United States Atomic Energy Commission Research Articles

Thomas R. Wellock. Safe Enough? A History of Nuclear Power and Accident Risk.

In the early years of nuclear reactors, the United States Atomic Energy Commission (AEC) struggled to identify priorities in design, balancing internal expertise with the advice of manufacturers such as General Electric and Westinghouse. A dizzying array of designs emerged, with differences in fuel source, coolant, moderator, and much else. Which was the safest? The answer was as clear as mud, and the AEC did little to impose standards of safety, often bowing to industry preferences. Few in the 1950s and 1960s wished to hamper the development of nuclear power—after all, the AEC was supposed to promote the atom not constrain it. Eventually the federal government tried to rectify this conflict of interest, first creating an office of safety research with the AEC, then creating a Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) in 1974. What remained of the AEC was folded into the new Department of Energy in 1977. But even then, neither the nuclear industry nor the government regulators ever reached a consensus about what was safe.

The Gofman-Tamplin Cancer Risk Controversy and Its Impact on the Creation of BEIR I and the Acceptance of LNT.

The major public dispute between John Gofman and his colleague Arthur Tamplin and the United States (US) Atomic Energy Commission (AEC) at the end of the 1960s and during the early 1970s significantly impacted the course of cancer risk assessment in the US and worldwide. The challenging and provocative testimony of Gofman to the US Senate in early 1970 lead to the formation of the US National Academy of Sciences (NAS) Biological Effects of Ionizing Radiation (BEIR) I Committee in order to evaluate the accuracy of claims by Gofman and Tamplin that emissions from nuclear power plants would significantly increase the occurrence of genetic defects and cancers. BEIR I recommended the adoption of the linear non-threshold (LNT) dose response model for the assessment of cancer risks from radiation exposures. The US EPA adopted this recommendation and generalized it to incorporate chemical carcinogens, thereby affecting cancer risk assessments over the next decades. Despite the scientific limitations and ideological framework of their perspectives, Gofman and Tamplin are of considerable historical importance since they had essential roles in affecting the adoption of LNT by regulatory agencies.

From Radiation Effects to Consanguineous Marriages: American Geneticists and Colonial Science in the Atomic Age

In 1947, the US National Academy of Sciences established the Atomic Bomb Casualty Com­mission (ABCC) and sent American scientists to Hiroshima and Nagasaki to investigate the delayed effects of the atomic bombs among survivors. James Neel, medical professor at the University of Michigan, headed the genetics team of ABCC whose mission was to measure the possible genetic mutations caused by radiation. After the conclusion of the ABCC studies, Neel and his scientific team continued to use the resources and subjects in southern Japan to conduct research on the genetics of consanguineous marriages in Japan. This article explores how both the ABCC genetic studies and consanguinity studies reflected American fears about rising mutations in an apocalyptic atomic age. Studies on inbreeding illuminated the nature and extent of mutations in a “pure” genetic population. Furthermore, the Japanese data were used for genetic counseling back in America, helping to address the American public’s concern about increasing interracial marriages between whites and Asians. Despite the attempts of Neel and other American geneticists to disassociate their work from previous, racist, eugenics studies, postwar genetic studies took on the same practices, institutions, and goals as their predecessors—to ensure the wellbeing of the white race. Neel’s ABCC and subsequent studies, all bankrolled by the US Atomic Energy Commission, exploited American military and financial power to take advantage of the “intimate” relationships with nonwhite, “deviant” subjects.

1945–1964 WHO’s Right to Health?

United States Atomic Energy Commission (USAEC) and UN agencies utilized techniques of power and negotiation to implement radiation exposure regulations. USAEC affiliated scientists’ expertise was cultivated while establishing a radiation protection regime based on classified experiments. World Health Organization (WHO) leadership sought to manifest a human right to health, including a right to protection from radiation contamination. The careers of a few technical experts and interagency UN correspondence shows how American risk models of radiation regulation traveled and ultimately inhibited WHO attempts to frame radiation as a public health threat. The USAEC and the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) navigated WHO’s way of perceiving radiation with technical experts and bureaucratic and legislative means. This paper shows the underpinning at the UN of competing models of radiation regulation, one state centric and the other, an individual right to health. This narrative provides insights into the nature of the UN’s current conceptualization of radiation regulation and argues for further research into UN, radiation, and human rights history.

