NASA Plum Brook Economic Development Plan

NASA Plum Brook Economic Development Plan

Private Sector Development of NASA Plum Brook Station

“Six small desktop sized Molten Salt Research Reactors (MSRRs) can produce all of the medical isotopes required for North America, Central America, and South America from a proposed facility based in Sandusky, Ohio at NASA Plum Brook Station. Such a facility would create more than 8,000 jobs and would support the construction of a runway used for the distribution of medical isotopes by air transport. Additionally, such research reactors could pave the way for a full-scale reactor that would one day replace the electricity production that will be lost with the 2037 shutdown of the aging Davis-Besse Nuclear Power Plant located in Oak Harbor, Ohio.”

NASA Plum Brook Economic Development | 1

TABLE OF CONTENTS Executive Summary ............................................................................................................... 3

Medical Isotope Production: Time for Change .................................................................... 4

Mo-99 as "The Queen Mother" .............................................................................................. 5

Technetium 99 production .................................................................................................... 6

The U.S. Mo-99 Supply Chain ................................................................................................ 7

Tectonic Shifts ........................................................................................................................ 9

The Two Track Approach to Mo-99 Production ................................................................. 10

Table of Potential Irradiators in the United States ............................................................ 11

Challenges of HEU-free Mo-99 Production ........................................................................ 12

Preferential Treatment of HEU-free Mo-99 ......................................................................... 13

Future of Medical Isotope Production ................................................................................ 14

Molybdenum-99 Research Reactors .................................................................................. 16

Nasa’s Isotope Crisis: Plutonium-238 ................................................................................ 17

Plutonium-238 is vital to NASA’s Space Exploration ....................................................... 17

NASA’s Stirling Radiosiotope Generator ........................................................................... 20

NASA and a Radiosisotope Production Facility ................................................................ 21

The Impact of Davis-Besse Nuclear Power Plant .............................................................. 23

A History of Ohio’s Nuclear Heritage ................................................................................. 26

The Nuclear Powered Aircraft Experiment ........................................................................ 32

NASA and the Atoms for Peace Program .......................................................................... 34

The Economic Impact of A Large Manufacturing Facility ................................................ 36

Reviving an Old Idea with a new Purpose ......................................................................... 38

Reviving and Re-envisioning a Mass Assembly Plant ..................................................... 39

Why Produce Molten Salt Reactors in Ohio? .................................................................... 42

NASA Plum Brook Station, Producing Medical Isotopes, and a Runway ....................... 45

A Runway May lead to a Business Park ............................................................................ 46


Perry II Nuclear Power Plant, a Test Facility in the Making ............................................. 50

Piketon Uranium Enrichment Facility................................................................................. 52

Financing Molten Salt Reactor Development .................................................................... 54

Rare Earth Elements ............................................................................................................ 55

Conclusions .......................................................................................................................... 57

Seeking Alliance Members .................................................................................................. 58


EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

This document describes a three-pronged economic development effort at NASA Plum Brook Station, located in Sandusky, Ohio.

v (Short-term economic development) A Medical Isotope Production Facility utilizing proven Molten Salt Reactor technology to efficiently produce Molybdenum-99.

v (Mid-term economic development) A power generation facility utilizing Gen IV Molten Salt Reactor[s] to replace the electricity production which will be lost to the area at the end of life of Davis-Besse Nuclear Power station in 2037.

v (Long-term) A small modular Molten Salt Reactor mass assembly plant.

This economic development plan focuses upon three aspect areas: health and life sciences, energy and environmental industries, and national security interests. This plan is not comprehensive and is not meant to touch all the positive benefits the development of Molten Salt Reactors (MSRs) potentially can provide. For a more comprehensive look at the benefits of MSR development please visit www.eGeneration.org .

Key takeaways from this development plan are:

v Development of advanced Molten Salt Reactors will enhance Ohio’s and America’s other energy industries, through better development and utilization of resources.

v There is a worldwide medical isotope production/supply crisis looming in the very near future, and the development of MSR technology in Ohio could solve this crisis and produce revenue.

v Davis-Besse nuclear power station is not expected to operate after 2037. NASA Plum Brook Station could be an ideal candidate for a power generation facility to replace Davis-Besse.

v Many other sites and businesses around Ohio have been identified as potential support facilities to these proposed efforts at Plum Brook Station.

Key Potential Stakeholders include, but are not limited to:

NASA, First Energy, The Ohio Chamber of Commerce, Battelle Memorial Institute, The Greater Cleveland Partnership, the Ohio Aerospace Institute, The Ohio State University, JobsOhio, Ohio’s Third Frontier Program, The Cleveland Foundation, The Cleveland Clinic, The Ohio Industrial Energy Users Group, The Ohio Manufacturing Policy Alliance, The Marcellus Shale Coalition, The Ohio Coal Association, REDI Cincinnati, and the Mound Development Corporation.


MEDICAL ISOTOPE PRODUCTION: TIME FOR CHANGE

Every year, medical professionals worldwide carry out more than 30 million procedures using the medical isotope technetium-99m (Tc-99m), over half of these in the United States. A radioisotope that decays over six hours, Tc-99m is injected into the human body to assess the presence and progress of ailments such as heart disease and cancer. In a hospital setting, Tc-99m is derived from special generators that incorporate its parent, molybdenum-99 (Mo-99). But because Mo-99 has a relatively short half-life of 66 hours, these generators cannot be stockpiled and must be replaced on a weekly basis.

The United States does not produce commercial quantities of Mo-99. Most of the Mo-99 supplied to the domestic market is produced abroad through fission using highly-enriched uranium (HEU) in a handful of research and test reactors. These foreign reactors (or, irradiators) are powered by HEU fuel and/or irradiate HEU targets, and acquire the several dozen kilograms of HEU required from either the United States or Russia. The facilities that process the targets after irradiation in order to extract Mo-99 (or, processors) also house waste containing HEU materials.

For over three decades, U.S. policy has aimed at minimizing the use of HEU in the civilian sphere because of purported proliferation and nuclear terrorism concerns. The U.S. government has worked with international partners to convert research reactors from HEU to low enriched uranium (LEU), shut down HEU-powered facilities, and secure HEU during transport, processing, and storage. More recently, the U.S. government has advocated replacing aging reactors that use HEU for Mo-99 production with new facilities that utilize LEU, or alternative Mo-99 production methods.

Between 2005 and 2010, lengthy irradiator outages and several other incidents caused severe shortages of Mo-99 for medical procedures worldwide, demonstrating the fragility of the radioisotope's supply chain. Moreover, a Canadian and a European reactor that have been mainstays of the medical isotope production fleet intend to shut down within the next decade. The Canadian reactor was scheduled to be shut down this year, but its life has been extended to 2018 because of a lack of medical isotope supply. Meanwhile, the global demand for Mo-99 for medical procedures is projected to continue to rise dramatically.


MO-99 AS "THE QUEEN MOTHER"

Discovered by two scientists at Lawrence Berkley National Laboratory in 1938, the Technetium-99 medical isotope (Tc-99m) is today the most widely used radioisotope in nuclear medicine. Introduced into the body of a patient, Tc-99m emits energy that can be observed through special cameras. It then rapidly decays, leaving no trace of its presence. The demand for Tc-99m, vital for non-invasive diagnostic procedures, is projected to rise steadily through 2030.

The use of Tc-99m became widespread in the 1960s, and initially, research and test reactors at U.S. national laboratories and universities provided enough Mo-99 to satisfy domestic demand. The Atomic Energy Commission, a predecessor of the Department of Energy (DOE), produced Mo-99 at Brookhaven and Oak Ridge National Laboratories. The University of Missouri Research Reactor (MURR) produced Mo-99 on a smaller scale starting in 1967. When demand outstripped supply, private industry stepped in to both produce and distribute Mo-99.

Private industry was the first to use HEU for Mo-99 production; earlier producers had relied on neutron absorption in molybdenum targets. In 1980, Cintichem, Inc. began to produce the medical isotope through neutron-induced fission reactions with HEU targets. This process allowed for more efficient recovery of Mo-99 than the previous techniques. However, the Cintichem, Inc. reactor in Tuxedo, New York was forced to shut down in 1989 due to tritium contamination concerns, ending all U.S. Mo-99 production.

In the 1990s, private industry in the United States "was not willing to assume the financial and regulatory risks associated with building and operating a new reactor facility." Cintichem, Inc. instead arranged for a Canadian company, Nordion, to supply Tc-99m generators to the U.S. market. The Mo-99 for these generators was produced at the Chalk River facility's NRU reactor that utilized HEU for both fuel (through 1993, when it converted to LEU fuel) and targets.

In response to security of supply concerns of U.S. isotope users, the DOE purchased the Cintichem, Inc. technology and then initiated studies of several potential Mo-99 irradiators, including reactors at Los Alamos and Sandia National Laboratories. Despite the conversion of a facility at Sandia for this purpose in 1999, the domestic production of Mo-99 was never initiated. The DOE also briefly funded a joint U.S.-Russian study on Mo-99 production that envisioned that U.S.-based company Technology Commercialization International (TCI) Medical would cooperate with Russia's Kurchatov Institute on developing an alternative production method using an aqueous homogenous reactor (AHR) fueled with uranyl nitrate for Mo-99 production.


Despite all of these efforts, the United States firmly relied on foreign producers, all using HEU, to supply its domestic Mo-99 needs by the end of the 1990s.

TECHNETIUM 99 PRODUCTION

The weekly delivery of Tc-99m/Mo-99 generators to hospitals hinges on the continuous operation of irradiators and processors, and a complex supply chain that relies on express shipments of radioactive cargo across borders. The shipments to, and within, the United States are carried out by passenger and cargo aircraft (and, less frequently, trucks). All aspects of these deliveries, from packaging to the carrier's transport routes, are guided by national and international regulations.

The Mo-99 production process begins with the advance supply of HEU fuel and targets to the irradiators (and target manufacturers) abroad. The United States and, less frequently, Russia have been the major suppliers of this HEU. Annually, approximately 45 kilograms of HEU are expended in Mo-99 production.

Mo-99 production process Source: TRIUMF, inspired by graphics from Nordion

A research and test reactor irradiates the targets for approximately seven days. The neutrons in the reactor bombard the targets, causing the split of U-235 atoms. The irradiated targets are then cooled and rushed to a processing facility. In hot cells at this facility the targets


are dissolved and the Mo-99 is recovered, then subsequently purified and made into a bulk Mo-99 solution. This processing takes up to a day to complete.

Because of the targets' relatively short irradiation time, more than 90% of the HEU remains in target waste after the completion of Mo-99 production. This waste is not considered to be "self-protecting" after a certain cooling period, which means that a would-be thief could handle it without risking immediate incapacitation. Target waste could also be converted into HEU metal to produce a gun-type nuclear explosive device. Because of this "proliferation-sensitivity," the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) outlines secure storage procedures for this waste.

After processing, the bulk Mo-99 is sent to companies that manufacture the Tc-99m/Mo-99 generators. The generators, which are essentially shielded cartridges containing Mo-99 solution adsorbed into an alumina column, are then rushed to nuclear pharmacies and hospitals. This urgency is necessary because the activity of Mo-99 begins to decline from the point at which irradiated targets are removed from a reactor, and continues its decrease through processing. Upon receiving the generator, a hospital can extract Tc-99m from the generator for about a week by passing saline through the alumina column.

