Power Play

ATOMIC ENERGY Power Play For the first time, the Atomic Energy Commission opened public hearings last week on whether to approve construction of a nuclear power plant. Technically, AEC was to decide if a privately financed 100,000-kw. reactor being built at Monroe, Mich, will endanger the lives and health of more than 2,500,000 residents of nearby Detroit and Toledo. But proponents of public power, spearheaded by United Automobile Workers President Walter Reuther, wanted to turn the hearings into a decisive round in the running battle over whether nuclear-generated electricity is to be pioneered by the Government or by U.S. industry. On the ground that the plant was too risky, they wanted AEC to halt the project, move it to a remote test area. AEC then would probably take over, giving the Government a big lead in developing one of the most promising power reactors now under construction.

Promise & Doubt. Target of the Reuther forces was the Power Reactor Development Co., a combine of Detroit Edison Co., 17 other private utilities and seven manufacturing firms, which will finance and operate the $45.5 million Monroe plant under the leadership of Detroit Edison President Walker Lee Cisler. P.R.D.C. is building the first commercial "fast-breeder" reactor, the type most likely to produce competitively cheap atom power, since it produces more atom fuel than it consumes. Late in 1955, the first experimental fast breeder ran out of control at the National Reactor Testing Station, melted its own fuel with more than 1,130DEG C. of heat, and contaminated the reactor with radioactivity for six months.

Opponents of P.R.D.C.'s fast breeder got one good arguing point when AEC's Advisory Committee on Reactor Safeguards warned last June: "There is insufficient information available to give assurance that the reactor can be operated at [Monroe] without public hazard." But AEC disagreed, gave P.R.D.C. a "provisional permit" to build last August, did not publish its advisory committee's warning until October. The decision was immediately criticized by Senator Clinton P. Anderson, who is joint Congressional atomic energy chief and a public-power enthusiast. Then the U.A.W., together with the International Union of Electrical Workers and the United Paperworkers of America, got AEC to retreat a bit, order P.R.D.C. to prove publicly that its fast breeder was safe.

Fact & Fission. P.R.D.C. did much to dispel these fears last week by submitting the testimony of five top-drawer atom scientists and reactor experts. Their verdict, summarized by Professor Hans A. Bethe of Cornell University: "By the application of theoretical physics to what we now know, a fast-breeder reactor can be constructed and operated without undue risk to the public ... its operation is safe." Furthermore, AEC stressed that its Monroe permit is only for the construction of the plant, not its operation. Unless all the bugs are worked out of the fast breeder by the time the plant is finished in 1960, it will not be loaded with nuclear fuel.

The dissenting unions will produce scientists of their own when the hearings resume in several weeks. After that, AEC's five commissioners, most of whom favor private power, will decide whether to approve the reactor. Although their final decision will not be determined by public opinion, AEC will weigh the feelings of Monroe's 25,000 residents. Said Vice Mayor Ruby G. Clime last week: "The citizens of Monroe are not frightened one bit. The great majority of the local people are thrilled. It will put Monroe definitely on the map."

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