Atomic Technologies and Nuclear Safety Practices in Spain During the 1960s

The acquisition of a nuclear power reactor from the North American company Westinghouse in 1964 not only brought atomic practices and knowledge to Spain but also introduced new methods of industrial organization and management, as well as regulations created by organizations such as the US Atomic Energy Commission (US AEC) and the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). This article analyzes the history of the knowledge, regulations and experimental practices relating to radiation safety and protection that traveled with this reactor to an industrial space: the Zorita nuclear power plant. Within this space, the appropriation, use, and coproduction of knowledge and practices were conditioned by political, economic, industrial and social factors, and by the engineers, researchers and other professionals who contributed expert knowledge. Material held in the Tecnatom Historical Archive—the engineering company that coordinated construction of the plant—is the main source for this work, which delves into the history of knowledge and atomic technologies and adds to the historiography of radiological protection in Spain.

Uranium exposed at Expo 58: the colonial agenda behind the peaceful atom

ABSTRACT This research focuses on the staged contrast between atomic modernity and colonial backwardness at Expo 58 in Brussels, as a strategic promise of the peaceful nuclear, powered by Congolese uranium. I analyze the management of nuclear power – ranging from household technologies to European (post)colonial infrastructures of uranium resources and nuclear power plants – to reveal architecture as a geopolitical technology. The article argues that the ‘domestication of the atom’ goes hand in hand with the domestication of power, exercised through architecture on various levels, affecting the politics of visibility, knowledge, and imagination. The article examines Expo 58 as a case study, where global uranium agents such as the Union Minière du Haut-Katanga (UMHK), the US Atomic Energy Commission (USAEC), the Belgian Centre d’Études pour les applications de l’Energie Nucléaire (SKC-CEN), and the European Atomic Energy Community (Euratom) met in a setting that constructed both a Western scientific gaze and colonial backwardness.

Cold War particle-physics collaborations

Gerson Sher’s book From Pugwash to Putin, reviewed by Rebecca Charbonneau in Physics Today’s May 2020 issue (page 56), captures his experience as an NSF coordinator and sometime participant in US–Soviet scientific collaborations. But his telling omits significant other Cold War–era US–Soviet collaborations and participants—in particular, the entire area of particle physics.One major participant was Wolfgang Panofsky, the force behind the creation of SLAC and its first director, an internationally known leader in particle physics, and a highly regarded adviser to policymakers in Washington, DC. Panofsky wrote of his role in international collaborations in his memoir, Panofsky on Physics, Politics and Peace: Pief Remembers, published in 2007, the year in which he passed away. In his book, Panofsky describes a trip to the Soviet Union in 1956—a year before the first Pugwash conference—when he and 14 other scientists were invited to tour a number of high-energy-physics laboratories. He writes that the visit initiated “a new era of communications in high-energy physics.” It was during that trip that he met Gersh Budker, which initiated years of scientific collaboration between the two.The next major step in particle-physics collaboration came in 1970: a joint high-energy-physics experiment at the Institute for High Energy Physics (IHEP) in Protvino, about 100 km south of Moscow. Darrell Drickey of UCLA and Edouard Tsyganov of the Joint Institute for Nuclear Research (JINR) led the project (see Physics Today, September 1970, page 18). I was a young postdoc in the UCLA contingent, which included six scientists and their families, several with young children. The Soviet group included Russians, Uzbeks, Poles, and a Romanian. We Americans lived in Protvino for six months, working through the long Russian winter, forming friendships, and creating indelible memories. Some of the participants got together a few years later at Fermilab to repeat the experiment.The joint scientific endeavor was in the spirit of détente a full two years before Richard Nixon’s 1972 meeting with Leonid Brezhnev, which Sher refers to as the start of détente. At the time, the IHEP proton accelerator was the highest-energy machine in the world, and the Soviets were keen to provide visibility for their scientific achievement and the science city constructed to house workers and guests.As a junior member of the US group, I was not party to the behind-the-scenes negotiations to create the collaboration, which the 1970 Physics Today report describes as a years-long effort between the US Atomic Energy Commission and the USSR State Committee for the Utilization of Atomic Energy. I was told at Panofsky’s memorial symposium at Stanford University in 2010 that he also was involved.The story behind the UCLA–JINR partnership and the topic of US–USSR particle-physics collaborations would have added an important piece to the history that Sher endeavors to cover in his book. Section:ChooseTop of page <<CITING ARTICLES© 2020 American Institute of Physics.