Like any complex network, the production, processing, and delivery of Mo-99 may fail to work as planned. Between 2005 and 2010, a product recall at a major generator producer and lengthy reactor outages caused severe shortages of Mo-99 for medical procedures in the United States and elsewhere. These outages had a dramatic impact on the Mo-99 supply chain and have spurred the U.S. government and the international community into action.

THE U.S. MO-99 SUPPLY CHAIN

Through 2014, the U.S. supply chain's peculiar structure included five major reactors, four major processors, and two generator manufacturers. The irradiators, all using HEU targets and some also using HEU fuel, were spread across three different continents. They included Canada's NRU, Belgium's BR-2, France's OSIRIS, the HRF in the Netherlands, and South Africa's SAFARI. The processors included Canada's MDS Nordion, Belgium's IRE, Covidien (known as Mallinckrodt) in the Netherlands, and South Africa's NTP. The international companies Covidien (Mallinckrodt) and Lantheus manufactured the Tc-99m/Mo-99 generators and supplied them to hospitals.


The cascading failures in the supply chain began in 2005. That year, Mallinckrodt halted its production of generators due to a product recall, triggering a shortage that lasted through April 2006. In November 2007, the NRU shut down for over a month and the HFR followed with an extensive outage between August 2008 and February 2009. During this time, an IRE processing facility was also shut down briefly because of an industrial accident. The worst of the outages, however, began when Canada's NRU shut down in January 2009. This shutdown took place through August 2010 and coincided with maintenance of the HRF.

Combined, these events triggered massive supply disruptions, initially forcing hospitals to ration care and cancel procedures. Eventually, hospitals found ways to cope with the shortages by scheduling procedures more efficiently, reducing patient doses of Tc-99m, and increasing the use of alternative imaging modalities such as PET.

Current U.S. Mo-99 supply chain

Producers also began to better coordinate supplies. For example, when one reactor shut down for maintenance, others filled its orders. Additional irradiator capacity also came online.


Of the eight large-scale irradiators currently online, three are newcomers: Poland's MARIA reactor (currently converting to LEU and utilizing HEU targets processed by Covidien); the LVR-15 reactor in the Czech Republic (recently converted to LEU fuel and using HEU targets also processed by Covidien); and Australia's OPAL (using LEU for both fuel and targets, and relying on target processing provided by ANSTO).

However, these new irradiators offer only a short-term solution. The NRU and the OSIRIS reactors are expected to shut down within the next five years. The need to deal with the possible supply fallout of these pending closures has forced the United States to actively support the establishment of new Mo-99 producers, efforts in turn tailored to support the longstanding U.S. goal of civilian HEU minimization, both at home and for export to foreign reactors.

TECTONIC SHIFTS

Since 1978, the United States has worked to minimize the amount of HEU in civilian use. These efforts have included the conversion of HEU-powered research and test reactors to low-enriched uranium (LEU), the repatriation of fresh HEU fuel and irradiated HEU in waste, the consolidation of HEU at fewer sites, and security improvements to facilities housing these materials. And for over two decades, there was some focus on the conversion of LEU targets in Mo-99, a complicated project because of differences in target design and processing techniques worldwide.

In 1992, Congress passed the Schumer Amendment to curb U.S. HEU exports to foreign research reactors, including those for Mo-99 production. This amendment placed several conditions, including a commitment by producers to convert to LEU fuel and targets, on any continued U.S. exports of HEU. But supply security concerns precipitated a shift in Congressional priorities. In 2005, Congress passed the Burr Amendment exempting Canadian and European irradiators from Schumer's strictures and calling for a National Academy of Sciences study to de-conflict the two goals.

Prior to 2011, executive policy had shown greater consistency than Congressional policy. A longstanding DOE National Nuclear Security Administration's (NNSA) program has promoted technical cooperation among reactor operators worldwide, scientists in U.S. national laboratories, and IAEA experts. As part of these efforts (consolidated under the Global Threat Reduction Initiative in 2004), many research and test reactors (including the NRU) converted to the use of LEU fuel, some Mo-99-producing reactors (such as the SAFARI) converted to LEU fuel and targets, and new LEU-based irradiators (such as the OPAL) came online.


In 2009, the National Academy of Sciences finally released the report requested under the Burr Amendment. This study concluded that, there were "no technical reasons that adequate quantities cannot be produced from LEU targets in the future" and that LEU target use was feasible with an acceptable cost increase. The report also recommended that the Mo-99 producers, the DOE, the Department of State, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), and the U.S. Congress actively move toward the conversion of Mo-99 production away from HEU use.

The NAS report fit well with President Barack Obama's 2009 call to secure all of the world's vulnerable nuclear materials within four years. NNSA accelerated its nuclear security efforts and adopted a two-track strategy for Mo-99 production. The first track promoted the development of sufficient HEU-free indigenous production to supply the U.S. market by 2016, helping to finance the research and development (R&D) stage of four domestic private industry Mo-99 projects. The second track aimed to boost foreign HEU-free Mo-99 production and to promote the goal of eliminating HEU-based Mo-99 production through cooperation with international organizations and high-level diplomatic meetings, such as the Nuclear Security Summit.

THE TWO TRACK APPROACH TO MO-99 PRODUCTION

The official policy of the U.S. government seeks to "end subsidies and establish an

economically-sound industry" producing Mo-99 in the United States. Since 2009, the NNSA has supported the development of four private industry projects utilizing a variety of technologies. The financial support for each varies, but is limited to $25 million, and involves a 50/50 cost-sharing agreement with the DOE as well as technical assistance from the U.S. national laboratories.

The NNSA has concluded cooperative agreements with General Electric-Hitachi (GEH); Babcock and Wilcox (B&W); NorthStar Medical Radioisotopes, LLC; and SHINE/Morgridge Institute for Research (MIR), with two of the projects currently underway. In February 2012 GEH suspended its project due to concerns about market conditions, but also noted that it may reevaluate this decision.

Two projects outside the NNSA cooperative agreements, by Coqui RadioPharmaceuticals Corp. and American Medical Isotope Corporation (AMIC), are seeking investors and expect to go through the regulatory approval process. (See the following table of domestic producers.)


TABLE OF POTENTIAL IRRADIATORS IN THE UNITED STATES

The future of all of these projects remains uncertain . Each will need to acquire and sustain funding as its technology and product undergoes the approvals processes of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission and the Food and Drug Administration. Because the projects


do not turn a profit until they begin supplying customers with Mo-99, U.S. government support for market entry has been critical. There are, however, medium-term uncertainties about the projects' competitive viability after government subsidies end.

The NNSA has also sought to increase the supply of foreign HEU-free isotopes on the U.S. market until domestic production is established. The NNSA announced in 2010 its financial and regulatory support for a consortium of producers from South Africa and Australia to supply LEU-based Mo-99 to the United States. This consortium has, at times, supplied as much as a third of the Mo-99 market for diagnostic procedures in the United States (when other major reactors have been shut down). The NNSA has also worked with the IAEA to develop small-scale regional production capabilities based on alternative technologies in Eastern Europe, Latin America, and elsewhere, and used its control over HEU supplies to persuade European producers to commit to conversion.

The Nuclear Security Summit process has been critical in promoting action on the challenge of minimizing civilian HEU. At the 2012 Summit, European Mo-99 producers pledged to convert to non-HEU processes in return for continued shipments of U.S. HEU until conversion is completed. In addition, the United States, Belgium, France, and the Netherlands also announced a study to facilitate the development of high-density LEU fuel and target material to make conversion more economical.

CHALLENGES OF HEU-FREE MO-99 PRODUCTION

Established HEU-based producers have argued that conversion to the use of LEU targets is uneconomical given existing technologies and could also "leave them at a competitive disadvantage relative to producers who refused to convert." If LEU were simply substituted for HEU in existing HEU target designs, the process would produce less Mo-99 per target. Therefore, producers who converted to LEU have generally had to irradiate and process a much greater number of targets and cope with a much greater volume of nuclear waste.

Resolving these issues involves substantial up-front investments and, the established producers posit, raises production costs. The newer higher-density targets under development aim to end this discrepancy, but they are not anticipated to become available for commercial use for several years (and likely after the 2015 conversion date currently set for European Mo-99 producers.)


The difficulties faced by established producers pale in comparison, however, with the economic challenges faced by new producers. Established producers use facilities and equipment constructed and purchased by their governments decades ago. Government subsidies for costs related to capital replacement and waste disposition, among others, have enabled established producers to undervalue irradiation services and pass subsidy-derived cost savings along to consumers.

Washington and the OECD's Nuclear Energy Agency have sought to make the market more transparent and competitive by implementing "full cost recovery." If successfully implemented, this approach would force established HEU-based producers to raise their prices in order to account for government subsidies.

Both new and established producers also face regulatory barriers to HEU-free production. When a producer successfully converts to LEU, it faces re-certification costs. For example, the South African producer NECSA has noted that delays in licensing by European and other governments have slowed down its conversion process by two years. The transition to LEU-based Mo-99 must therefore be gradual in order to preserve producers' existing market shares.

A more problematic layer of competition involves new market entrants that intend to use HEU, notably in Russia. The introduction of these actors to the market—before established producers complete conversion and before new market entrants begin production—has the potential to negatively impact the emerging HEU-free Mo-99 industry.

PREFERENTIAL TREATMENT OF HEU-FREE MO-99

Faced with the looming shutdown of its NRU reactor and lacking alternative irradiation

capacity in Canada, MDS Nordion has turned to a cooperative venture with Russia's RIAR in order to retain its market share in the United States. This venture, JSC Isotope, plans to utilize HEU fuel and targets for Mo-99 production at the RIAR reactors in Dimitrovgrad. The Russian facility expected to initiate production in 2013 and more than double it by 2015.

In May 2011, U.S. representatives Edward Markey and Jeff Fortenberry expressed concerns in a letter to the DOE regarding the use by MDS Nordion of Russia's HEU to produce


Mo-99 for the U.S. market, but these concerns were not followed up with legislative action at that time.

A January 2012 letter to these lawmakers signed by public health and nuclear experts called on Congress to enact a "preferential procurement" clause that would include provisions to "halt the import of HEU-based versions of these isotopes when a sufficient supply of the alternatives is available," a "requirement for U.S. health authorities to terminate authorization for use of HEU- based versions when a sufficient supply of the alternatives is available," and the "imposition of a tax on HEU-based versions of these isotopes, channeling any resulting revenue to support production without HEU."

MDS Nordion has been completing quality tests of the Russian-sourced Mo-99. In order to enter the U.S. market, this radioisotope must be certified by the U.S. FDA. Recently, Russian officials have noted the possibility of converting to LEU targets but they have not committed to converting the targets or the RIAR reactors to LEU or using "full cost recovery."

Meanwhile, the U.S. government is working to make "preferential procurement" a reality. In June 2012, the White House announced that it was committed to eliminating the use of HEU in medical isotopes while assuring the reliability of supply. In order to achieve these goals, official U.S. policy would encourage the purchase of HEU-free Mo-99 at home and abroad, phase out HEU exports when sufficient quantities of non-HEU Mo-99 became available, and continue to support domestic production and foreign producers' conversions.

