A Different Kind of Plant

OK, I'm going to break my rule here in deference to my son, Forest.  He's been fascinated by nuclear energy technology since he was in first grade.  His knowledge of fission and fusion are far beyond mine.  The highlight of our trip for him was the visit to EBR-1, or Experimental Breeder Reactor 1. It's part of Idaho National Laboratory, where our scientists first started to work on harnessing the atom for peaceful purposes.  This plant was the first to test the concept of the breeder reactor--a nuclear power plant that produces more fuel than it consumes.

I was a bit apprehensive of the possibility of exposure to radiation, but Forest assured me that the risk was minimal.  Indeed, although the sign just inside the door cautions all visitors to keep their shoes on, they effectively make the point that we are exposed to a lot more radiation in the course of a variety of other activities than we are likely to be exposed to during our visit.  After entering, the stage was nicely set with period furniture.

Of course, to me, the dials and controls all look like props.  To him, they seemed to mean something.  They had a very nice display about the geology of the Snake River Plain.  I didn't know it, but under the desert's porous lava lies an aquifer with as much water as Lake Erie, and it is very pure because the lava is a very good filter.  It takes an extremely long time for water to move through the lava--centuries for a distance of 50 miles.  Forest would have liked to stay here for an extremely long time, but we don't have centuries.