TRAIL Spotlight

The United States emerged from World War II with technical knowledge about nuclear power, but very few options to use that power for positive outcomes. One attempt to funnel this knowledge into beneficial use was the Plowshare Program: “Swords Into Plowshares” established by the United States Atomic Energy Commission (AEC) to study and develop peaceful uses for nuclear explosives in science and industry. Plowshare advocates proposed using nuclear explosions to create craters to be used for excavations for projects such as canals and harbors, and deep underground explosions to be used for mining as well as recovery of oil and gas.

Introduction: the rise of the robots in spinal surgery.

In his 1920 science fiction play R.U.R., Czech writer Karel Capek introduced the word "robot" to the English language. The play tells the story of a factory that produces roboti, which are living creatures that resemble humans and have the capacity for individual thought. While at first the roboti seem content to work for their human masters, they later rebel, ultimately leading to the extinction of the human race. 1 This play and similar depictions of robots in literature and film are probably responsible for the slightly negative reputation of robots in general. Only recently has this perception changed, thanks to the advent of robots that can vacuum our houses and perform other mundane chores. Raymond Goertz, while working for the US Atomic Energy Commission, is credited with the development of the first robotic arm in 1951. 2 It was designed to handle hazardous radioactive material. Unimation Inc. developed the first industrial robot in 1961; that robot handled molten die-castings and removed the human element from these labor-intensive, often dangerous tasks. With the development of the Programmable Universal Manipulation Arm (PUMA) in 1978, the robot was sophisticated enough to be introduced to medicine. The first working definition of the word "robot" was published, fittingly, by the Robotics Institute of America in 1980: ". . . a reprogrammable, multifunctional manipulator designed to move materials, parts, tools, or specialized devices through various programmed motions for the performance of a variety of tasks." 6 In 1988, the six-degrees-of-freedom flexible arm PUMA 560 was used to guide a needle under CT guidance into the brain. 4 With the introduction of robotic arms came the ability to use them as surgical assistants. In 1998, Okada et al. described a voice-controlled robot used to hold a thoracoscope. 5 This type of robot was also used in thoracoscopic spinal surgery. The military, having a vested interest in telepresence surgery, helped fund the development of the da Vinci Surgical System that was approved for use by the FDA in 2000 and designed to facilitate complex, minimally invasive intracavitary surgeries. 7 In 2004, the FDA cleared the first commercially available positioning device for the placement of spinal instrumentation. At present, several systems are commercially available that utilize robotics for spinal operations. In a recent review, Joseph et al. evaluated the current landscape regarding safety, accuracy, and radiation exposure with the use of these technologies. These authors concluded that "… the placement of pedicle screws with robotics appears to be safe, and accuracy appears to be superior to freehand placement, although the data are not conclusive." 3 There seems to be a significant level of interest in this technology; however, only time will tell if it will become commonplace in our field. In this issue of Neurosurgical Focus, we visually explore the expanding role of robotics and image guidance in spinal surgery. New robots used for the first time and existing robots used for novel applications graphically demonstrate how our field is evolving. The days of fearing robots are behind us as members of our specialty begin to embrace the concept of automation. Thankfully, unlike Capek's rogue roboti, surgical robots rising up against us and causing world destruction is unlikely!

