Arco/BORAX Mobile Substation [11]

Scan of a photo. "Operating principles of a nuclear reactor which would produce electrical power and at the same time serve as a source of fissionable material are shown in the cut-away motel pictured above. The main elements of such a reactor would be a core of fissionable material, where a chain reactor would be maintained, and a cooling system to carry heat of fission into a heat exchanger, where it would convert water to steam. The steam, in turn, would turn a turbine, which would power an electrical generator. The steam would be converted to water in a condenser, and recirulated through the heat exchanger. The reactor cooland would be returned to the reactor core after being cooled in the heat exchanger. To produce fissionable material, the reactor core would be surrounded by a "blanket" of uranium, where exess neutrons not needed to sustain the chain reaction would convert non-fissionable uranium 238 to plutonium, which is fissionable. Although no reactor of this type has been built, the experimental breeder reactor now in test phase at the Atomic Energy Commision's National Reactor Testing Station in Idaho is designed to explore two of the principles a power-breeder reactor could employ-the theory of "breeding" more fissionable material than is consumed in the chain reaction, and the use of a liquid metal coolant to take heat from the reactor for ultimate conversion to electrical energy. A concept of Argonne National Laboratory, which will operate the reactor, it is designed to actually produce electrical power on an experimental basis."