Washington also called on industry to develop labeling that would allow users to distinguish between LEU- and HEU-based Mo-99 and unveiled other incentives aimed at isotope users. In July 2012, the White House proposed a new Health and Human Services department regulation that would incentivize medical facilities to use HEU-free Mo-99 by paying an additional $10 for each procedure performed on Medicare and Medicaid patients using HEU-freeMo-99.

FUTURE OF MEDICAL ISOTOPE PRODUCTION

In June 2012, the Obama Administration announced "the United States is committed to

eliminating the use of HEU in all civilian applications because of its direct significance for potential use in nuclear weapons, acts of nuclear terrorism, or other malevolent purposes."


Toward this end, focused efforts on eliminating HEU from Mo-99 production are an important step in promoting the security and well being of publics in the United States and worldwide.

The leadership of key countries, and especially those involved in conversion or new HEU-free production, has been essential in building the emerging HEU-free Mo-99 production consensus. This international commitment could be further strengthened through continued rigorous technical cooperation and high-level dialogues such as the Nuclear Security Summit. If global conversion to LEU is to take place, other countries will also need to use their power as Mo-99 consumers and health regulators to help shape demand for HEU-free radioisotopes through, for example, incentives and speedy licensing processes. Russia's recent hints that it may convert to LEU targets suggest it is reconsidering policy in response to the emerging international consensus against the use of HEU.

Recent radioisotope shortages have highlighted the importance of pursuing nuclear security objectives in a manner that aids supply security rather than undermines it. The role of government incentives for private industry aimed at restructuring the domestic Mo-99 market has been critical to mitigating future shortages. But it remains to be seen whether one or more of the HEU-free producers will succeed in passing all regulatory hurdles, achieving full cost recovery, and actually beginning to supply Mo-99 to hospitals. It is also too soon to know whether user-based incentives will yield the desired outcomes. At the international level, OECD NEA studies have argued in favor of leveling the playing field for new Mo-99 producers as well as the creation of a reserve capacity that would be "transparent and verifiable to ensure trust" for all.

Despite substantial progress to date, success in balancing supply and security concerns has been inadequate in producing a supply of medical isotopes capable of eliminating foreign importation. A "rosy" scenario depicts a future with an abundance of Mo-99, all of which is produced without the use of weapons-grade materials. However, a worst-case scenario still involves a world with shortages of Mo-99 that continues to rely on exports of nuclear weapons-suitable materials. Thus, finding a timely solution to the dual challenge of making the Mo-99 supply chain reliable and HEU-free is critical.

On January 2, 2013, as part of the National Defense Authorization Act for fiscal year 2013,

President Obama signed into law the American Medical Isotope Production Act of 2011 (S. 99). The law was to establish a technology-neutral program to support the production of Mo-99 for medical


uses in the United States by non-federal entities. It also called for the United States to phase out the export of highly enriched uranium for the production of medical isotopes over a period of seven years [thus by 2020]. Frederic H. Fahey, DSc, president of the Society of Nuclear Medicine and Molecular Imaging (SNMMI), stated, “In order for our patients to receive the best medical care, it’s essential that a reliable supply of Mo-99 be available in the United States. We greatly appreciate [the bill’s sponsors’] efforts in seeing this bill come to fruition.”

However, although the bill became law over two years ago, we still do not have an adequate supply of Mo-99.

MOLYBDENUM-99 RESEARCH REACTORS

Six small Molten Salt Research Reactors (MSRs) can produce all of the medical isotopes for North America, Central America, and South America from a facility based in Sandusky, Ohio. Such a facility would create more than 8,000 jobs and would support the construction of a runway used for the distribution of medical isotopes by air transport. Additionally, such research reactors could pave the way for a full-scale reactor that would one day replace the electricity production that will be lost with the 2037 shutdown of the aging Davis-Besse Nuclear Power Plant located in Oak Harbor, Ohio.


NASA’S ISOTOPE CRISIS: PLUTONIUM-238

In 1977, The Voyager 1 spacecraft left Earth on a five-year mission to explore Jupiter and Saturn. Thirty-six years later, the car-size probe is still exploring, still sending its findings home. It has now put more than 19 billion kilometers between itself and the sun. Voyager 1 has become the first man-made object to reach interstellar space.

The distance this craft has covered is almost incomprehensible. It’s so far away that it takes more than 17 hours for its signals to reach Earth. Along the way, Voyager I gave scientists their first close-up looks at Saturn, took the first images of Jupiter’s rings, discovered many of the moons circling those planets and revealed that Jupiter’s moon Io has active volcanoes. Now the spacecraft is discovering what the edge of the solar system is like, piercing the heliosheath where the last vestiges of the sun’s influence are felt and traversing the heliopause where cosmic currents overcome the solar wind. Voyager I is expected to keep working until 2025 when it will finally run out of power.

None of this would be possible without the spacecraft’s three batteries (Radioisotope Thermoelectric Generator) filled with plutonium-238. (This is not the material used to make bombs. That is plutonium-239). In fact, most of what humanity knows about the outer planets came back to Earth on plutonium power. Cassini’s ongoing exploration of Saturn, Galileo’s trip to Jupiter, Curiosity’s exploration of the surface of Mars, and the 2015 flyby of Pluto by the New Horizons spacecraft are all fueled by the plutonim-238 isotope. The characteristics of this metal’s radioactive decay make it a super-fuel. Most importantly, there is no other viable power option for deep space probes. Solar power is too weak at those vast distances from the Sun, chemical batteries don’t last, nuclear fission systems are too heavy. So, we depend on plutonium-238, a fuel largely acquired as by-product of making nuclear weapons. And therein lies the problem.

We have enough plutonium-238 to last to the end of this decade. There is no more. And it’s not just the U.S. reserves that are in jeopardy. The entire planet’s stores of plutonium-238 are nearly depleted.

PLUTONIUM-238 IS VITAL TO NASA’S SPACE EXPLORATION

The country’s scientific stockpile of plutonium-238 has dwindled to around 36 pounds. To put that in perspective, the battery that powers NASA’s Curiosity rover, which is studying


the surface of Mars, contains roughly 10 pounds of plutonium-238, and what’s left in our stockpile has already been spoken for, and then some. The implications for space exploration are dire: No more plutonium-238 means not exploring perhaps 99 percent of the solar system. In effect, much of NASA’s $1.5 billion-a-year (and shrinking) planetary science program is running out of fuel and time. This nuclear crisis is so bad that affected researchers know it simply as “The Problem.”

It doesn’t have to be that way. The required materials, reactors, and infrastructure are all in place to create plutonium-238 (which, unlike plutonium-239, is practically impossible to use for a nuclear bomb). In fact, the U.S. government has approved spending about $20 million per year to reconstitute production capabilities the nation shuttered almost two decades ago. The DOE has even produced a tiny amount of fresh plutonium-238 inside the High Flux Isotope Reactor (HFIR) at Oak Ridge National Laboratory.

It’s a good start, but the crisis is far from solved. Political shortsightedness and squabbling, along with false promises from Russia, and penny-wise management of NASA’s ever-thinning budget still stand in the way of a robust plutonium-238 production system. The result: Meaningful exploration of the solar system has been pushed to a cliff’s edge. One ambitious space mission could deplete remaining plutonium stockpiles, and any hiccup in a future supply chain could undermine future missions.

The only natural supplies of plutonium-238 vanished eons before the Earth formed, some 4.6 billion years ago. Exploding stars forge the silvery metal, but its half-life, or time required for 50 percent to disappear through decay, is just under 88 years.

Like other radioactive materials, plutonium-238 decays because its atomic structure is unstable. When an atom’s nucleus spontaneously decays, it fires off a helium core at high speed, while leaving behind a uranium atom. These helium bullets, called alpha radiation, collide en masse with nearby atoms within a lump of plutonium — a material twice as dense as lead. The energy can cook a puck of plutonium-238 to nearly 1,260 degrees Celsius. To turn that into usable power, the puck is wrapped with thermoelectrics that convert heat to electricity. Voila: A battery that can power a spacecraft for decades.

Fortunately for us, John Birden and Ken Jordan, working at Monsanto’s Mound Laboratory, in Miamisburg, Ohio, in the 1950’s developed the Radioisotope Thermoelectric Generator (RTG), a self-contained power source that obtains its power from the radioactive decay of plutonium-238. Mound-fueled RTGs were patented in 1959 and have powered most of the spacecraft and planetary probes the United States has launched into deep space, where the


sun’s intensity is not sufficient to generate electricity with solar cells. These space projects included electrical power for the instruments placed on the Moon by Apollo astronauts (SNAP or Systems for Nuclear Auxiliary Power), Pioneer (planetary exploration), Voyager (study of the planetary systems of Jupiter and Saturn), Viking (Mars surface), Ulysses (exploration of the Sun), Galileo (exploration of Jupiter and its moons) and Cassini (exploration of Saturn and its moons).

U.S. production of plutonium-238 came primarily from two nuclear laboratories as a byproduct of making bomb-grade plutonium-239. The Hanford Site in Washington state left the plutonium-238 mixed into a cocktail of nuclear wastes. The Savannah River Site in South Carolina, however, extracted and refined more than 360 pounds during the Cold War to power espionage tools, spy satellites, and dozens of NASA’s pluckiest spacecraft.

By 1988, with the fall of the Soviet Union only three years in the future, the U.S. and Russia began to dismantle wartime nuclear facilities. Hanford and Savannah River no longer produced any plutonium-238. But Russia continued to harvest the material by processing nuclear reactor fuel at a nuclear industrial complex called Mayak. The Russians sold their first batch, weighing 36 pounds, to the U.S. in 1993 for more than $45,000 per ounce. Russia had become the planet’s sole supplier, but it soon fell behind on orders. In 2009, it reneged on a deal to sell 22 pounds to the U.S.

Whether or not Russia has any material left or can still create some is uncertain. What we do know is that they’re not willing to sell it anymore.

By 2005, according to a Department of Energy report , the U.S. government owned 87 pounds, of which roughly two-thirds was designated for national security projects, likely to power deep-sea espionage hardware. The DOE will not disclose what is left today, but scientists close to the issue say just 36 pounds remain earmarked for NASA.

That’s enough for the space agency to launch a few small deep-space missions before 2020. A twin of the Curiosity rover is planned to lift off for Mars in 2020 and will require nearly a third of the stockpile. After that, NASA’s interstellar exploration program is left staring into a void — especially for high-profile, plutonium-hungry missions, like the proposed Jupiter Europa Orbiter. To seek signs of life around Jupiter’s icy moon Europa, such a spacecraft could require more than 47 pounds of plutonium.

Many of the eight deep-space robotic missions that NASA had envisioned over the next 15 years have already been delayed or canceled. Even more missions — some not yet even formally proposed — are silent casualties of NASA’s plutonium-238 poverty. Since 1994,


scientists have pleaded with lawmakers for the money to restart production. The DOE believes a relatively modest $10 to 20 million in funding each year through 2020 could yield an operation capable of making between 3.3 and 11 pounds of plutonium-238 annually — plenty to keep a steady stream of spacecraft in business.

