& Dates ssesail A Subject_ NOTES ON MEETING OF MAY 5, 194k By _ Ohlinger o Te Memo g Defore reading this document., sirn and dite helow Name - Date Nume Muc- L Ao- /9 Date //)fl £ /JAAA,VG{?L‘ S=/6 49 . /L H- Q*’/LM_«@J// J AL s/l //(/”’ Vi (/3 Lot a/za//v S e il 9\ 0.1, 7) firtw.‘:«() 20 PG ' \ A - , BLLQ&AW\:.%W VA 6 I/ 1L 7S GRS Tl B R e RN e ORNL LIBRARIES DIVISION Y-12 TECHNICAL LIBRARY Document Reference Section LOAN COPY ONLY Do NOT transfer this document to any other person. If you want others to see it, attach their names, return the document, and the Library will arrange the loan as requested. @, CLASSITICATION T oS (/ ? D S T/ B = fit: T : By Autno.ntTy U2 B R LS - __/_.Z_L-.(_rni..({m"f L i je 3058 Z7N C. S{,,--"‘ Muc-LA40-~/7 " This docwment cousists of 2 pages and o figures. e NOTES ON MEETING OF MAY 5, 194y No._¥ of ,, copics, Series A, v\ , ML 9:00 - 10:30 209--Eck Preseat: Allison, Szilard, Wigner, Weinberg, Morrison, Creutz, Vernon, Young, Watson, Ohlinger Please note a correction in the notes of the last meeting, Friday, April 28th. On page 2 at the top, the cost of the energy from TNI should read $200.C0 per megawatt hour instead of ¥2.00, Mr. Morrison started the discussion by noting the above correction and adding, at the request of Mr., Wigner, a rough figure for the cost of ecuergy obtained from tubealloy on a comparstive basis. Assuming a cost of §2.00 per pound for tubeslloy and assuming that 211 the 25 is used, the cost of energy (not mechanical power) would be sbhout §0.,02 per megawatt hour, Mr. Morrison noted that the least expensive horsepower (based on first cost) for a prime mover is an airplane engine, and the most expsnsive is the old fashioned steam locomotive. Mr. Morrison also transmitted the following information from Mr. Z. Jeffries., At the request of the WPB but with only limited resourcss, the U.S. Geological Survey has been carrying on a research into the sbundance of various materials found in pegmatites., Among the2 many materials to be sur- veyed were tubsalloy and thorium. This survey is to be published in one or two months and copies will undoubtedly be obtainad by the lagboratory. By word of mouth, Mr. Jeffries did obtain the following advance information based on the preliminary results, - a large number of granite bodies wers found to cobain up to 100 ppm of tubealloy and a small number up to 1,000 ppmn. kEr. OChlinger carried on the discussion from this point with a ro- view of the outline appended to the notes for the last meeting. A general discussion followed, of which the highlights follow. Mr. Szilard pointed out that in our discussions we must not overlook the peace time uses of this power. ile can only hold the advantage we have obtained in our development of this process in America if its psace time use is well developed. Following this vein of thought, Mr. Wigner sald that very little has been said about this phase of the subject but that he had one or two suggestions to offer. By subjecting the tubzalloy bearing granite men-~ tioned by Mr. Jeffries to a bombardment ol neutrons,; it might be possible to obtain a mechanical dissclution or porosity such that nitric acid could readily penetrate the granite to dissolve out rore tubealloy, Another possibility is a polymerization of hydrocarbons to produce synthetic rubber. il R Ig LB Ly BRI AR SE T 2 ; W% St $7 \f 0 . foftrad s f¥e g 0 X B bty o L GRS o (B e i 4 d Ll o 1< Ao . o pi S £ N 0. K - ~ I (e oY A " Y ’, ,fg“g. &N “oh 5 w7 1ef y X 54 BEM H A 1 .. sl Loy 2 ¥ Y b2 S 9 %3 . =X ¥, 192 e I'. () 1Y o 0 Dt k7 ~3° v, "g 3L = ;": 3 A e Mr. Allison suggested that in projects where the transporation of fuel is a major problem, such as an exploration of the South Pole or othar distant objectives, a small unit would be very vseful., He also repcated the previous suggestion for heating entire cities since it would also eliminats the terrific nuisance of the usual smokse pall. Mr. Wigner observed that the age of technical problems is past. ((:} The only obvious needs are probably large scale heating and fuels. NMr. Szilard folt that if $hzwo ora rna prosant reeds, then new n2ads shouiié;:,;;; f-d. QMr. orei soed stelle wal . IVl 24 lrorrison suggesied steller travel ’55%€?ffiflfifif?4 { Nr. Ohlinger broughi the discussion back to the outline with the suggestion that the subject of the direct utillzation of energy by electrical removal (IBla in the outline) should be dismissed from owr thinking for ths most part. He mentioned that little has been forthcoming on this subject outside of the suggestions which accomnanied kKr. iigner's "homework!. One of these suggestions was to usec the active materizl in the form of an extremely thin wire surrounded by a2 metallic tube; with the interspaces evacuated. The fission oroducts would assume a considerable