= The Apocalypse Factory = === Plutonium and the Making of the Atomic Age === === Steve Olson 2020, Beaverton Library 623.4511 OLS === .05 plutonium for the Nagasaki bomb .31 Chemical separation of plutonium with !S₂O₈ UCB Gilman Hall room 303 by Seaborg and Wahl Feb 1941 .52 Chicago Met Lab, plutonium contaminated hose used to fix soda machine .55 Stone&Webster -> du Pont .63 1943 March eviction White Bluffs WA 300 residents .64 177 graves moved to Prosser (32 mi south) . . 65 600 square miles .66 Grove assistant 34yo Franklin Matthias, Hanford construction boss [[ attachment:HanfordMap.jpg | {{ attachment:HanfordMap.jpg | | height=200 }} ]] [[ attachment:HanfordArea.png | {{ attachment:HanfordArea.png | | height=200 }} ]] [[ attachment:LIGO.png | {{ attachment:LIGO.png | | height=200 }} ]] .70 Matthias helps Wanapum natives, later barred from Hanford and ancestor's graves after the war .72 interviewed 250K workers, hired 100K, 45K remained, 15K blacks .76 1944 union "day's pay" campaign raised $162K to buy a B-17 for the air force .77 eight mess halls, 2700 people each, 50,000 box lunches .78 Leslie Richard Grove 1896- Born in Vancouver WA army housing, chaplain father, teens in Altadena, then Seattle, high school with UW, them MIT in 1914, West Point 1916 , rose to manage Army construction, the Pentagon building, and Hanford. .86 [[ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leona_Woods | Leona Woods Marshall Libby ]] .88 Grove and compartmentalization, suspicion of Szilard .90 steel and masonite (neutron-slowing-hydrogen) shielding .91 graphite bricks 10x10x120 cm, 25 kg. 5 cm holes down the long axis of some. .95 "canning" the uranium slugs difficult -> dipping in molten aluminum .96 B reactor startup September 26, 1944, less than a year after groundbreaking, D and F reactors soon after .98 Xenon-135 poisoning - fuel rods in "unneeded" process tubes could keep the reactor running .102 T and B and U plants, hugely-scaled-up UCB-Seaborg-Wahl process, dissolve the cladding with sodium hydroxide, and uranium and fission products with nitric acid, recovering 1ppm plutonium in the finishing shop next to the T Plant .105 much of the radioactive waste ended up in the air and in the Columbia River .106 177 gigantic underground tanks still contain waste as of 2020 .108 Spokane architect Gustav Pehrson designed Richland, 2 dozen designs designated by letters, 4000 built over the next 18 months .111 Locked wooden box from Los Angeles to Los Alamos, worth $350M .113 atomic bomb releases its energy in a microsecond .114 U235, spontaneous fission rare. Pu239 spontaneous fission frequent, fizzle likely for a gun design .117 implosion design difficult, but used 10% of the fissionables. By summer 1945, Hanford produced enough Pu239 for several bombs per month .119 Nov 1944, Alsos team learns Germans never separated U235 or produced a chain reaction. .120 1200 tons of uranium ore hidden in caves near Strassfurt, discovered April 23 1945 .121 Alsos Furman to leader Goudsmit, "if we have such a weapon, we will use it". .125 Memo to Truman, "Atomic Fission Bombs", 3 implosion bombs per month after August .125-135 Interim committee .135 Japanese balloon bombs .137 9 centimeter plutonium hemispheres, gold and nickel plated, bowling ball weight ( <7kg? ). Explosive lenses in 1.5 meter Duralumin sphere, 32 detonators, walnut shaped initiator, implosion compresses core to double densityDet .142 War Secretary Henry Simpson nixes Kyoto as target .143 four target cities: Hiroshima, Kokura, Niigata, Nagasaki .146 Friday July 13 Trinity test in Jornada del Muerto desert, bomb core and last explosive lens inserted .150 Detonation July 16 at 5:29:45 AM .153 August 9 Charles Sweeney flies B-29 Bockscar from Tinian with Fat Man ( 2 by 4 meter ovoid ?) . "If his plane crashed, the ... it carried could vaporize much of the air base . Er, no, a crash is not a synchronized implosion .158 Primary target Kokura Arsenal, but clouds rolled in during a rendezvous delay .162 Downtown Nagasaki cloud-covered, Urakami valley (with many Mitsubishi arms factories) was clear .167-188 more Nagasaki horrors. "hibakusha", explosion-affected people .192 August 15 ''Richland Villager'', "Peace! Our Bomb Clinched It" .195 The United States has never renounced the first use of nuclear weapons .204 15,000 people lived in Richland at the end of WW2, more in Kennewick and Pasco .204 by the end of 1945, Grove expected 20 Nagasaki-tyoe bombs in the US arsenal .201 [[ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atomic_Energy_Act_of_1946#May%E2%80%93Johnson_Bill | May-Johnson Bill ]] opposed by scientists, [[ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atomic_Energy_Act_of_1946#McMahon_Bill | McMahon Bill ]] becomes law, creating AEC in 1947 .210 August 29, 1949 Soviet plutonium detonation Maiak plutonium plant 1000mi east of Moscow. Truman announces fusion bomb development, leading to [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ivy_Mike | [ 10 MT Ivy Mike test ]] November 1 1952 .213-216 GE takes over Hanford operations from !DuPont, huge expansion .221 N reactor produces steam-electric power in addition to plutonium .223 30,000 warheads by mid-1960s .225 1957/12/02 [[ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shippingport_Atomic_Power_Station |Shippingport PA commercial nuclear power reactor ]] 60 MWe .234 90 metric tonnes of weapons-grade plutonium .234 Seaborg helps negotiate Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty .234 Hanford reactors D B C H F K-West K-East shut down by 1971, only N Reactor continues, not producing weapons-grade plutonium .245 N graphite reactor only graphite moderator reactor in US, shut down after Chernobyl in 1986 .251 Hanford and cancer ... and pesticides, and fertilizer, and trucks spraying DDT against mosquitos .252 Green Run test December 1949 tested radioactivity from (intentional?) release .255 1991 Del Ballard forms B Reactor Museum Association .258 December 2014 Obama signs bill to create Manhattan Project National Historical Park .261 Hanford Thyroid Disease Study -- effects too small to detect .268 Waste vitrification ... not yet