Vallecitos Boiling Water Reactor (1957)
Vallecitos Nuclear Center
Pleasanton, CA 94566
Owner: Pacific Gas and Electric Co.

More about . . .
The Vallecitos boiling water reactor (VBWR) was the first privately owned and operated nuclear power plant to deliver significant quantities of electricity to a public utility grid. During the period October 1957 to December 1963, it delivered approximately 40,000 megawatt-hours of electricity. This reactor -- a light-water moderated and cooled, enriched uranium reactor using stainless steel-clad, plate-type fuel -- was a pilot plant and test bed for fuel, core components, controls, and personnel training for the Dresden project, a Commonwealth Edison plant built in Illinois five years later.

The plant was a collaborative effort of the General Electric Company and Pacific Gas and Electric Company with Bechtel serving as engineering contractor. Samuel Untermyer, the GE engineer responsible for the initial design of the VBWR, had performed much of the conceptual research at Argonne National Laboratory while conducting heat transfer and nuclear physics experiments, including the BORAX (boiling reactor experiment) tests.
 

General Electric Vallecitos Nuclear Center

The General Electric Vallecitos Nuclear Center, which General Electric privately owns and operates, occupies approximately 640 hectares (1,600 acres) in Pleasanton, Alameda County, California. The site is located approximately 64 kilometers (40 miles) east of San Francisco and approximately 11 kilometers (7 miles) southwest of the City of Livermore.

FACILITY MISSION

Past Department of Energy activities were responsible for contaminating the high­level Hot Cell No. 4 and the Emission Spectrograph Enclosure (glovebox) at the General Electric Vallecitos Nuclear Center with transuranic and low-level waste. Both work locations have been idle for more than ten years, and the Department's current mission at the Center is limited to the cleanup of Hot Cell No. 4 and the decontamination and disposal of the glovebox. Characterization activities are currently anticipated to begin in 1997.

The Department plans to decontaminate Hot Cell No. 4, remove the alpha enclosure, and certify the cell as free of transuranic contamination. When restoration activities are complete, General Electric will use the facility for commercial purposes. As Departmental and General Electric records indicate, General Electric used the facility for commercial work; therefore, a cost sharing arrangement is appropriate for this project. The cost sharing assumptions for this estimate depend on time of usage and can be summarized as follows: the Department is responsible for 76 percent of the costs relating to Hot Cell No. 4 and 90 percent of the costs for the glovebox; General Electric is responsible for 24 percent and 10 percent of these costs, respectively.

However, General Electric has not agreed to these percentages, and a formal division of the costs will be negotiated in FY 1996. (General Electric has been contributing to costs since 1982, and this apportionment is based on their contributions to date.) The costs presented in this site summary are limited to the Department of Energy's portion; the costs allocated to General Electric are not included.

Hot Cell No. 4 is one of four hot cells General Electric constructed in 1958 for post­irradiation examination of uranium fuel and irradiated reactor components. All four hot cells are located in the Radioactive Materials Laboratory in Building 102. Between 1965 and 1967, Hot Cell No. 4 was decontaminated, equipped with a stainless steel liner to

contain plutonium, and dedicated to the study of mixed oxide fuel rods in support of the Atomic Energy Commission's fast breeder reactor development programs. In 1978, Hot Cell No. 4 was placed in a standby condition, but Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory used it for six months in 1981 and 1982, and the General Electric Vallecitos Nuclear Center used it for corporate business for less than ten days per year thereafter. The Department has had no involvement with the other three hot cells, and its liability is limited to Hot Cell No. 4.

The glovebox is a 4.9-cubic meter (6.6-cubic yard) stainless steel enclosure located in the Analytical Chemistry Laboratory in Building 103. The General Electric Vallecitos Nuclear Center installed it in 1968 for emission spectrographic analyses of mixed­oxide fuel specimens for the Department, but it has not been used since 1980.

There are no current or planned nuclear material and facility stabilization activities. All waste management costs fall within the scope of Environmental Restoration. There are no permitted treatment, storage, and disposal facilities at the site. Since there are no long-term surveillance and monitoring needs, General Electric is the owner and operator of the General Electric Vallecitos Nuclear Center and is responsible for all landlord activities at the site. The Department's liability at this site will end following the last shipment of transuranic waste to the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant in FY 2004.

FUTURE USE

The General Electric Vallecitos Nuclear Center is a privately owned commercial research facility. The Department will complete decontamination of Hot Cell No. 4 and disposal of the glovebox before leaving the site. This estimate assumes that General Electric will continue to use the site for Industrial/Commercial purposes following release of Hot Cell Number 4 in FY 2000.

ENVIRONMENTAL RESTORATION

The Environmental Restoration program is the only Department of Energy activity at the General Electric Vallecitos Nuclear Center, and the scope for these activities includes all costs. See the Site Map for the location of environmental restoration activities.

Fuel examination activities in Hot Cell No. 4 and the glovebox resulted in radioactive contamination from various fission and activation products. Decontamination activities will generate two radioactive waste streams: 1) nonaqueous, remote­handled transuranic waste in the form of construction debris and equipment, which will be shipped to the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant, and 2) nonaqueous low­level waste, also in the form of construction debris and equipment, which will be shipped to the Hanford facility.

Based on process knowledge, the likelihood of finding any hazardous components in either Hot Cell No. 4 or the glovebox is small. This estimate assumes that no hazardous low-level mixed waste will be generated at either location.

The Hot Cell Facility is a Nuclear Regulatory Commission and Department of Health Services-licensed facility. Therefore, all decontamination and restoration activities must comply with the requirements and license provisions of both regulatory agencies.

General Electric has an extensive pollution control and prevention program that will be employed during the restoration of the hot cell and decontamination and disposal of the glovebox.