Standards Development The Reactor-Site Criteria

The reference to pressure-vessel codes in itself underscored historically the difficulty in arriving quickly at specific standards for atomic plants. Nonnuclear boilers and pressure vessels had been used for more than 150 years, but only in the twentieth century had they become safe, reliable, and standardized. Numerous boiler and pressure-vessel accidents in the nineteenth century had prompted a great number of cities and states to regulate their design, manufacture, and operation. The result was a proliferation of laws that created widespread confusion. To provide a sound technical basis for regulation, the American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME) created a committee in 1911 to formulate standard specifications for boiler and pressure-vessel design and construction. On the basis of the committee s work the ASME adopted its first boiler and pressure-vessel code in 1915. Over the years most states and municipalities adopted the code and incorporated it into their ordinances.  

The first Reactor Safeguard Committee had been created in 1947 to examine each government reactor and to advise the Commission on their hazards. Since atomic scientists recognized that the danger of a 

On the same day that Fields testified. Joint Committee member Bourke Hickenlooper (who did not attend the hearing) coincidentally wrote to the Advisory Committee on Reactor Safeguards about the siting question. He wanted to know specifically whether the planned operations 

By 1955 the AEC had approved several sites for power reactors under the civilian program. Commonwealth Edison s Dresden, Illinois site. Consolidated Edison s Buchanan, New York location for its Indian Point facility, and the PRDC reactor at Lagoona Beach, Michigan were all 

After passage of the Price-Anderson Act in 1957, which required the Reactor Safeguards Committee to review each reactor application, the committee often directed its attention to site considerations. In the fell of 1957, for example, it reviewed an application for a small, sbcty-megawatt thermal test reactor planned by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration at a site three miles from Sandusky, Ohio. The Safeguards Committee reluctantly endorsed the site but indicated its concern by suggesting that a less populated one would have been preferable.  

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