Project Plowshare versus the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons Treaty

ABSTRACTIn 1957, representatives from the United States Atomic Energy Commission, the University of California Radiation Laboratory at Livermore, and other centres involved in nuclear research established Project Plowshare, a programme to apply the atom to what they called “peaceful nuclear explosions.” Although those involved in Plowshare proposed a variety of projects, they devoted most of their resources to the construction of a sea-level isthmian canal that would replace the existing Panama Canal. Turning that proposal into reality, however, ran into numerous roadblocks, amongst them the 1968 Treaty on the Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons. By 1970, the canal project had collapsed, and not long thereafter, Plowshare itself came to an end. But one desire of Plowshare scientists, that of creating “clean” nuclear explosives, may be in the offing. If developed, such devices could pose a threat to the existing non-proliferation regime.

Tales of the Soviet hydrogen bomb

I was one of a very few non-Russian and non-US participants at the fascinating History of the Soviet Atomic Project conference held in May 1996 at the Joint Institute for Nuclear Research in Dubna, north of Moscow. The article “The secret of the Soviet hydrogen bomb” by Alex Wellerstein and Edward Geist (Physics Today, April 2017, page 40) brings up many memories from that meeting.After arriving home from the conference, I wrote an article about it for my institute’s magazine. I think a few details and reflections from that article are worth adding to the international record. They mainly derive from my discussions with Arnold Kramish, a Manhattan Project veteran whom I got to know well during the Dubna meeting and through letters exchanged in the years before his death.After the war Kramish had worked for the US Atomic Energy Commission as a liaison to the Central Intelligence Agency; he provided intelligence estimates on Soviet nuclear capabilities. Shortly before the Teller–Ulam idea was born in early 1951, he had passed on to Stanislaw Ulam intelligence material about Soviet experiments in which extremely strong magnetic fields had been used to compress fusion materials. That information had come from repatriated Austrian physicist Josef Schintlmeister, who, as a victim of the Soviet Alsos operation, was forced to work on the Soviet atomic bomb project and then got insight into work by Peter Kapitza and Andrei Sakharov. Kramish strongly believed that the information Schintlmeister had gathered was the seed of Ulam’s idea of arranging extreme compression of thermonuclear fuel by a physically distinct primary fission charge. Add to that Edward Teller’s idea to employ radiation implosion and the now classical hydrogen bomb was conceived.However, as mentioned in the Wellerstein and Geist article, the concept of radiation implosion stems from a patent filed by Klaus Fuchs and John von Neumann at Los Alamos in May 1946. Fuchs then, like all other British participants in the Manhattan Project, had to go back to the UK in June 1946.Did Fuchs provide the radiation implosion idea to the Soviets? Yes he did, according to former Soviet intelligence chief Vladimir Barkovsky, who spoke at the Dubna meeting. He had collected the documents from Fuchs in London on 13 March 1948; during his talk Barkovsky even showed sketches of the patent. In conversation during the conference banquet, he also said that he thought Fuchs, back in Washington, DC, in 1947 or 1948 for a meeting about UK and US cooperation on nuclear weapons, had gotten new material from an unknown messenger.It is ironic that the development of the H-bomb actually proceeded in a kind of behind-the-scenes de facto cooperation between the two nuclear powers at the time, the US and the Soviet Union. While both nations were struggling to develop thermonuclear weapons, they didn’t realize that the three most important components—compression, staging, and radiation implosion—were already available to be put together. The breakthrough was delayed in the US by Teller’s long inability to give up his belief in his baby, the Classical Super; and in the Soviet Union, by Sakharov’s preoccupation with his baby at the time, the Sloika.A final note on the inflamed relationship between Stan Ulam and Teller: Kramish told me that right after the new H-bomb idea had been conceived, Teller called for a meeting to discuss it. He asked Kramish to take part, and then, after a short pause, Teller added, “Don’t tell Stan!” Section:ChooseTop of page <<CITING ARTICLES© 2018 American Institute of Physics.

