Mrs. Olson. How much time do you spend in class per day?

Ted answered, We don't have classes. The teachers prefer that you read. If you need help you can ask someone in your extended family who knows the topic.

George finished the dishes, and he and Meiko joined the discussion, which ranged from the sorry state of public schools, to the lack of technical understanding of the general public, to Senator Tomlin's motivations, to the mandatory investment law and whether it or something else was responsible for declining interest rates, to the renewed interest in building fission reactors now that construction money could be borrowed, to whether compensation paid in pengos was subject to the law. Finally Bob began to yawn; George and Meiko said nothing. After about ten minutes, Bob brought up a new topic: Mr. Thompson, you said the reporters should interview a burnt-out worker. What really happens to him?

You know that 10CFR 20.105 allows 1.25 rems of radiation per three-month period?

I didn't study the regulations yet. But I know that there is a limit.

Now what happens to you from that dose is roughly the same as if you smoked a pack of cigarettes a day for that three months.

That bad?

It's not as bad as you think. I used to smoke more than that, and I'm not dead. Anyway, when the plant operators are desperate they will have someone go in and do repairs in a high radiation field, and he may get his limit in a few hours or a few minutes. After that he can't legally work on reactor equipment for the rest of the three months. That's why they say he's burnt out.

Does he get fired then?

No. The rule is that he gets transferred to a non-radioactive job, with full pay, or he gets a paid vacation until the end of the quarter. Then he goes back to work.

That could cost the company a lot of money.

That's right. Sometimes they hire temporary workers, with a high pay but a lot less than it costs to burn out a permanent employee. They're called jumpers because they jump in, do the work and jump back out. But the operators don't like to do that because jumpers have no loyalty and often do sloppy work, and because they sometimes go from reactor to reactor, of course not telling the personnel people, and make big bucks by overdosing on radiation. The company gets a black eye when the jumpers get caught at it.

So that senator was lying. He was trying to make people think the workers' bosses were hurting them and then firing them. I think you had a good idea to tell the reporters and have them tell the truth on the radio. I hope it makes the senator lose his next election.

Don't count on it, Mori commented.

Bob continued, Do you suppose you could do that now? It's getting time for me to go to bed.

John Thompson put his arm around Bob. Sure, kid. We'll zap Tomlin for you.

Mori repeated, sotto voce, Don't count on it.

The party broke up. The Thompson teenagers went home, and John and Mori went to the communications shack to call the reporter. Bob cleaned up and got in his hammock, wrapping his body and covering his eyes with a sheet and a thin blanket. Meiko relaxed by sewing a wall decoration, cranes flying over rice. George listened to a tape of music, with headphones so as not to disturb Bob, and then read some fiction.

After an hour and a half, Mori returned. He said softly, I got my reporter out of bed, and he says he'll probably get the interview on the air late tomorrow. And I found the reference to cracking at Gator River in the LER's — it was a small crack; they used an ultrasonic probe and found that there was only one; it was just a few millimeters deep, and not much longer. There were four reports two weeks apart, and it wasn't growing at all. I read the reports over the phone to the reporter, and he says he'll see what he can do with it.

Sounds good, George replied. Would you like a snack?

Mori yawned. No, thank you; let's get some sleep. Tomorrow is going to be just as busy as today.