Tacoma2012: Woodland, WA -to- Chehalis, WA -to- Tacoma, WA -to- Richland, WA

We scored a good front row bus seat on the highly acclaimed tour of the Manhattan Project B Reactor Tour (Richland, WA).

Nuclear reactor site

Hanford is about half the size of Rhode Island and located in the south east corner of Washington. The B Reactor is in the center (see the stack) and a shutdown "cocooned" reactor is on the right.

This is an old stone fruit warehouse on the now government-owned area

Hanford was chosen for its sparse population, proximity to the Columbia River, and remoteness. Max temperature in the region is about 115 degrees F, with over 200 days of sunshine per year, and average yearly rainfall of six and a half to seven and a half inches.
Any unbalanced atom nucleus is considered radioactive. Hanford is the world's largest hazardous material site. When it was operating it produced almost all of the United States Uranium and Plutonium weapons from the 1940's through the 1980's.

A cocooned reactor that will eventually be dismantled

The Reactor Pile in the Manhattan Project B Reactor. It is nonfunctional now, but it was the longest running and most productive plutonium development reactor in the world.

There are 2004, 40-foot long process tubes, that use 27,000 gallons of water per minute to cool. The water would enter each tube at river temperature (about 55 to 60 degrees Fahrenheit) and exit each tube about one second later at nearly 200 degrees Fahrenheit.

The history of the Reactor is amazing - including all of the old safety and measurement instruments

The water jackets for the reactor. The pipes have been opened and remain open and inspected by other counties yearly as a part of nuclear proliferation. If fact, Russian delegates inspected the facility just one week ago - they take photos and compare to prior years (the caps on the pipes can't be closed or moved).

The Reactor control desk. Reactor B was used to turn Uranium into Plutonium (by weight Plutonium is the most expensive substance on Earth). Further chemical and physical refinement was required after the spent fuel rods left the reactor to extract the Plutonium. In the beginning of the Manhattan Project, the Plutonium was shipped to Los Alamos, NM as a cake and later as a metal. The first shipment was only a few pounds and cost $350 million in 1943.

Amazingly, one ton of processed (radiated) Uranium produces only about a 1/2 pound Plutonium.

The scientists and electricians that ran the B Reactor developed special instrument prototypes to monitor the systems.

The reator worked about five to six weeks at a time. Some of these pictures show 1940's technology and 1960's technology.

The train used to move the spent fuel rods from one of the nine reactors on the site to one of the three processing plants. These are Department of Energy locomotives.

This is the B Reactor. In simple terms, a reactor sustains a chain reaction. Once the reactor starts processing the fuel rods, it takes over six months to reach the finished state of Plutonium. Uranium 238 and 235 were used, one absorbs and one splits. Fusion is used to collect the neutrons. An atomic or nuclear blast is all about the "exchange of energy to reach a balance." Check the internet for more technical details. Also check out "Operation Downfall" for the two-part plan of the US to end WWII if Japan had not surrendered. There were immediate plans to drop at least seven more atomic bombs before a mainland invasion. Wow.

A view from the RV of the boat traffic on the Columbia River in Woodland Washington.

Local frog

Sweet Maxie soaking up the sun and sights

Cool riverboat in Woodland, WA

Moon light over the Columbia River in Woodland, WA

Running in Chehalis, WA

Maxie trying out his new ride - he does pretty well in it for long night time walks

Max smelling the "Aroma of Tacoma" (Seawater, Paper Mill, Shipyard, and Sewage Treatment Plant). He gets a ride in the front seat these days.

Bark machine at the Port of Tacoma

Local lumber mill in Tacoma

Huge scrap metal pile at the Port of Tacoma

Boat hull forms at the shipyard in Tacoma

Bark plant at the port

Log pens at the Port of Tacoma

Tacoma Rail

Tacoma

Train coming through the crossing

Toward Snoqualmie Mountain on the way to Eastern WA

Once over the mountains, the landscape changes from lush green Western WA to the dry hot desert of Eastern WA

The Columbia River

Downtown Richland, WA

Richland, WA

Richland, WA campground

Beginning the Manhattan Project Reactor B Tour - a video to watch before we board the bus

Our tour guide talking about the Reactor and the importance to the war effort

Back up hydraulic pressure weights (containers filled with river rock and set "on top" of the hydraulic system to enable use of hydraulic system during power failure) - to enable the control rods to be put into the pile to shutdown the reactor.