In 2012, a line item in NASA’s $17-billion budget fed $10 million in funding toward an experiment to create a tiny amount of plutonium-238. The goals: gauge how much could be made, estimate full-scale production costs, and simply prove the U.S. could pull it off again. It was half of the money requested by NASA and the DOE, the space agency’s partner in the endeavor (the Atomic Energy Act forbids NASA to manufacture plutonium-238). The experiment may last seven more years and cost between $85 and $125 million.

A fully reconstituted plutonium program described in the DOE’s latest plan, would also utilize a second reactor west of Idaho Falls, called the Advanced Test Reactor.

NASA’S STIRLING RADIOSIOTOPE GENERATOR

At NASA Glenn Research Center in Cleveland, Ohio, metal cages and transparent plastic boxes house a menagerie of humming devices. Many look like stainless-steel barbells about a meter long and riddled with wires; others resemble white crates the size of two-drawer filing cabinets.

The unpretentious machines are prototypes of NASA’s next-generation nuclear power system, called the Advanced Stirling Radioisotope Generator. It’s shaping up to be a radically different, more efficient nuclear battery than any before it.

On the outside, the machines are motionless. Inside is a flurry of heat-powered motion driven by the Stirling cycle, developed in 1816 by the Scottish clergyman Robert Stirling. Gasoline engines burn fuel to rapidly expand air that pushes pistons, but Stirling converters need only a heat gradient. The greater the difference between a Stirling engine’s hot and cold parts, the faster its pistons hum. When heat warms one end of a sealed chamber containing helium, the gas expands, pushing a magnet-laden piston through a tube of coiled wire to generate electricity. The displaced, cooling gas then moves back to the hot side, sucking the piston backward to restart the cycle.


“Nothing is touching anything. That’s the whole beauty of the converter,” said Lee Mason, one of several NASA engineers crowded into the basement. Their pistons float like air hockey pucks on the cycling helium gas.

NASA AND A RADIOSISOTOPE PRODUCTION FACILITY

Abundant and valuable Molybdenum-99 and Plutonium-238 radioisotopes could be provided as a consequence of producing electricity with small multipurpose liquid-fueled Molten Salt Reactors (MSRs). A fleet of as few as three 1GW(th) MSRs could produce all needed Plutonium-238 requirements. This enterprising means would satisfy high-priority national production and nonproliferation goals consistent with global threat reduction. It would conform to Congressional legislation requiring domestic, affordable, and proliferation-resistant radioisotope supplies for medical use, as well as meet increasing requirements having national-security and space exploration applications. Even a single 10-100 MW(th) reactor, based on proven American technology, would fulfill growing deficiencies at a profit.

Compared to other reactors and to accelerators, an MSR is demonstrably the most efficient means of production: Fuel preparation is minimal; no solid-fuel or target fabrication is required; and nearly 100% duty cycle is achievable for irradiation and maximum efficiency in product extraction.

Alternative technologies are much less efficient and much more expensive per gram of isotope produced. Accelerators and accelerator-driven sub-critical reactors have inherent foil or sample irradiation target-density limitations; nevertheless, they have an indispensable and complementary role in producing other rare isotopes.

The MSR would yield two-to-three orders of magnitude higher radioisotope yield, with a smaller fissile loading, minimal cost, rapid production time, high efficiency, and for each curie of Mo-99 generated in a liquid-fueled reactor, there is less uranium waste (by a factor of about 100) compared to yields from foil irradiation or solid-fuel reactors. All processes related to fabrication, irradiation, disassembly, and dissolution of solid-target foils are eliminated; therefore, radioactive waste management for the MSR is straightforward and less expensive, with comparatively low capital outlays and operating costs.

A domestically-built MSR would offer several other important benefits: high capacity and timely availability (five years or so, if given government priority and siting). It could have comparatively low construction cost, reduce government funding for national-security isotopes,


and yield net income for the government and the facility operator, while not itself contributing to proliferation concerns.

Methods that do not involve fluidized-fuel reactors are necessarily much less efficient and much-more costly per unit of radioisotope produced, even taking into account amortized cost. Liquid-fueled reactor systems would minimize or eventually eliminate the need for proliferation-susceptible, highly-enriched fissile targets.

Product yields of radioisotopes in solid-fuel reactors are limited by the means by which fission products can be extracted in a timely manner.

Irradiation of uranium foils or fuel in nuclear-reactors, while the predominant means currently in use, is highly inefficient because of interim decay (loss of product) during removal and processing cycles.

Accelerator generation is another order-of-magnitude less efficient because of the comparatively weak flux of neutrons. Accelerator-driven sub-critical reactors, lacking continuous processing of circulated solutions, would still have low yield. Accelerator-driven solution reactors might be better, but never as productive as the MSR.

All alternatives, however, potentially have useful and convenient roles for some specialized rare radioisotope creation.


Davis-Besse Nuclear Power Plant

THE IMPACT OF DAVIS-BESSE NUCLEAR POWER PLANT

The Davis-Besse Nuclear Power Station (Davis-Besse), located in Oak Harbor, Ohio, has been a vital part of Ohio’s energy portfolio, providing 100 percent carbon-free electricity since it began commercial operation in 1978. In addition to the reliable, emission-free electricity that the station generates and the jobs and economic stimulus it provides, the plant’s involvement in the local communities makes Davis-Besse a significant economic contributor to the region and Ohio.

Davis-Besse employs about 700 full-time workers and is one of the largest and highest-paying employers in Ottawa County. The annual payroll is more than $60 million (excluding benefits). Most jobs at nuclear power plants require technical training and are typically among the highest-paying jobs in the areas in which they are located. Nationwide, nuclear energy jobs pay 36 percent more than average salaries in a plant’s local area.

In 2013, Davis-Besse’s operation prevented the emission of 7.1 million metric tons of carbon dioxide that would otherwise have been produced by fossil fuel electric generation plants. This is about the same amount released by more than 1.4 million cars each year. Overall,


Ohio’s electric sector emits more than 100 million metric tons of carbon dioxide annually. Davis-Besse also prevents the emissions of more than 6,200 tons of nitrogen oxide, equivalent to that released by nearly 325,000 cars, and 17,000 tons of sulfur dioxide. Sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxide are precursors to acid rain and urban smog.

Perhaps the best way to appreciate the value of Davis-Besse is to examine what will happen when it is gone. When the Kewaunee nuclear power facility in Wisconsin closed in 2013, Kewaunee County lost 15 percent of its employment and 30 percent of its revenue — in addition to 556 megawatts of reliable, affordable electricity. In California, 1,500 jobs were lost when two reactors at the San Onofre nuclear facility were closed. Recent analysis shows that California’s carbon dioxide emissions then increased by more than 35 percent, due in large part to the closure of the two reactors and replacing their energy with power from fossil fuel plants.

When a productive facility ceases operations, the economic loss effects local, state areas, and the nation, for decades. A nuclear power plant shutdown has a greater economic impact than merely loss of its operation. These greater impacts are primarily due to the migration of workers and families away from the area in search of new jobs.

A Nuclear Energy Institute (NEI) report shows that in Year 1 after Davis-Besse is shut down, the lost output in Ohio would be $1.3 billion. The losses increase each year until Year 3, when the lost output peaks at $1.5 billion for the state. Over that period, Ottawa County and the surrounding Ohio economies (including Erie, Lucas, Seneca, and Huron Counties) would shrink because of lost output that cascades across virtually all sectors, taking years to filter completely through the economy.

Davis-Besse’s operating license is due to expire in 2017, and it is expected that the nuclear power plant will be approved for a 20 year extended license. It is doubtful if the power generator will operate beyond 2037, so there should be a transition plan in place now to deal with either replacing Davis-Besse or coping with the loss of nearly $800 million in annual economic activity.

Davis-Besse’s transmission lines actually traverse a site that was once home to a nuclear reactor, NASA Glenn’s 6,400 acre Plum Brook Station in Sandusky, Ohio. Plum Brook is the field laboratory of NASA Glenn Research Center. Five world-class test facilities (Space Power Facility, Spacecraft Propulsion Research Facility, Cryogenic Propellant Tank Facility, Cryogenic Components Laboratory, and it’s Hypersonic Tunnel Facility) are available to customers to test mission critical components, assemblies, and a multitude of aerospace and industrial projects.


Could NASA Plum Brook be a replacement site for Davis-Besse in 2037? The fact that it was once licensed for a nuclear reactor may make obtaining a new site license potentially less difficult and costly. The licensing process for a traditional light water reactor similar to Davis-Besse can take 20 years or more. If there is any intention to replace Davis-Besse with its same technology, business leaders and legislators need to start that process now.

This document lays a more ambitious, yet practical path, to leverage Ohio’s nuclear heritage, expertise, and drive for technological innovation, together with Ohio’s various research centers and programs such as the Ohio Third Frontier program, to develop a better fourth generation reactor.

The United States, and Ohio in particular, can and should lead the world in this endeavor. We should lead, rather than follow, India, Russia, and China in the development of newer and safer nuclear technology.

While there is always a patriotic reason to lead in any field of endeavor, there is a sound business case for Ohio to do so in the short-term and the long term. Our failure to act could have dire economic consequences for the State of Ohio and the United States, both for our economy and for our national security.


A HISTORY OF OHIO’S NUCLEAR HERITAGE

NASA Plum Brook Station: NASA turned on its first, last, and only nuclear fission test reactors in 1961 to research nuclear-powered airplanes (the Aircraft Nuclear Propulsion (ANP) program and the Nuclear Energy for Propulsion of Aircraft (NEPA) program). Research then turned to nuclear-powered space rockets. But the mounting cost of the Vietnam War and waning interest in manned space exploration led President Richard Nixon to mothball the NASA Plum Brook Station’s two test reactors in 1973.

Battelle Memorial Institute: Built in 1954, Battelle’s West Jefferson, Ohio facility housed the first scale nuclear reactor ever owned by a private organization. Battelle became best known for its nuclear research because of its role in the Manhattan Project during WWII, the program to build the first atomic bombs. The Institute also provided the U.S. military with improved lighter and stronger armor for tanks and other military vehicles. Battelle scientists developed fuel for the U.S. Navy's first nuclear-powered submarine, the Nautilus, in 1949. Battelle was envisioned by Congress to develop the nuclear fuel for the ANP and NEPA projects.

Today, Battelle is the world’s largest nonprofit research and development organization, with over 22,000 employees at more than 60 locations globally. Battelle manages the world’s leading national laboratories (including America’s premier nuclear energy research laboratory: Oak Ridge National Laboratory) and maintains a contract


research portfolio of expertise spanning consumer and industrial, energy and environment, health and pharmaceutical, and national security. Coincidentally, this NASA Plum Brook Economic Development Proposal touches upon every aspect of Battelle’s expertise, making the Institute a prime candidate to manage this project when it comes to fruition.

Wright Patterson AFB: The Air Force Nuclear Engineering Center at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base today consists of a decommissioned nuclear reactor entombed in concrete.

