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The Hanford Site occupies 586 square miles (1,518 km 2) – roughly equivalent to half the total area of Rhode Island – within Benton County, Washington. [1] [2] It is a desert environment receiving less than ten inches (250 mm) of annual precipitation, covered mostly by shrub-steppe vegetation.
While many downwinders were exposed to weapons testing, millions more have been affected by radioactive fallout due to U.S. sites engaged in the production of nuclear weapons and/or nuclear power. For example, Hanford is a former nuclear weapons production site located in south central Washington state, where the Washington state Department of ...
The control panel for the Hanford nuclear site's B Reactor in 2008. AP Photo/Ted S. Warren, File. The B Reactor was the world's first full-scale plutonium production reactor. Instead of being ...
During the Cold War, the Hanford Site facilities were expanded to include nine nuclear reactors and five large plutonium processing complexes that produced plutonium for most of the more than 60,000 weapons built for the US nuclear arsenal. After sufficient plutonium had been produced, the production reactors were shut down between 1964 and 1971.
The world’s first full-scale nuclear reactor was part of the Manhattan Project. During the ride, a friendly guide delivers an introduction to Hanford history in the remote desert landscape.
Hanford’s historic B Reactor, the world’s first full-scale nuclear reactor, went critical on Sept. 26, 1944. Wigner’s team had designed the Hanford reactors to house 1,600 process tubes.
The B Reactor at the Hanford Site, near Richland, Washington, was the first large-scale nuclear reactor ever built. The project was a key part of the Manhattan Project, the United States nuclear weapons development program during World War II.
The 586-square-mile Hanford site adjacent to Richland in Eastern Washington was used from World War II through the Cold War to produce almost two-thirds of the plutonium for the nation’s nuclear ...