Fracking and the future of fuels

The July 2016 issue of Physics Today carries an article by Michael Marder, Tadeusz Patzek, and Scott Tinker entitled “Physics, fracking, fuel, and the future” (page 46). The article claims “to contend with the challenges of fueling modern society” and invites physicists to help. Unfortunately, although they describe fracking and its impact carefully, the authors don’t mention the controversy now raging about wind, solar, and other alternative fuel technologies, including modern nuclear technology. If Marder and coauthors want to stimulate constructive progress for humanity, they should help readers to think about fuels that have real promise of outlasting oil and gas.The article cannot be the end of the discussion. The world drastically needs to overhaul its energy production scheme to use truly sustainable, modern, and safe nuclear reactors, while utilizing the vast existing infrastructure of turbines and generators for electricity production. Despite media portrayals to the contrary, nuclear energy is the safest power system known to man.11. M. Fischetti, Sci. Am., “The human cost of energy,” 1 September 2011, https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/the-human-cost-of-energy/. In the late 1960s, the Sierra Club’s motto was “Atoms, not dams,” and Ansel Adams, who was on the club’s board of directors for 37 years, said, “Nuclear energy is the only practical alternative that we have to destroying the environment with oil and coal.”Consider the following facts about molten-salt reactors (MSRs), which were demonstrated in 1965–70 at Oak Ridge National Laboratory.• MSRs require no expensive containment since they operate close to atmospheric pressure.22. World Nuclear Association, “Molten salt reactors” (September 2016), http://www.world-nuclear.org/information-library/current-and-future-generation/molten-salt-reactors.aspx.• MSRs can eliminate the need for Yucca Mountain storage by consuming existing nuclear wastes.• MSRs consume close to 100% of their fuel, compared with 3% for older reactors with solid uranium fuel.• Thorium fluoride molten fuel for MSRs is of no weapons value.• Thorium fuel is more abundant and cheaper than uranium.The time is now to replace the current infatuation with solar and wind, which are illusions at best. When the sun doesn’t shine or the wind doesn’t blow, the power generation stops, so they are not equal to the demand of modern society for energy availability 100% of the time. Germany is demonstrating that removal of nuclear energy in favor of wind and solar results in more carbon emissions, not less.33. B. Waterfield, Telegraph, “Germany is a cautionary tale of how energy policies can harm the economy,” 16 January 2014. Nor is energy storage even close to meeting the need when those alternatives fail. For this nation and the world to succeed without drowning itself in a flood of carbon dioxide in the next few decades, we need to follow the advice of Glenn Seaborg in 1962: The overall objective of the [Atomic Energy] Commission’s nuclear power program should be to foster and support the growing use of nuclear energy and … make possible the exploitation of the vast energy resources latent in the fertile materials, uranium-238 and thorium.44. G. T. Seaborg et al., Civilian Nuclear Power: A Report to the President—1962, US Atomic Energy Commission (1962), p. 14. I thank Alex Cannara for assistance in preparing this letter. ReferencesSection:ChooseTop of pageReferences <<CITING ARTICLES1. M. Fischetti, Sci. Am., “The human cost of energy,” 1 September 2011, https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/the-human-cost-of-energy/. Google Scholar2. World Nuclear Association, “Molten salt reactors” (September 2016), http://www.world-nuclear.org/information-library/current-and-future-generation/molten-salt-reactors.aspx. Google Scholar3. B. Waterfield, Telegraph, “Germany is a cautionary tale of how energy policies can harm the economy,” 16 January 2014. Google Scholar4. G. T. Seaborg et al., Civilian Nuclear Power: A Report to the President—1962, US Atomic Energy Commission (1962), p. 14. Google ScholarCrossref© 2017 American Institute of Physics.

The peaceful atom comes to campus

Youthful idealism, institutional ambition, and Cold War sensibilities all helped shape the Michigan Memorial–Phoenix Project, the University of Michigan’s tribute to fallen World War II soldiers.

The history, development and the present status of the radon measurement programme in the United States of America.

