Safeguards Committee

Indeed, since the 1950s, the US Reactor Safeguards Committee , set up by the Atomic Energy Commission with the task of defining the guidelines for nuclear safety, had indicated that, for a non-contained reactor, an exclusion distance (without resident population) should be provided. This distance, R, had to be equal, at least to that given by Eq. 1.1. 

In discussing the original Reactor Safeguard Committee s early work. Teller told of the concern over evaluating the hazards of reactors ... 

This extensive report became a standard document by which the AEC staff and the Safeguard Committee judged the hazards of a reactor. The staff first reviewed it, then sent the report to the committee. It considered the report in two ways. If there were no new or unusual problems either in the report or in the staff comments on it, the committee passed judgment without a formal meeting. If major issues or new types of reactors were involved, the staff and representatives of the contractor were called before the committee to provide additional information."... 

Following its evaluation and review of an atomic-facility application. Price s division submitted a staff paper to the general manager ttiat analyzed all pertinent facts on ffie proposed facility and presented its recommendations on issuing the construction permit and the allocation of special nuclear material. After review by the general counsel, ffie recommendation along with ffie independent Safeguards Committee appraisal was sent to the Commission for its decision. If it was approved. Price issued a construction permit. ... 

Data from this experiment and the earlier ones were incorporated in the refined design of the PRDC reactor. By January 1956 the PRDC was confident enough about its progress to file a formal application with the AEC Division of Civilian Application for a construction permit. The hundreds of pages of documents placed in the AEC licensing docket on the facility reflected not only the work of the PRDC staff but also the informal liaison work done by the AEC staff and the Safeguards Committee. Even so, more briefings, consultations, and analyses by the PRDC and the AEC were required before a permit could be expected. 

The meeting took place at the Chicago office of the Argonne National Laboratory on 3 June 1956. Rogers McCullough, Safeguards Committee chairman, conducted the session as Cisler, McCarthy, Bethe, and Amo-... 

The Safeguards Committee also suggested a program to determine fully whether the various negative coefficients were sufficient to prevent meltdown under any conceivable circumstances. It included simulator studies to provide information on a wide range of temperature coefficients and oscillator studies on the proposed EBR-I reactor. After the PRDC reactor was completed, a gradual "start-up" should be carried put... 

The committee s unfavorable comments shocked PRDC officials, and the AEC was even more stunned since the report expressed grave reservations about the adequacy of its own fast-breeder research program. Fields wanted more information on the bases of the Safeguards Committee s position, as did Harold Price, director of the Division of Civilian Application, and Kenneth Davis, director of the Division of Reactor... 

Safeguards Committee s executive secretary. He wanted to place on the record "one viewpoint which was perhaps not adequately presented at the meeting." In Brooks s opinion, the lack of a prototype reactor was the one serious safety argument against issuing a license to the PRDC ... 

The disclosures by Strauss and Murray angered not only Anderson but the other members of the Joint Committee, who jealously guarded their statutory mandate to be kept "fully and currently informed" on atomic matters. In this case the Joint Committee had received no report on the Safeguards Committee s conclusions. It was also annoyed that Murray had given the information, not to the Joint Committee, but to a House subcommittee. 

Using Fields s draft, the group worked on the reply. The letter opened with an explanation of how the Safeguards Committee s recommendation fitted in the review process for a construction permit—a recommendation that had not yet been acted upon by the Commission. Under the circumstances, the Commission considered it inappropriate to disclose the contents of "advice and recommendations which are currently under review," and it believed that "the Joint Committee in the ordinary course [emphasis supplied] will support such a position." The letter noted that "under any other procedure the independence of the staff of the Commission or advisory committees to the Commission would be seriously impaired in the future, the value of their contribution would be greatly diminished, and the regulatory functions of the Commission would be correspondingly impeded." ... 

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