The Nuclear Engineering Center was conceived in the mid 1950’s as an in-house research & development facility for engineering testing of components and assemblies for envisioned intercontinental range, nuclear propelled Air Force aircraft. Congress envisioned the Center as developing the nuclear powered jet engines, and to provide maintenance to a future nuclear bomber fleet that potentially might have been based at Wright Patterson.

Construction of the research reactor at Wright-Patterson was initiated in 1958. By the time the Air force accepted the building in 1960, the Air Force had terminated its nuclear powered aircraft engine development program in favor of aerial refueling, but elected to pursue other nuclear research at the center. Funding constraints prevented completion of the project for several more years. In July 1963, the Air Force continued construction of the facility, and it was completed in April, 1965. The reactor was checked out over a two-year period in preparation for full operational support of Air Force research. At the beginning of this development period, the facility was transferred from the Air Force Flight Dynamics Laboratory (under Air Force Systems Command) to the Air Force Institute of Technology (under Air University). The Secretary of the Air Force approved the AF Nuclear Engineering Center as an educational tool for nuclear experiments operating under AFIT.

The reactor operated for five years before it was approved for deactivation in 1970 due to high operating costs. On June 12, 1970 the center's nuclear reactor was operated for the last time. At 1:30 p.m. that afternoon the fission process in the core was terminated and the last experiment accomplished at the facility was withdrawn from the experiment cavity. It marked the end of a long series of experimental research in such scientific disciplines as activation analysis, radio-chemistry, neutron radiography, radiation effects studies, isotope productions, neutron diffractions and biomedicine.


Mound Laboratory: Construction of the Mound Laboratory site near Dayton began in 1946, under the Manhattan Engineering District of the War Department. Completion of the site, and the start up of production of polonium initiators began under the Atomic Energy Commission. The site became operational in 1949. Mound was the nation’s first post-war Atomic Energy Commission site to be constructed.

In a nuclear weapon, polonium provides a catalyst for the reaction that detonates the plutonium. The plutonium itself will not initiate the chain reaction necessary to achieve detonation. It requires a neutron source that gives off neutrons faster than the plutonium. In earlier nuclear weapons, the initiator was a beryllium metal and polonium mixture where the polonium gave off alpha particles that irradiated the beryllium. Irradiated beryllium gives off the necessary neutrons to initiate the chain reaction in the plutonium.

As indicated in War Department and early Atomic Energy Commission (AEC) documents, Mound was established to consolidate and continue the polonium-related work. Congress envisioned Mound Laboratory as being necessary to actively service nuclear warheads carried by a new fleet of nuclear bombers. Because of polonium’s relative short half-life, the AEC realized it would be necessary to change the polonium in the initiators frequently. Because of this, the AEC began exploring alternate fuels for the initiator. One element of interest was actinium-227. In response to this interest, the AEC charged Mound with activities related to the development and research in actinium. Work at Mound evolved and grew to include additional radionuclides (e.g., radium and actinium, thorium, plutonium), research in and the manufacture of explosives for initiators in weapons, development of radio isotopic thermoelectric generators, and other non-nuclear research and development activities.

Piketon, Ohio (Portsmouth) Gaseous Diffusion Uranium Enrichment Plant: The Portsmouth Gaseous Diffusion Plant was constructed by the United States Atomic Energy Commission to provide enriched uranium for the nation’s nuclear defense system, and later for use in commercial nuclear power reactors. The plant enriched uranium from 1954 until 2001 through a process called gaseous diffusion. The 3,700-acre site in southern Ohio is currently owned and managed by the U.S. Department of Energy (DoE). This plant was the last American owned Uranium Enrichment facility. To date, no American company, or the United States Government, owns an operational uranium enrichment facility.


The gaseous diffusion process is no longer operational, and the DoE is conducting an extensive environmental cleanup of the Piketon site. A small number of inactive facilities have been removed, and remaining structures, including the gaseous diffusion process buildings and support facilities, are being considered for demolition through a project called Decontamination and Decommissioning (D&D).

In 1992, the Energy Policy Act of 1992 created the United States Enrichment Corporation, a government corporation, out of the U.S. Department of Energy’s Uranium Enrichment Enterprise with plans to privatize the government’s uranium enrichment organization. The new government corporation began operations in July 1993.

The U.S. government sold the United States Enrichment Corporation in an initial public offering in 1998, and USEC Inc., a private investor-owned company, began trading on the New York Stock Exchange. Proceeds from the sale provided more than $3 billion to the U.S. Treasury.

After a financial restructuring in 2014, USEC Inc. re-emerged as Centrus Energy Corp. The United States Enrichment Corporation remains as one of Centrus’ subsidiaries and continues serving customers.

As an investor-owned company, Centrus continues a 50-year tradition of reliability: all customer shipments have been made on time and within specification.

Since 2002, Centrus has been developing and demonstrating a highly efficient uranium enrichment gas centrifuge technology called the American Centrifuge. Centrus is working to deploy this technology in its American Centrifuge Plant, an advanced uranium enrichment facility in Piketon, Ohio, which will produce low enriched uranium, a key component for the fabrication of commercial nuclear fuel. The American Centrifuge Plant’s capacity will be equal to about one-fourth of the fuel requirements of the commercial power reactors in the United States, which provide approximately 20% of the U.S. electricity supply today. As the only domestic enrichment facility using U.S. technology, the American Centrifuge Plant will be critical to the long-term energy security and national security interests of the United States.

The American Centrifuge Plant will utilize Centrus’ AC100 centrifuge machine, which has been developed, engineered and manufactured in the United States. The AC100 design is a disciplined evolution of classified U.S. centrifuge technology originally developed by the U.S. Department of Energy (DoE) and successfully demonstrated during the 1980s. The DoE invested $3 billion over 10 years to develop the centrifuge technology,


built approximately 1,500 machines, and accumulated more than 10 million machine hours of run time.

Centrus has improved the DoE technology through use of advanced materials, updated electronics and design enhancements based on highly advanced computer modeling capabilities. Due to these improvements, the AC100 can produce four times the output per machine of any other centrifuge in existence today. Centrus has operated centrifuges for more than 2.1 million machine hours in demonstration cascades since August 2007, demonstrating that the machines can be successfully manufactured and installed for commercial use and national security purposes.

Congress had envisioned the Piketon, Ohio facility to provide enriched uranium for both the nuclear powered aircraft and the nuclear bombs it would carry.

The Ohio State University’s Nuclear Engineering program: The Nuclear Engineering (NE) graduate program at Ohio State is designed to prepare students for successful careers in a variety of specialty areas associated with the application of radiation, radioactive materials, and nuclear fission. The program is housed within the Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering and located in Scott Lab, a building with state-of-the-art teaching and research facilities. OSU’s research is further strengthened by the presence of the Ohio State University Nuclear Reactor Lab (OSU-NRL).

Congress had envisioned that OSU would have a hand in training the workforce needed to support the infrastructure necessary to build, operate, and maintain a nuclear bomber program.

Materion: Materion Brush Resources Inc. of the USA, wholly-owned subsidiary of Materion Corporation, is the only known fully-integrated beryllium company in world and the leading producer of all forms of beryllium products. Bertrandite ore from the company’s mines is used as the feedstock to produce beryllium hydroxide at the company’s Delta plant in Utah. The hydroxide is then used to produce beryllium metal and alloys in Elmore, Ohio, ceramic grade powder at Lorain, Ohio, and strip and wire products at Reading, Pennsylvania. The Elmore plant produces finished goods for the Alloy Products and Beryllium Products businesses, as well as materials for further processing by these units and its Technical Materials Inc. subsidiary

Beryllium is a lightweight metal with unique properties that make it very desirable for certain nuclear applications. Being one of the lightest known structural metals has


contributed to beryllium being used in a wide variety of both nuclear and non-nuclear applications. Its light weight makes it an obvious candidate for consideration in aerospace components, especially if certain nuclear characteristics are also desired.

It is not the relatively low density of beryllium, however, that causes it to be of interest in nuclear reactor applications. It is the combination of properties exhibited by beryllium that result in it being a very attractive material for use as a neutron reflector. Physically small nuclear reactors, such as test/research reactors and those used in space applications, typically include neutron reflectors to utilize more efficiently the neutrons that are produced during reactor operation.

In addition to being an excellent neutron reflector material, beryllium is also an attractive material as a neutron moderator, i.e., it effectively “moderates” or reduces the energy of neutrons. In many nuclear reactor designs, it is desirable not only to retain the neutrons within the reactor core, but also to reduce the energy of the neutrons so they more effectively sustain the fission process. Beryllium has been the material of choice for the neutron reflectors (and/or for some neutron moderation) for a number of nuclear reactors.

The unique physical properties of beryllium make it ideal for x-ray and nuclear applications. Beryllium is transparent to x-rays, so it is used as window material for x-ray tubes. Beryllium and its oxide, beryllia, are also used as a blanket around the core of nuclear reactors because beryllium slows down or captures neutrons.

When small amounts are added to copper to produce copper beryllium alloys, the results include high heat resistance, improved corrosion resistance, greater hardness, greater insulating properties, and better casting qualities. Copper beryllium alloys are used in demanding applications such as aerospace, oil and gas drilling equipment, defense, satellites, and consumer electronics.

Babcock and Wilcox: The Babcock & Wilcox Company Van Buren office complex in Barberton, Ohio was established in 1955, with the opening of the first phase of its Van Buren office building.

The company is a major employer in northeast Ohio. The complex houses the executive, administrative, legal, engineering, and support staff for the B&W Power Generation Group which designs, builds and services nuclear reactors.


The entire complex, which includes nearly 400,000 sq. feet of office and warehouse space, employs approximately 1,100 salaried, clerical and temporary workers.

The complex serves as the engineering and project management headquarters for the most of the groups' products and services.

THE NUCLEAR POWERED AIRCRAFT EXPERIMENT In the near future NASA Glenn and NASA Plum Brook Station could potentially, help not

just Ohio’s economy, but also America’s economy, by assisting in the development of new nuclear technologies that will improve the environment and aid in the creation of thousands of good paying jobs. This is made possible because of the infrastructure put in place for the Aircraft Nuclear Propulsion (ANP) program and the Nuclear Energy for the Propulsion of Aircraft (NEPA) project.

One specific aim for NASA’s Plum Brook Station’s research reactor was to build a nuclear-powered airplane (bomber) capable of staying aloft for months at a time. To support this effort, in 1956 NASA’s predecessor, the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA), began to design and build the largest test reactor of its day at Plum Brook Station in Sandusky, OH. In 1958, NACA became NASA, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, to lead the American space effort. By the time the reactor was completed in 1961, President Kennedy had suspended the nuclear aircraft program in favor of inflight refueling. However, in its place he advocated an even bolder plan — a nuclear powered rocket. The Plum Brook Reactor Facility became one of the primary nuclear research facilities to test materials for this rocket. Working with contractors from Lockheed, Westinghouse, General

US Air Force’s Bomber to be used for Airborne Testing


Dynamics, and General Electric, scientists and engineers conducted many groundbreaking nuclear experiments.