The US radon measurement programme began in the late 1950s by the US Public Health Service in Colorado, New Mexico and Utah during the uranium frenzy. After the 1967 Congressional Hearings on the working conditions in uranium mines, the US Atomic Energy Commission (AEC) was asked to conduct studies in active uranium mines to assess the exposure of the miners on the Colorado Plateau and in New Mexico. From 1967 to 1972, the Health and Safety Laboratory of the US AEC in New York investigated more than 20 uranium mines for radon and radon decay product concentrations and particle size in 4 large uranium mines in New Mexico. In 1970, the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) was established and took over some of the AEC radon measurement activities. Between 1975 and 1978, the Environmental Measurements Laboratory of the US Department of Energy conducted the first detailed indoor radon survey in the USA. Later in 1984, the very high concentrations of radon found in Pennsylvania homes set the wheels in motion and gave birth to the US Radon Industry. The US EPA expanded its involvement in radon issues and assumed an active role by establishing the National Radon Proficiency Program to evaluate the effectiveness of radon measurement and mitigation methods. In 1998, due to limited resources EPA privatised the radon programme. This paper presents a personal perspective of past events and current status of the US radon programme. It will present an update on radon health effects, the incidence rate of lung cancer in the USA and the number of radon measurements made from 1988 to 2013 using short-term test methods. More than 23 million measurements were made in the last 25 y and as a result more than 1.24 million homes were mitigated successfully. It is estimated that <2 % of the radon measurements performed in the USA are made using long-term testing devices. The number of homes above the US action level of 148 Bq m(-3) (4 pCi l(-1)) may be ∼8.5 million because ∼50 million homes were added since 1990 to the home inventory. This paper will discuss the current instruments and methods used to measure radon in the USA, and what is the effectiveness of radon resistant new construction, the current status of mitigation standards and the proposed testing protocols in schools and large buildings.

Intrepid Explorer: The Autobiography of the World's Best Mine Finder (J.D. Lowell)

Intrepid Explorer: The Autobiography of the World’s Best Mine Finder. J. David Lowell. 2014. Pp. 460. Sentinel Peak Books, University of Arizona Press, Tucson, Arizona, USA. www.uapress.arizona.edu. ISBN 978-1-941451-00-7. Hardcover. US$35. David Lowell is a remarkable man, and in this book he tells the story of his life with humor, insight, business acumen, and geologic knowledge. In the Preface, geologist and Vice President of the University of Arizona Joaquin Ruiz writes, “You will like this book. The plot features a central character with an improbable story of success. He is a sleuth who decodes riddles hidden in the earth, travels to faraway places where he battles the elements and bureaucracy, convinces the powers that be that he is about to find a treasure and should be funded. He is funded, and in the end he finds the treasure. Sounds a bit like the Raiders of the Lost Ark, doesn’t it? But this book is not fiction. The book tells the real story of an amazing man.” Lowell was born in 1928 and worked with his father, who ran small mines, mainly in rural southern Arizona during the Great Depression. Even as a child, Lowell was fascinated with mines. His mother was demanding and forceful. A mediocre student, he obtained a mining engineering degree in 1948 from the College of Mines at the University of Arizona and then launched into a career of exploration geology that continues today. As advertised in the title, Lowell can well claim to be the world’s best mine finder; he was involved with the discovery of 17 major metallic mineral deposits. Early in his career, David cut his teeth as a mining engineer in ASARCO’s dangerous Santa Eulalia underground mine (Pb-Zn-Cu-Ag sulfide replacements of limestone) in Mexico, and then did uranium exploration on the Colorado Plateau for the United States Atomic Energy Commission. After obtaining an MS degree in geology from …

Development of risk assessment for nuclear power: insights from history

Nuclear power plays an important role in the global energy economy, but its safety has been a contentious issue for over 50 years. Based on new designs of nuclear power plants, new methods of assessing risks, and calculations of cost efficiency, proponents of nuclear power see it as safe and necessary, but skeptics do not. How can people be so divided on a fundamental issue like safety? Part of the answer lies in the history of risk assessment’s invention, development, and deployment. The US Atomic Energy Commission (AEC) developed a form of risk assessment extensively used today: probabilistic risk assessment (PRA). The AEC originally wanted to strategically assure the public of nuclear power’s safety. Controversy greeted PRA’s debut, however, and the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission, AEC’s successor agency, changed PRA into a tactical tool. Scientific and ethical criticisms, political opposition to nuclear power, and accidents combined to force the transition. In contrast to PRA for nuclear power, other forms of risk assessment successfully entered the regulation of toxic chemicals. The safety of nuclear power still elicits sharp disagreements between opponents and proponents of the technology, which in turn leaves a cloud over the future of the technology.

