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Speaker 1: The Day in History Class. It's a production of I

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Speaker 1: Heart Radio. Hello everyone, I'm Eves. Welcome to this Day

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Speaker 1: in History class, where we take a tiny bite of

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Speaker 1: history every day. Today is November six. The day was

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Speaker 1: November six, nineteen. Weapons gray plutonium was created for the

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Speaker 1: first time at the Hanford Site, a nuclear production complex

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Speaker 1: in the state of Washington. The Manhattan Project was a

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Speaker 1: US government research and development project to produce the first

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Speaker 1: atomic weapons. One of the missions of the Manhattan Project

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Speaker 1: was the development of weapons gray plutonium. Plutonium was first

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Speaker 1: produced in isolated in December of nineteen forty by scientists

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Speaker 1: at the University of California, Berkeley. The team sent an

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Speaker 1: article describing the discovery to a scientific journal for publication,

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Speaker 1: but the paper was withdrawn when it was found that

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Speaker 1: the element could be used in atomic bombs. The discovery

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Speaker 1: wasn't published until after World War Two ended. Hanford, Washington,

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Speaker 1: was chosen as an ideal location for a full scale

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Speaker 1: plutonium facility because it was relatively remote, had hydro electric

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Speaker 1: power from the Grand Coolie and Bonneville Dams, and the flat,

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Speaker 1: rocky terrain was good for supporting the production buildings. The

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Speaker 1: Handford Engineer Works code named SITEW was built by the

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Speaker 1: DuPont Company. Residents in Hanford, White Bluffs and Richland, including

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Speaker 1: Native American people's, were evacuated from the area with short notice.

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Speaker 1: The thousands of employees at the site knew they were

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Speaker 1: doing war work, but few were aware that they were

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Speaker 1: working on nuclear weapons. Three nuclear reactors or piles were

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Speaker 1: built at Hanford. Their purpose was to produce plutonium from uranium.

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Speaker 1: The B reactor was the first production scale nuclear reactor.

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Speaker 1: Its design was based on physicists in Rico Fermi's experimental

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Speaker 1: reactor at the Chicago met Lab Chicago Pile one and

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Speaker 1: the X Tan and Graphite reactor in oak Ridge, Tennessee,

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Speaker 1: that began producing plutonium in late nineteen forty three. B

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Speaker 1: reactor went online in September of nineteen forty four, and

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Speaker 1: it produced its first plutonium on November six. D reactor

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Speaker 1: went online in December, and F reactor went online in

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Speaker 1: February of nineteen. Each of the three reactors needed at

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Speaker 1: least one ton of uranium to produce just two grams

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Speaker 1: of plutonium. Un irradiated fuel elements were irradiated in reactors,

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Speaker 1: then a radiated fuel was cooled and sent by rail

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Speaker 1: to chemical separation plants known as canyons or Queen Mary's.

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Speaker 1: After the separation and concentration process, plutonium nitrate pace was

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Speaker 1: stored and then shipped to Last Alamos, New Mexico, where

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Speaker 1: a secret lab for the Manhattan Project was low caated.

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Speaker 1: In February of nineteen forty five, the first shipment of

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Speaker 1: plutonium was sent to Los Alamos, where the plutonium nitrate

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Speaker 1: was converted to metallic plutonium. Plutonium from the B reactor

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Speaker 1: was used in the Trinity Test, the first detonation of

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Speaker 1: a nuclear device, which was conducted at the Alama Gorda

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Speaker 1: Bombing and gunnery Range. Plutonium from the B reactor was

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Speaker 1: also used in fat Man, the bomb dropped over Nagasaki.

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Speaker 1: By December of nineteen forty six, employment at the site

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Speaker 1: was down to around five thousand people. After World War

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Speaker 1: Two was over and the Cold War ramped up, more

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Speaker 1: reactors and plutonium processing complexes were added at Hamford. The

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Speaker 1: site produced most of the plutonium used in US nuclear weapons.

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Speaker 1: Most of the nuclear reactors at Hamford shut down between

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Speaker 1: nineteen sixty four and nineteen seventy one, but one reactor

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Speaker 1: remained in use until nineteen eighty seven. This last reactor

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Speaker 1: and reactor was a power reactor for electricity and a

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Speaker 1: plutonium production and reactor for nuclear weapons. The U. S

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Speaker 1: Department of Energy has controlled the Hanford site since nineteen

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Speaker 1: seventy seven. In nineteen eighty nine, the Department of Energy,

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Speaker 1: Environmental Protection Agency and the Washington Department of Ecology entered

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Speaker 1: into an agreement for a cleanup at Hanford, which produced

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Speaker 1: a lot of nuclear waste. There is still controversy surrounding

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Speaker 1: leaks and contaminated waste at the site. I'm Eve Stepcote

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Speaker 1: and hopefully you know a little more about history today

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Speaker 1: than you did yesterday. Give us a shout or a

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Speaker 1: i heart media dot com. Thanks for listening. We'll see

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Speaker 1: you again tomorrow with another episode. For more podcasts from

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