Despite the promise of their work, many of the valuable experiments were never concluded. In 1973, just over a decade after President Kennedy first extolled the nuclear rocket’s importance, the project shared the fate of the nuclear airplane. In the post-Apollo era, NASA terminated costly, long-term, non-reusable projects like the nuclear rocket in favor of programs that appeared to have greater immediate payoff, such as the Space Shuttle. Two weeks after Apollo’s last mission, Plum Brook was ordered to shut down its reactor. The entire facility was maintained in a standby mode (under a “possess but do not operate” license) for nearly a quarter century. In 1998, a decommissioning plan was formulated to dismantle and remove the reactors and to make the land suitable once again for farming. $253 million taxpayer dollars later, the area now has achieved Greenfield status with the EPA.


NASA AND THE ATOMS FOR PEACE PROGRAM

In 1953, President Dwight D. Eisenhower delivered a speech called “Atoms for Peace” to the United Nations General Assembly. He described the emergence of the atomic age and the weapons of mass destruction that were piling up in the American and Soviet nations. Although neither side was aiming for global destruction, Eisenhower wanted to “move out of the dark chambers of horrors into the light, to find a way by which the minds of men, the hopes of men, the souls of men everywhere, can move towards peace and happiness and well-being.” One way Eisenhower hoped this could happen was by transforming the atom from a weapon of war into a useful tool for civilization.

Many believed that there were opportunities for peaceful nuclear applications. These included hopeful visions of atomic powered cities, cars, airplanes, space bases, and interplanetary, and possibly even interstellar, spaceships. Eisenhower wanted to provide scientists and engineers with “adequate amounts of fissionable material with which to test and develop their ideas.” But in attempting to devise ways to use atomic power for peaceful purposes, scientists realized how little they knew about using reactors for propulsion. As a result, the United States began constructing nuclear test reactors to enable scientists to conduct research on the atom.


American scientists and engineers carried out the “atoms for peace” initiative at the nearly 200 research and test reactors built in the 1950s and 1960s. Test and research reactors are very different from power reactors, which are built to produce power by converting the heat produced from nuclear fission into electricity. In contrast, research and test reactors are used for scientific and technical investigations. Research reactors help engineers design experiments to enable them to build better reactors with desirable characteristics. Though some private commercial and academic institutions built some research and test reactors (such as Battelle, headquartered in Columbus, Ohio), the federal government supported the large majority of them. One of the most powerful research reactors in the world (60MWth) was the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) test reactor, located at Plum Brook Station in Sandusky, Ohio. From 1961 to 1973, this reactor was home to some of the most advanced nuclear experimentation in the United States. The facility also supported a second test reactor, though much less powerful (110 KWth.).

In addition to the nuclear reactors, many of the test facilities constructed at NASA Plum Brook are nuclear capable, meaning that the facility is designed to withstand exposure to radiation.

NASA Plum Brook Nuclear Hot-Cell Laboratory


Lordstown, Ohio GM Manufacturing Facility

THE ECONOMIC IMPACT OF A LARGE MANUFACTURING FACILITY The original impetus for building NASA Plum Brook Station (NPBS) was the Aircraft

Reactor Experiment that started after WWII (May, 28th 1946). The facility was envisioned to carry out the experiments necessary to engineer, build, and put a fleet of nuclear powered bombers in the skies that could stay aloft for months on end without refueling, to protect America from an attack by the Soviet Union.

Plum Brook was to be a modern test facility to do all the testing that Oak Ridge National Laboratories (ORNL), Argonne National Laboratories, Los Alamos National Laboratories, and Idaho National Laboratories could not do, in order to commercialize the production of the envisioned nuclear powered bombers. ORNL was, and still is, America’s premier nuclear testing facility.

At its inception, the purpose of the NPBS facility was to test and commercialize nuclear power systems, though its focus has changed as the missions of NASA and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) have changed. While initially, the NPBS mission was of a


terrestrial nature (a nuclear powered bomber), one week after NPBS’s reactor went critical John F. Kennedy cancelled the nuclear powered bomber program. NPBS eventually transitioned to a Nuclear Space Power laboratory.

NPBS was not used for its intended purpose. The building of a fleet of nuclear powered bombers would have employed thousands of persons in very well-paying manufacturing jobs. A production facility at Plum Brook was envisioned that would have been larger than the Lordstown General Motors manufacturing facility.

“Why was Sandusky, Ohio chosen to develop a nuclear powered bomber fleet?”

One of the most prominent reasons for selecting Sandusky was that the U.S. Congress wanted the facility to be close to a workforce experienced in the type of manufacturing and assembly that could produce a bomber fleet. This requirement ruled out most of our other national laboratories, such as ORNL, at the time. Sandusky is directly in the middle of Ohio’s automotive mass assembly capitals of Cleveland and Toledo and just across Lake Erie from Detroit, Motor City. The thought was, when it came time to build a prototype nuclear bomber, many new manufacturing techniques would have to be developed, and it made sense to develop a mass assembly plant for producing nuclear bombers on the same grounds where the prototype was to be developed. The size of NASA Plum Brook Station (NPBS) was right for a runway for the takeoff and landing of bombers needing service and refueling. Sandusky ports on Lake Erie could be made capable of accommodating ships that would deliver materials necessary for construction of the bombers. The facility had access to a modern highway system and was close to the Lake Erie, a water source that may have been needed for cooling future test reactors. The state of Ohio also had its own aluminum industry at the time, capable of supporting such a plant.

Couple the Plum Brook facility with the rest of the infrastructure already in place in Ohio, and it is easy to see why the federal government saw Sandusky as the ideal location for the development and commercialization of a state of the art nuclear bomber production facility. Sub-assemblies and fuel-assemblies built and developed elsewhere in Ohio would feed the envisioned Sandusky production facility, with many of those facility’s workers trained at OSU’s


nuclear reactor facility. A massive number of machine and tool shops and other manufacturers would have been engaged in the manufacture of these bombers.

Boeing 747 Mass Assembly Plant

REVIVING AN OLD IDEA WITH A NEW PURPOSE Think of the potential benefits that 5,000 high paying assembly jobs would have meant

to Sandusky and to the State of Ohio. Think of what the potential 20,000 direct and indirect jobs would have meant to the State of Ohio and to the United States. [Job numbers have been estimated from a Ford Mass Assembly study] A nuclear bomber mass assembly plant would have had the potential for massive economic impacts across all industry and professional sectors in Sandusky, Ohio, its surrounding townships, and for Cleveland to the east and Toledo to the west, and for the State of Ohio and other states.

Ohio has a large nuclear presence. Its nuclear reactors include two commercial civilian nuclear power plants, one in Northeast Ohio and the other in Northwest Ohio, both on the shore of Lake Erie; and a test reactor at the Ohio State University. Additionally, Ohio is home to many technology and aerospace industries that service the nuclear sector.


France’s Mass Assembly reactor core containment vessel plant

REVIVING AND RE-ENVISIONING A MASS ASSEMBLY PLANT All of the positive factors of an envisioned nuclear oriented mass assembly plant

continue to be applicable today, but towards a different end than a nuclear bomber. During the aircraft reactor experiment, the Molten Salt Reactor (MSR) was conceived as the best reactor to power an aircraft because it could be made very small and did not utilize water as a coolant. Alvin Weinberg, who was the director of Oak Ridge National Laboratory at that time, owned the patent for today’s light water reactors, the kind in use at Davis-Besse and Perry nuclear power plants. Dr. Weinberg became a strong proponent of MSR technology, seeing it as the future of civilian nuclear power for producing electricity.


MSRs produce no long-lived nuclear waste, cannot melt down, are inherently safe, and can most easily be designed for construction on an assembly line. Additionally, these MSRs can be designed to consume current nuclear waste stockpiles as a fuel, or use uranium, plutonium, or thorium as a fuel. According to many studies, MSRs will produce electricity at half the cost of coal (a very conservative estimate). Because of their low production costs, and because MSRs will produce no carbon emissions, they will not only improve our environment, they will give us a leg-up on manufacturing competition in the world market place by lowering energy costs. This will help to bring back a myriad of American jobs that have gone overseas.

MSRs can also produce energy cheaply enough to economically transform our massive reserves of coal into environmentally friendly synthetic gasoline and synthetic diesel fuel. MSR technology and coal can potentially make America energy independent, and make the OPEC (Oil Producing and Exporting Countries) irrelevant in determining the price we pay to fill our tanks at the gas pump.

Additionally, Molten Salt Reactors (MSRs) can produce medical isotopes that we currently import to America. We are almost entirely dependent upon the rest of the world to create and provide the medical radioisotope Molybdenum-99 (Mo-99) and its daughter Technetium-99m that are used in over 320,000 medical imaging procedures per week in the U.S. alone. These imaging procedures allow doctors to peer inside the body rather than perform exploratory operations, saving time and lives while reducing healthcare costs. Domestic production would alleviate periodic shortages of medical isotopes that raise costs, impact the quality of care and treatment, and potentially cost lives. A domestic medical isotope supply can be produced with just a few small (desktop size) Molten Salt Research Reactors.

A fleet of commercial scale utility MSRs could also produce the radioisotopes Actinium-225 and Bismuth-213 for large-scale research and treatment of cancer and HIV AIDS. Currently, there are not enough of these isotopes in the world for any large-scale research or clinical trials.

America is helping China develop and commercialize our MSR technology. This is a proven technology, A molten salt reactor was built and successfully operated at Oak Ridge National Laboratory, without incident, for more than four years in the late 1960s – early 1970s. America just never commercialized the technology. This is the very same technology (MSR technology) that was envisioned to be commercialized and mass-produced in Ohio at NASA Plum Brook for the nuclear bomber fleet.

Many organizations and American startup companies such as Flibe Energy, TransAtomics, and ThorCon are encouraging American legislators to jump back into the


Molten Salt Reactor race as China, Russia, and India have stepped up their efforts to commercialize this American-developed technology. With support from Ohio legislators at the state and federal level, Ohio could be, and arguably should be, the “heart of it all” for a MSR program revival.

In the short term, within 5 years, NASA Plum Brook could be home to a medical isotope production, distribution, and processing facility that could supply all of the Western Hemisphere with Molybdenum-99 and Technetium-99m.

A more long-term use for NASA Plum Brook would be as a replacement site for the Davis-Besse Nuclear Power Station. If Molten Salt Reactor (MSR) research and development can move forward in the form of medical isotope reactors, then producing full size pilot power generating reactors, built onsite, could be part of a larger MSR commercialization program.

A very positive use, in the long term (within 15 years), would be the NASA Plum Brook Station (NPBS) facility serving as a testing and research facility for development of an on-site mass assembly plant for production of small modular Molten Salt Reactors that could be shipped around the United States by truck, rail, or ship, and potentially to other countries. Such a mass assembly plant would still be on the order and scale of a Lordstown assembly plant, creating 5,000 direct jobs in northern Ohio, and indirectly employing 20,000. [Job numbers have been estimated from a Ford Mass Assembly study].

During 2015, NASA Plum Brook Economic Development Corporation, based in Cleveland, Ohio will be promoting NPBS and Sandusky as the best place for the U.S. government to partner with private industry to base a Molten Salt Reactor commercialization program. We will educate our state and federal legislators to step forward and openly embrace the development of MSR technology in Ohio.