Life atomic: a history of radioisotopes in science and medicine

After World War II, the US Atomic Energy Commission (AEC) began mass-producing radioisotopes, sending out nearly 64,000 shipments of radioactive materials to scientists and physicians by 1955. Even as the atomic bomb became the focus of Cold War anxiety, radioisotopes represented the government's efforts to harness the power of the atom for peace-advancing medicine, domestic energy, and foreign relations. In Life Atomic, Angela N. H. Creager tells the story of how these radioisotopes, which were simultaneously scientific tools and political icons, transformed biomedicine and ecology. Government-produced radioisotopes provided physicians with new tools for diagnosis and therapy, specifically cancer therapy, and enabled biologists to trace molecular transformations. Yet the government's attempt to present radioisotopes as marvelous dividends of the atomic age was undercut in the 1950s by the fallout debates, as scientists and citizens recognized the hazards of low-level radiation. Creager reveals that growing consciousness of the danger of radioactivity did not reduce the demand for radioisotopes at hospitals and laboratories, but it did change their popular representation from a therapeutic agent to an environmental poison. She then demonstrates how, by the late twentieth century, public fear of radioactivity overshadowed any appreciation of the positive consequences of the AEC's provision of radioisotopes for research and medicine.

Engineering Uncertainty and Bureaucratic Crisis at the Atomic Energy Commission, 1964–1973

In January 1972, the United States Atomic Energy Commission (AEC) opened rulemaking hearings to establish minimum performance criteria for the emergency core cooling system (ECCS), a critical cooling system in nuclear power plants that prevents reactor fuel damage. The contentious ECCS hearings proved so damaging to the AEC’s credibility that the agency was broken up to create the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, an independent regulator of power plant safety. Scholars have explained the demise of the AEC as an example of a subgovernment or “iron triangle” brought down by external political forces of Congressional calculation and antinuclear opposition. But technical factors were very important to the AEC’s fate. The ECCS hearings were an internal engineer dispute over approaches to reactor safety, and revelations of safety concerns by the agency’s own experts undermined its reputation. The ECCS controversy suggests that an internal crisis of expert knowledge can bring down seemingly invulnerable subgovernments.

The Origin and History of the International Metallographic Society

The International Metallographic Society (IMS) is rich with history. With roots dating back to the early days of the Manhattan Project, metallographers experienced in ferrous and copper alloys were faced with a new challenge. How does one safely prepare nuclear materials (uranium, plutonium, and other materials related to the US Atomic Energy Commission (AEC) programs)? Some nuclear engineers expected metallographers to know as much about nuclear materials as they did about iron and copper alloys. The efforts of these pioneers helped to establish the basis for evaluating nuclear materials, and many of the techniques developed remain in use today. These techniques are a combination of science and art; in the early days, it took more than just a procedure to produce a desired result. It also took a developed instinct to know if a specimen was ready to come off the polishing wheel or if it needed a few more seconds for the perfect etch. Although the tasks facing them were daunting, metallographers are blessed with resourcefulness and an intense desire to solve new metallographic problems. Challenges presented by the group of nuclear materials and radioactive samples were met, and the science of metallography took a giant step forward. The methods and techniques developed for these metals and alloys have been extended to the study of nearly all present-day materials. The focus of the Manhattan Project was to develop the first atomic weapon during World War II. Metallographers supporting the Manhattan Project were employed by the AEC and its contractors. These experienced metallographers encountered textbook curiosities that dictated the need to develop new metallographic techniques. As a result, metallographers and scientists at each AEC laboratory developed their own techniques for safety control, specimen preparation, and microstructural interpretation. Each laboratory drew its own conclusions based on the microstructural interpretations. After World War II, wartime security restrictions began to ease and the AEC contractors began to hold periodic meetings. At an AEC Metallurgical Conference in January 1949, metallographers and metallurgists decided it would be useful to compare techniques for preparing and examining uranium. G. L. Kehl, Columbia University; A. U. Seybolt, Knolls Atomic Power Laboratory; and H. A. Saller, Battelle Memorial Institute-Columbus were asked to arrange an ad-hoc meeting to discuss the metallographic techniques and procedures being developed on uranium metallography. For the meeting, Battelle-Columbus agreed to fabricate and heat treat identical sets of natural uranium. These specimens were sent to other AEC-sponsored laboratories. Sixteen representatives from eight AEC laboratories met at Battelle-Columbus in July 1949 to exchange information. The success of this meeting led to further collaboration. Between 1950 and 1969, 22 AEC Metallography Group meetings were held, with attendance growing to as many as 60 in later years. By today’s standards, early meetings had exotic themes. For example, in advance of the June 1950 meeting, attendees received samples of crystal bar zirconium and zirconium-clad 6 wt.% uranium alloy. At the sixth meeting, which occurred in September 1952, attendees presented papers on the recent work of their respective laboratories and the first steering committee was elected. The Group elected Harriet Roman, MIT, as permanent S. Dekanich (&) Y-12 National Security Complex, P.O. Box 2009, Oak Ridge, TN 37831-8245, USA e-mail: dekanichsj@y12.doe.gov

