Undercover Accident

An Atomic Energy Commission laboratory proved once again last week that classification can get to be a habit, covering bungles as well as military secrets, and denying essential information to Government atomic contractors.

The Experimental Breeder Reactor No. 1 at the National Reactor Testing Station, Arco, Idaho, has been in operation since 1951, generating a small amount of electricity and yielding information of great importance to public utility companies that plan to build giant power reactors of similar type. Last year the laboratory began a series of risky but wholly legitimate experiments to find out how the reactors would behave during sudden power surges, i.e., sudden increases in the speed of the nuclear reaction. The first experiments went well. The temperature of the reacting core (about the size of a football and heavily shielded) rose as scheduled but cooled off obediently when controls went into action.

On Nov. 29 the automatic controls were shut off, and the reactor was made to surge without them. A technician stood ready at the manually operated controls, waiting for a command from the scientist in charge. Deep under its shield the core grew hotter and hotter, its temperature rising toward the danger point. The scientist, watching the instruments, told the technician to shut the reactor off instantly, but his order was misunderstood; the technician used control devices that were too slow. Before they could take effect the core had partially melted. Instruments warned of radiation danger, the alarm was given, and the building was cleared. No one was hurt, but the reactor is still shut down.

The accident, which had no bearing on military secrets, was the first of its kind among the U.S.'s operating reactors. Atomic-minded industrialists, who need to know all there is to know about the safety of the large power reactors before they build their own, were told nothing. A few weeks ago, rumors began to circulate, and the AEC was forced to issue a brief release. But the authorities at Arco would not allow outsiders to see the damaged reactor, and AEChairman Lewis Strauss denied that even the rumors had reached him.

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