WHY PRODUCE MOLTEN SALT REACTORS IN OHIO?

At the 2005 general election in Ohio, voters approved an amendment to the Ohio Constitution to authorize general obligation bonds to fund research and development of new technologies. This bond program became part of the Ohio Third Frontier economic development program to create and preserve jobs.

The purpose of the Ohio Third Frontier program is to attract and promote private technology investment and, consequently, to create jobs and enhance educational opportunities. The Ohio Third Frontier program seeks to promote investments to support technology areas that represent economic growth for Ohio, particularly in energy, biomedical, advanced materials, electronics and advanced propulsion. The proceeds from bonds fund research and development efforts by Ohio businesses, in cooperation with universities and research institutions, to create and bring to market new products and services.

JobsOhio is a private, non-profit corporation designed to drive job creation and new capital investment in Ohio through business attraction, retention, and expansion efforts. JobsOhio works closely with the technology driven Third Frontier Program. The Third Frontier program is a major component of the Office of Technology Investments and is an


internationally recognized technology-based economic development initiative that is successfully changing the trajectory of Ohio's economy.

The $2.1 billion initiative supports existing industries and new entrepreneurs that are transforming the State of Ohio with globally competitive products and fostering the formation and attraction of new companies in emerging industry sectors. Ohio’s Third Frontier program, with the help of JobsOhio, provides funding to Ohio’s technology-based companies, universities, nonprofit research institutions, and other organizations to create new technology-based products, companies, industries, and jobs.

Energy development is nothing new to Ohio, and this state has opened its arms and embraced a multitude of energy industries.

Ohio is one of the most energy abundant states in the country, rich with a diverse array of energy resources ranging from fossil fuels to nuclear based civilian power plants. Ohio’s economy also ranks among the most energy-intensive in the nation, home to energy-dependent industries ranging from agriculture to manufacturing.

At the turn of the 20th century, Ohio was the largest oil producer in the United States. With the Appalachian Basin, which crosses the eastern part of Ohio, and with recent oil and gas formation discoveries, the state may return to being a large oil and natural gas producer. The Basin’s Marcellus shale formation contains shale gas, and the Utica shale formation contains both tight oil locked in shale, and gas.

In addition to oil and natural gas production, Ohio has long been a perennial coal producer, as well. Ohio is currently the 10th largest coal producing state in the nation.

Because of Ohio’s energy resources, the state has always supported and benefited from a heavily industrialized economy. Today, Ohio’s energy consumption is among the highest in the nation. The industrial sector dominates Ohio’s energy consumption largely due to several energy-intensive industries, including chemicals, glass, metal casting, and steel.

Ohio’s energy prices have been steadily rising in comparison to its foreign economic competitors in the same industrial sectors, such as, China, India, and South Korea. This rise in energy costs has primarily been caused by federal Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) regulations and the early closure of many coal-fired plants that supply power to Ohio’s economy. As energy costs rise, products produced in Ohio become less competitive in the world marketplace, and that results in less revenue, less business, fewer jobs, and ultimately a lackluster Ohio economy. Additionally, Renewable Portfolio Standards (RPS) put in place by the


State of Ohio, mandate purchase of electricity from high-cost clean energy sources. These costs, combined with federal regulations, create a trying atmosphere of competition for manufacturers.

Molten Salt Reactors are able to produce electricity at about half the cost of coal, and supply cheap heat to industry, which should lower energy costs for Ohio utilities and industries, thus enhancing their competitiveness in the world marketplace.

NASA Plum Brook Economic Development Corporation is promoting and pursuing the development of a Department of Energy-envisioned Clean Energy Parks initiative for the development of Generation IV Molten Salt Reactors. NASA Plum Brook Station’s 6,400 acres has high-tension lines running across its property (Davis-Besse Nuclear Power Plant’s primary transmission lines), making it a very promising location for a joint NASA/Department of Energy – Clean Energy Park initiative.

Ohio knows Mass Assembly!


NASA PLUM BROOK STATION, PRODUCING MEDICAL ISOTOPES, AND A RUNWAY To boost NASA Plum Brook's opportunity to lure business to the region and create more

jobs, civic leaders in the facility's home base of Erie County, and in Cleveland, where NASA Glenn is located, have in the past, tried without success to raise funds to build a 9,000-foot runway at Plum Brook Station.

A long runway at Plum Brook Station, capable of accommodating large transport jets, would make it much easier to transport large, bulky spacecraft components and sensitive satellites for testing.

Currently, such items are flown into airports in Cleveland or Mansfield and trucked 50 to 60 miles to the NASA facility, requiring police escorts and special traffic arrangements. Some potential Plum Brook Station customers opt to test bits and pieces of their space hardware at smaller government or private facilities individually, rather than transport the full-sized article to Ohio for testing. This piecemeal testing is a costlier process and does not accurately simulate real world conditions.

United Launch Alliance, a Denver-based commercial space launch company, tested the nosecone of its Atlas V rocket in Plum Brook's Space Power Facility’s vacuum chamber in 2002 after flying it into Cleveland Hopkins International Airport aboard a giant Russian cargo jet.

"Certainly having a runway out there would have made that a lot easier," said United Launch vice president George Sowers.


Further, some satellites are too sensitive to be transported by road and must be flown directly to their test site. Due to the lack of a runway at Plum Brook, such satellites cannot be tested there at present.

NASA's budget for Plum Brook doesn't include the estimated $40 million the Plum Brook runway would cost, nor the additional $40 million or more for roads and other infrastructure to support it. However, production of medical isotopes by Molten Salt Research Reactors on-site will produce a revenue stream, which would pay for the runway and finance a base for aircraft to distribute medical isotopes continent-wide in a timely manner.

A RUNWAY MAY LEAD TO A BUSINESS PARK

Economic development experts and NASA officials believe the runway, in turn, would be a catalyst for development of a 1,200-acre high-tech business park on Plum Brook land that NASA is willing to lease. The site has railroad and highway access, and ample cheap water, electricity and sewer service.

Erie County Commissioner, Patrick Shenigo, foresees a cluster of spacecraft and satellite company tenants who would want to take advantage of the proximity to Plum Brook's facilities for quick-turnaround tests.

Such business clusters already exist near NASA centers in Florida, Alabama, and Texas.

Currently, about 25 NASA employees work at Plum Brook. If a runway brings more testing work to the center as expected, and its NASA workforce rises to 100, that should generate 475 new commercial jobs in the area and an economic boost of $45 million, according to a 2009 study cited by Commissioner Shenigo in the Sandusky Register.

If only two desktop sized Molten Salt Research Reactors were to be built onsite (six would be needed for reliability and a competitive business and research model), they could produce enough medical isotopes to supply all of America’s Molybdenum-99 medical imaging isotope needs. Currently, America depends upon other countries for a vast majority of its Molybdenum- 99.

A medical isotope production facility at NASA Plum Brook would generate a large amount of economic activity and an income stream more than sufficient to pay for the construction and operation of a runway necessary for the facility’s operations in distributing medical isotopes. Isotopes produced at the facility would be placed in medical isotope


generators and then flown to cities all over the continent for delivery to local hospitals and nuclear pharmacies. Such a medical isotope facility would potentially create 5,000 to 8,000 direct and indirect jobs, including logistic professionals.

Congress and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) have suspended rules that would otherwise prohibit a test or research reactor from making a profit by allowing such a reactor to produce medical isotopes (Molybdenum-99), in part because the federal government has recognized an impending Molybdenum-99 shortage crisis.

The two major reactors supplying America with radioisotopes are Canada’s Chalk River Reactor (51 years old) and the Netherland’s Petten Reactor (47 years old). Relative to the human lifespan in reactor years Chalk River is equivalent to 102 years old and the Petten reactor is equivalent to being 94 years old. The Chalk River Reactor was slated for end of life shutdown operations in July of 2015, but a replacement for the world medical isotope market failed to materialize, and so its end of life was extended to 2018, when in relative terms the reactor will be 108 years old. A Plum Brook Medical Isotope Production facility could be the answer to a worldwide nuclear medicine and molecular imaging dilemma.

NASA Plum Brook Economic Development Corporation advocates for an NRC permit to allow up to six research size Molten Salt Reactors to be constructed on site at NASA Plum


Brook Station for the purposes of research and materials testing, and for the simultaneous production of medical isotopes.

One group of three reactors would produce Molybdenum-99. These reactors would be heavily outfitted with instrumentation to monitor their internal operational characteristics. This will serve as an information gathering and development tool depicting the behavior of these reactors in normal operation with a high fidelity, which will provide data for the design of future prototype commercial Molten Salt Reactors.

In addition to the three MSRs for Molybdenum-99 production, three additional reactors will be built. One will be built to study Uranium Molten Salt fuel, a second reactor will be built to study Thorium Molten Salt fuel, and a third will be built to study the use of traditional nuclear waste as a fuel to produce energy. Concurrent with testing and research being conducted, all of America’s Molybdenum-99 needs could be met by such a NASA Plum Brook medical isotope facility. There will be a $5.5 billion and growing medical isotope market by 2017 that will provide a revenue stream for the project.


Artist rendering of a NASA Plum Brook Airfield and Medical Isotope facility


PERRY II NUCLEAR POWER PLANT, A TEST FACILITY IN THE MAKING

The Clean Energy Park concept builds on a DoE initiative to transform DoE sites formerly used to support national defense missions into energy parks (research and development facilities focused on future clean energy production). Such initiatives will allow reuse of existing assets, aid in the clean up of these sites, and support sustainable economic development for their respective regions.

Northern Ohio, where NASA Plum Brook Station is located, is the location of a major portion of Ohio’s manufacturing base. The Plum Brook site, in fact, sits directly in the middle of Northern Ohio, and energy production facilities, if created there, would be easily shared with high-energy use manufacturing centers to the west (Toledo, OH) and to the east (Cleveland, OH).

Notice the second cooling tower is not active. This is due to the second power plant at the Perry facility never being completed. There is a lot of infrastructure still in place to support a second nuclear reactor.


Molten Salt Reactor (MSR) development at Plum Brook will initially focus on the environmental analysis that will be required to support deployment of Generation IV Molten Salt Reactors, as well as development of licensing documents for submittal to the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC).

NASA Plum Brook Economic Development Corporation believes that a Generation IV Molten Salt Reactor, providing very cheap carbon-free electricity to millions of homes, creates a compelling Clean Energy Park narrative. MSRs have the potential to significantly reduce energy costs for both industrial and private consumers.

At the FirstEnergy Perry Nuclear Power Plant in northeast Ohio, Perry I is one of the most powerful reactors ever built. The utility owner at the time, the Cleveland Electric Illuminating Company, had plans to build a second reactor on site, but Perry II was only partially completed. With Perry’s infrastructure and its current connections to the electrical grid, the Perry II site would be a very attractive placement for a ¼ to half scale pilot MSR producing electricity for the grid.


PIKETON URANIUM ENRICHMENT FACILITY

Piketon, Ohio envisioned Duke Energy and Areva - Clean Energy Park

Piketon, Ohio is very close to Ohio’s coal country. It is within the Marcellus shale formation, is in close proximity to many old and non-producing oil wells, and is close to the Utica shale oil formation. The Piketon Uranium enrichment facility, presently in shutdown status, is a 3,777 acre complex in Southern Ohio, now operated by the Department of Energy. It is the last American owned facility capable of producing commercial quantities of Low Enriched Uranium for use in civilian reactors.

