Ernest Graves
the resupply of fuel, which, at the time of the DEW [distant early warning] line and all
the other installations up in the north, was a very heavy burden. They could only be
resupplied in the summer. The summer months were short, and the whole logistic thing
was very costly.
Because it was economic rather than military, they adopted a different philosophy from
[Admiral Hyman G.] Rickover's program.
As far as Rickover was concerned, performance and safety were important, and it didn't
really matter what power plants cost. I don't mean that he was profligate, but he never
hesitated to spend money if it was important as far as the operational efficiency or the
safety of the propulsion plants for the nuclear submarines. He lavished money on the
technology to get the best product.
By the time Lampert and Gribble got going on nuclear power, their attitude was that
they had to demonstrate almost from the beginning that the plant was going to be
economic. Among other things, they advertised for competitive bids and awarded to the
lowest bidder the contract for the development of the plant at Belvoir.
Q:
I hate to interrupt you, but is that a civil works syndrome? Is that the cost-benefit ratio?
A:
Yes. I think they reflected the attitude of the Corps that you get qualified bidders and
then you get the best price you can by going to the lowest bidder. I agree with that if
you have technology in hand.
However, when there are technological problems, a fixed-price contract awarded to the
lowest bidder can be a mistake. In this case, there was some problem, but not a serious
one, because there were not as many technical uncertainties in that plant as there were
in some others. The type of fuel rods was new. They went to a stainless steel clad fuel
rod. Rickover had been using titanium cladding on his rods. The Army went to stainless
steel, on which most of the development work had been done at the Oak Ridge
National Laboratory [Tennessee]. That turned out OK. Where it broke down was that
the controls were too complicated for that type of plant.
The contractor had a mixture of every conceivable type of instrument--air operated
instruments, electrical instruments, electronic instruments. The instrumentation control
panel was a monster. As the person in charge of operations and training, I had to come
up with a crew for this plant.
We had to have two people on each shift, and we had all these different maintenance
specialties. As I recall, the crew to operate this plant ended up being 18 to 20 people.
That didn't compete well with a diesel engine, where you could hire one guy, and he
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