Elemental Bio-imaging of Thorium, Uranium, and Plutonium in Tissues from Occupationally Exposed Former Nuclear Workers

Internal exposure from naturally occurring radionuclides (including the inhaled long-lived actinides (232)Th and (238)U) is a component of the ubiquitous background radiation dose (National Council on Radiation Protection and Measurements. Ionizing radiation exposure of the population of the United States; NCRP Report No. 160; NCRP: Bethesda, MD, 2009). It is of interest to compare the concentration distribution of these natural alpha-emitters in the lungs and respiratory lymph nodes with those resulting from occupational exposure, including exposure to anthropogenic plutonium and depleted and enriched uranium. This study examines the application of laser ablation-inductively coupled plasma-mass spectrometry (LA-ICPMS) to quantifying and visualizing the mass distribution of uranium and thorium isotopes from both occupational and natural background exposure in human respiratory tissues and, for the first time, extends this application to the direct imaging of plutonium isotopes. Sections of lymphatic and lung tissues taken from deceased former nuclear workers with a known history of occupational exposure to specific actinide elements (uranium, plutonium, or americium) were analyzed by LA-ICPMS. Using a previously developed LA-ICPMS protocol for elemental bio-imaging of trace elements in human tissue and a new software tool, we generated images of thorium ((232)Th), uranium ((235)U and (238)U), and plutonium ((239)Pu and (240)Pu) mass distributions in sections of tissue. We used a laboratory-produced matrix-matched standard to quantify the (232)Th, (235)U, and (238)U concentrations. The plutonium isotopes (239)Pu and (240)Pu were detected by LA-ICPMS in 65 mum diameter localized regions of both a paratracheal lymph node and a sample of lung tissue from a person who was occupationally exposed to refractory plutonium (plutonium dioxide). The average (overall) (239)Pu concentration in the lymph node was 39.2 ng/g, measured by high purity germanium (HPGe) gamma-spectrometry (Lynch, T. P.; Tolmachev, S. Y.; James, A. C. Radiat. Prot. Dosim. 2009, 134, 94-101). Localized mass concentrations of thorium ((232)Th) and uranium ((238)U) in lymph node tissue from a person not occupationally exposed to these elements (chronic natural background inhalation exposure) ranged up to 400 and 375 ng/g, respectively. In lung samples of occupationally nonexposed to thorium and uranium workers, (232)Th and (238)U concentrations ranged up to 200 and 170 ng/g, respectively. In a person occupationally exposed to air-oxidized uranium metal (Adley, F. E.; Gill, W. E.; Scott, R. H. Study of atmospheric contaminiation in the melt plant buiding. HW-23352(Rev.); United States Atomic Energy Commission: Oakridge, TN, 1952, p 1-97), the maximum (235)U and (238)U isotopic mass concentrations in a lymph node, measured at higher resolution (with a 30 mum laser spot diameter), were 70 and 8500 ng/g, respectively. The ratio of these simultaneously measured mass concentrations signifies natural uranium. The current technique was not sufficiently sensitive, even with a 65 mum laser spot diameter, to detect (241)Am (at an overall tissue concentration of 0.024 ng/g, i.e., 3 Bq/g).