This facility has a long history of working with nuclear materials, and a Duke Energy-led alliance is already working to establish a Clean Energy Park and build an Areva-designed Generation III+ reactor there. It makes sense to base a high-temperature full-scale pilot Molten Salt Reactor at this location, as well.

One of the most compelling business cases for the MSR is its ability to economically transform, at very low cost, trash, sewage, and fossil fuel sources, such as coal, into ultra clean synthetic gasoline, diesel fuel, and other valuable chemicals used in manufacturing.

There will be a need for quite a bit of research and development into harnessing the heat and electricity produced by an MSR to convert coal into liquid transportation fuels. The Piketon facility could provide the perfect testing grounds for a full-scale pilot reactor with applications in the coal and oil industry. Excess carbon dioxide, easily captured from the production of coal-derived synthetic fuels, can be pumped by pipeline to many of Ohio’s thousands of “played out”


oil wells where carbon dioxide is needed to enable Enhanced Oil Recovery (EOR). Additionally, the electricity produced by a full size pilot Molten Salt Reactor plant could be used to convert natural gas produced from the Marcellus shale formation into synthetic gasoline or methanol.

If the federal government allows the export of America’s natural gas to other countries, one way to ensure maintaining an attractive price for natural gas in the face of this increased demand is to use MSR technology to produce Synthetic Natural Gas from coal, trash, and sewage.

There is a natural synergy in many respects for the Piketon, Ohio facility and the production of energy and fuel, and the facility is already owned by the Department of Energy, which will facilitate the elimination of much red tape.

Proposed Areva EPR Reactor at Piketon, Ohio’s Gaseous Diffusion Facility


FINANCING MOLTEN SALT REACTOR DEVELOPMENT

Molten Salt Reactors (MSRs) can be adapted to consume traditional nuclear waste. Producing electricity from nuclear waste provides a practical use for waste material, a much better solution than storing it for hundreds of thousands of years. It will no longer be waste. It will be fuel. The federal Nuclear Waste Fund has in excess of $28 billion and earns $750 million in interest every year. Legislators could properly authorize the use of these funds to develop commercial MSR technology in Ohio with the intent to reduce our nuclear waste stockpiles and produce energy.

Small commercial MSRs, envisioned to be constructed on an assembly line at a mass assembly plant at the NASA Plum Brook site, would fulfill all of the site criteria for a business wanting build an MSR mass assembly plant. Such a plant on the grounds of NASA Plum Brook would directly employ 5,000 workers of various skill sets.

Additionally, there are technologies available to transform oil shale (kerogen), coal, other heavy oil deposits, and Municipal Solid Waste (MSW) into synthetic oil and synthetic liquid transportation fuels. These technologies are currently not economically competitive (viable) due to the cost of the massive amounts of energy required to transform these feedstocks, as well as environmental concerns: at present, the energy to power the processes would have to be provided by burning coal or natural gas. MSRs can provide the cheap clean energy needed for the economic development of these fuel sources.

Dry Storage Above Ground Nuclear Waste Casks

Nuclear waste can be used as a fuel for a Molten Salt Reactor


RARE EARTH ELEMENTS

There are 17 rare earth elements (REEs), 15 within the chemical group called lanthanides, plus yttrium and scandium. The lanthanides consist of the following: lanthanum, cerium, praseodymium, neodymium, promethium, samarium, europium, gadolinium, terbium, dysprosium, holmium, erbium, thulium, ytterbium, and lutetium. Rare earths are moderately abundant in the earth’s crust, some even more abundant than copper, lead, gold, and platinum. While some are more abundant than many other minerals, most REEs are not concentrated enough to make them easily exploitable economically.

The United States was once self-reliant in domestically produced REEs, but over the past 15 years has become 100% reliant on imports, primarily from China, due to lower-cost operations. The lanthanides are often broken into two groups: light rare earth elements (LREEs)—lanthanum through europium (atomic numbers 57-63) and the heavier rare earth elements (HREEs)—gadolinium through lutetium (atomic numbers 64-71). Yttrium is typically classified as a heavy element.

There is a close relationship between thorium (a potential fuel for Molten Salt Reactors) and rare earths; they often come together in nature. In fact, monazite was first mined to produce Thorium rather than rare earths. In the 19th century, Thorium was used to make gas mantles. Later, with the development of technology that required rare earths to function, monazite started to be mined for elements other than Thorium.

During monazite or other type mining Thorium separates easily, through gravity and at almost no cost, such that Thorium can be said to be produced practically free of charge.

The United States was the leading supplier of monazite, which was the main source of rare earths in the first decades of the rare earths industry (the post WW2 period). Brazil was also an important supplier, and China, ironically, tried to become a world supplier but failed to meet Western standards and “so they weren’t able to pursue it.” However, in the 1980’s, international classification changes concerning Thorium changed the way the market saw monazite.

The International Atomic Energy Association (IAEA) placed monazite in the category of source material. After representing the major source for the world’s rare earth supply, nobody in America wanted to deal with monazite any longer, wondering what to do with the residual Thorium (which now had to be treated like a low level nuclear waste, an expensive process). China stepped in and took advantage, deciding that it would dominate the rare earth industry,


which was understood to be critically important to the development of aerospace and the electronics industry. Western companies that had mined monazite until that point, abandon the industry through competition.

Under pressure from environmental agencies and groups, mines were shut down simply for having Thorium discharges in their tailings. Such is the context in which companies like Molycorp in the USA or Lynas Corp in Australia have put the West back into the contest for rare earth production; and what a costly contest it is proving to be, especially because neither one of these two companies has been able to produce even moderate quantities of the high-demand Heavy Rare Earth Elements (HREE) . The fact that REEs are found mixed with Thorium has hampered the growth of REE mining in USA and Europe as REE miners seek to avoid ores that are Thorium rich to make the process easier. In the meanwhile, China has grown a large REE industry and is a virtual monopoly dominating the international market today.

Seventy percent of China’s rare earths come from the by-product production of an iron ore mine. The Chinese focuses on the high value elements, which suggests that if the West is really going to compete, it will have to refocus its efforts on developing low-cost byproduct resources. In many cases these have high Thorium content and, “In the United States alone, Thorium-bearing rare earth phosphates and other Thorium-bearing mineralization could easily meet 50% percent of world demand for rare earths.”

Currently, the dominant end uses for rare earth elements in the United States are for automobile catalysts and petroleum refining catalysts, use in phosphors in color television and flat panel displays (cell phones, portable DVDs, and laptops), permanent magnets and rechargeable batteries for hybrid and electric vehicles, and numerous medical devices. There are important defense applications such as jet fighter engines, missile guidance systems, antimissile defense, and satellite and communication systems. Permanent magnets containing neodymium, gadolinium, dysprosium, and terbium (NdFeB magnets) are used in numerous electrical and electronic components and new-generation generators for wind turbines.

If you ever wondered why so many electronics are produced in China and not in the United Sates, a strong factor in determining China’s dominance in the electronic industry is due to America’s treatment of the element Thorium.

If there were a market for Thorium as a fuel for MSRs, it is very likely that America would once again re-engage China in competition for the electronics market. This could mean the return of many jobs in the high tech sector in the United States.


A NASA Plum Brook Isotope and Power Generation facility featuring Thorium fueled Molten Salt Reactors could lead a revival of America’s economy.

CONCLUSIONS

v Advocating for NASA Plum Brook Station to host very small research Molten Salt Reactors for the purpose of Molybdenum-99 production, while researching MSR engineering issues, makes sense from a security standpoint, not only for America, but for the world.

v Why NASA Plum Brook in particular, and not another secure site? Many of NASA’s test facilities can be utilized in commercializing MSR technology. A medical isotope facility will need a runway, which NASA Plum Brook’s immense size will accommodate. Plum Brook’s location puts it in helicopter range to service Ohio’s largest hospitals and largest consumers of medical isotopes.

v A medical isotope facility at NASA Plum Brook could benefit research efforts by The Ohio State University’s nuclear pharmacology department.

v Medical Isotopes (Molybdenum-99) produced from such reactors need to be distributed across North, Central, and South America. This business model can support the construction of an $80 million runway and the infrastructure required for such distribution.

v A runway at NASA Plum Brook means access to more business for the NASA testing facilities.

v The NASA Plum Brook grounds are large enough to incorporate a business park that would support the mass assembly of Molten Salt Reactors.

v A power generation facility utilizing Gen IV Molten Salt Reactor[s] can be constructed to replace the electricity production, which will be lost to the area at the end of life of Davis-Besse Nuclear Power station in 2037.

v Battelle’s West Jefferson, Ohio site could potentially be utilized for Lithium-7 enrichment, a necessary component for MSRs.

v The old Mound Laboratory site near Dayton, Ohio could conceivably be used to fabricate Fluoride, Lithium, and Beryllium Salts (FLiBe Salts) for use in the Molten Salt Reactor.

v Wright Patterson AFB’s test facilities, NASA Plum Brook and NASA Glenn could support the mission of commercializing a closed cycle Brayton turbine capable of converting the heat of a MSR into electricity without using steam or water.

v Perry Nuclear power plant has the capability to support a ¼ to half scale test reactor that would be needed in the commercialization process of molten salt reactor technology.


v Piketon, Ohio’s uranium enrichment facility has the capability to host a full-scale modular molten salt reactor, which would require testing before initiating assembly line manufacturing of such reactors.

v Battelle Memorial Institute has the expertise and experience to manage and audit such facilities.

v FirstEnergy, NASA, JobsOhio, the Third Frontier program, the Ohio Chamber of Commerce, The Cleveland Foundation, The Cleveland Clinic, The Ohio Aerospace Institute, Team NEO, The Ohio State University, should all have a vested interest in seeing this technology developed. The same factors militate for similar interest in commercialization of MSR technology in Ohio among heavy industrial manufacturing industries (e.g., Timken, Alcoa, AK Steel, Nucor, Ford, General Motors, Chrysler, and Jeep) in Ohio. The combined efforts of these institutions give Ohio the political muscle, marketing, and lobbying expertise in being able to drive this critically needed project to success.

SEEKING ALLIANCE MEMBERS

NASA Plum Brook Economic Development Corporation is seeking an alliance to support these initiatives and be our organizational and funding partners in marketing this conceptual plan.

Funding efforts will focus on support for:

v Public education regarding the myths and realities of Generation IV nuclear reactors, including molten salt reactors, and their safety and benefits

v Organization of community roundtable discussions on these subjects with governmental and business and manufacturing interests

v Interacting with the Nuclear Regulatory Commission’s various working groups v Educating nuclear research and development committees, including governmental,

private industry groups, and grassroots organizations v Economic and feasibility studies v The environmental analysis necessary to support deployment of Generation IV Molten

Salt Reactors, as well as development of licensing and site licensing documents for submission to the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) for NASA Plum Brook development as a location and resource for this enterprise.

v Lobbying and networking efforts


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NASA Plum Brook Economic Development Plan

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