charge before leaving the thin wire and by virtue of their kinetic cnergy would he able to reach the tube sur- rounding the wire even if it had a considerable pcsitive charge. For a reason- able utilization, the potential difference between the tube and wire would have to be of the order of magnitude of 5,000,000 volts and one could obtain a cur- rent of about 50 amperes if the system were run at 500,000 kw. The wire and pipe would have to be cooled and, although, this is; in a way, the most direct utilization of the energy of fission, it obviously gets into great technical difficulties, is not very efficient, and does not furnish the power in a very suitable form, so it is noted only as a curiosity. The second suggestion was Vr. R. ¥illiamsonts idea to extract the heat from a pile by using the Peltier effect to convert the energy directly to electrical energy. However, the thermo-electric constants of tubealloy are not known and one can estimate that the amount of power obtainable from a pile like that at W would only be of the order of 5,000 kw, One arrangement for accomplishing this would be to have evory tubealloy rod be one electrods of the thermocouple and the graphite the other, The pile would be run at low power level with reasonably good efficiency despite the heating loss. Another arrangement would be to subdivide the tube- alloy rod into short sections, cooling one end of each. The cooled end would then form the.cold junction, the hot end, the hot junction, However, utiliza- tion of power in such a system is much poorer. Kr. Szilard asked for the efficiency of such a pile. MNr. Watson suggested that it would probably not exceed 1f although Mr. Wigner was of the opinion that this figure was too low. ¥r, Szilard thought the subject could bear further investigation, but Nr. Wig- ner pointed out that by high temperature operation (70Q°C) it is possible to obtain efficiencics up to around 65% and so, as long as we would Just bs meking kilowatt hours, we should sbandon all “crazy schemes” and think seriously about high temperature operation. "Goldborgs" are not attractive for power production and Mr. hLllison thought it would be much easier to develop the high temperature operation. Items IBlb (2) and (3) in which the working fluid absorbs the heat of reaction for direct utiliczation of the energy offered more interesting pos- sibilities according to Messrs. ¥igner, Morrison and Vernon. WMr. Wigner noted one difficulty with the endothermic chemical reactions, - the gases which have these reactions usually react chemically with the pile materials. v, Sgilard stated that when thz supply of petroleum is exhsusted, it mizht be possible to break down the CO molecule and hydrogenate the carbon atom to make synthetic hydrocarbvons for gasoline, etc. MNr. Morrison suggested an alternate of breaking down the H20 molecule and carbonizing the hydrogen atom. ur. oOhlinger suggested that in order to speed up the discussions at these meetinss and avoid wastin: the time of the entire group with detoiled discussions of schames which do nct hiold much promise for next year'!'s psogrm of researcii work for the laberator;, assi‘nments shos§ v ot n.,fagndividual Lo tls . R By X o 3 e [y + AR - 3 - pile types for investipation and group discussion outside of the regular meetings, The individual assigned any particular tLype would make it a point to investigate the advantages and disadvantages of that type as thoroughly as possible and discuss these and any design details with other members of the group who would be likely to have constructive information on the subject. Thereby, the problem would be well investigated prior to the meeting at which it would either be presented in concise form for discussion as a likely pro- blem for investigation, theoretically or experimentally or both, or else in- dicated as &n unpromising project which should not be considered at this time. Problems common to several designs could then be correlated for an experimental program and the more promising of the designs brought forth by these investige- tions outside of the regular scheduled meetings could be discussed by the group as a whole before being turned over to the various divisions for their detailed development. This proposed policy was accepted by all and the following assignments made. Mr. Wigner will lead the investigation into the possibility of power producing piles utilizing the energy directly by endothermic chemical reactions [Item IB1b (3)] . Mr. Vernon will do the same for gas cooling [Item IBlb (2)]. In order to give them time to prepare these assignments, it was suggested that Mr. Young speak at the next meeting on Wednesday, May 10th on "Suggested Improve- ments for a Hanford Type Pile" and on Friday, May l2un, ¥r. Weinberg on "Conversion Units", Jip