by Uzi Eilam
During the preparatory meetings I got to know the group of officials who were about to come under my direction: they were professionals, and most could already boast impressive accomplishments. They taught me a great deal about the closed nuclear research community which until that point I knew very little. For the first time I understood how their sense of isolation was intensified by the unique subject matter with which they dealt and about their inability to publish a large portion of their research in the academic literature. In the future...hought to myself...ould need to find a way to breech this heavy cloak of isolation.
Shalhevet Freier
I also met a number of times with outgoing IAEC Director Shalhevet Freier and his assistant David Peleg, who would later be appointed deputy director-general. Freier was bright and intelligent, and had a European cultural background. When I arrived in my office on the morning of my first day as director-general, I found a small, beautiful porcelain vase with a rose in it on my desk. Attached to it was a note that read: “Uzi, I wish you success!” I was pleased and heartened by his kindness and the warm welcome with which he received me. I could not have asked for a more pleasant first day on the job, which I had been so anxious about beginning.
Shalhevet Freier was born in Germany in 1920 to Rabbi Moshe Yissachar Freier and his wife Recha, the founder of the World War II Jewish rescue organization “Youth Aliyah”. One year after he immigrated to pre-state Palestine with his family, Shalhevet was already serving as a soldier in the British army. He studied mathematics, and played a major role in the establishment of scientific ties between Israel and France as the scientific consultant of the Israeli embassy in Paris, where he served between 1956 and 1959.
Freier had an uncanny ability to assemble scientific teams to assist the IAEC in setting research and development policies and in adopting positions on concrete issues. During the meetings he conducted that I attended, it was abundantly clear that he made people feel like they could express themselves freely and at the same time maintained his ability to make the final decision. Freier was a quintessential bachelor who knew how to captivate the women around him. At times, he did so with a bouquet of flowers, and at other times he did so with a tasteful compliment. No matter how he did so, it was always with a touch of European style that brought the members of the fairer sex to their knees. His hair, which had already started to gray and which he always kept brushed across his forehead, gave him the appearance of a mischievous teenager. Indeed, he did in fact possess a playful sense of humor. I had no hesitations about asking Freier to stay on as an advisor. I trusted him to remain focused on the issues and the organization which he had just finished managing, and I knew he would provide me with loyal support. I felt that my knowledge of and experience with Israeli foreign relations and nuclear issues were insufficient, and Freier agreed to head the advisory team on policy and responses in the international realm.
Nuclear Power Plants
A fascinating and extremely important subject in the field of nuclear research is the use of nuclear energy created for the production of energy. The technique for controlling the process of nuclear fission was developed by the Americans at the beginning of World War II under the leadership of Enrico Fermi and Leó Szilárd, two scientists who had immigrated to the US — the former from Italy and the latter from Hungary. The first reactor to control the fission process was built in Chicago, but the reactor and the team that built it were immediately integrated into the Manhattan Project for weapons development in order to use it produce plutonium. The scientists found that normal water could effectively control the movement of neutrons. Later, they discovered that heavy water serves the purpose as well; the Canadians built CANDU power reactors using heavy water as a moderator.
Within the framework of the Manhattan Project the Americans developed processes for producing the two fissionable elements for weapons. Plutonium 239 was produced by irradiating natural uranium (238) in a reactor and chemically separating the plutonium produced by the reaction. They attempted to produce uranium 235 through an electromagnetic process and through gaseous diffusion. Uranium 235, which is used in nuclear weapons, is enriched by centrifuges. This process, based on the slight but significant weight difference between uranium 238 and uranium 235, achieves separation through the use of the centrifugal force created by the rotation of the centrifuges.
After the war America’s nuclear development program was divided into two primary directions: further weapons development (in a frenzied race between the US and the Soviet Union, and subsequently Britain, China, and France), and atomic development for civilian purposes. By 1957 the first commercial nuclear reactor had already started operating in Pennsylvania, and the Soviets had also learned how to use nuclear reactors to produce energy. During the same year the UN’s International Atomic Energy Agency began to operate in Vienna. Oversight of these two types of nuclear development — development for the production of nuclear weapons on the one hand and development for civilian uses on the other hand — remains a high priority on the international agenda today.
By the time I entered the office of director-general, IAEC administration had made preparations for the construction of nuclear power plants for producing electricity, and the appropriate organizational measures had been taken within the IAEC administration and its research centers. Significant preparations for the era of nuclear electricity had also been made by the Israel Electric Corporation, which established a team of engineers and technicians to begin studying the issue in close cooperation with the IAEC.
Four years after the oil crisis of 1973 the push to develop alternatives to replace oil as the main source for the production of electricity began to wane. In the US, which had embarked upon a major drive to construct nuclear electricity plants, people started to question whether nuclear power was worthwhile in light of the high cost of plant construction. At the same time, however, two giant companies — Westinghouse and General Electric — continued work on the development and production of nuclear reactors and generators for electricity production, and competed with one another for the market in the US and around the world. Two countries that suffered from the oil crisis in particular were France and Japan, which decided to persevere in their efforts to build nuclear power plants. French and Japanese policy remained unchanged even after the relaxation of oil prices and today nuclear electricity provides for almost 80 percent of all electricity consumption in France and about 30 percent in Japan. Joint teams of the Israel Electric Corporation and the IAEC began examining various proposals for the construction of nuclear power plants, including those submitted by the American companies Westinghouse and General Electric, and those submitted by the French company Framatom.
No discussion of the beginning of the era of nuclear power plants would be complete without briefly mentioning the father of nuclear submarines, Admiral Hyman Rickover. Rickover, who came from a Jewish family that immigrated to the United States from Poland at the beginning of the 20th century, was talented and ambitious, and he had no hesitation about expressing criticism of mediocrity and stupidity. During World War II he was appointed to head the Electrical Section of the Bureau of Ships of the US Navy. He possessed operational experience on the high seas, both above and beneath the surface, technical knowledge and a sharp understanding of advanced technology.
In 1946 the United States decided to make use of the knowledge acquired during the Manhattan Project to develop systems that used nuclear energy to produce electricity. Rickover’s work with Dr. Alvin Weinberg, the Oak Ridge laboratory’s research director, yielded the pressurized water reactor, which generated power for submarines and aircraft carriers.
Two projects were based on the principle of the pressurized water reactor: the nuclear submarine and the electricity producing reactor, known as the Shippingport Power Station. Rickover managed both projects with an iron fist and was involved with all the details of their planning and operation. Five years later, in 1954,
construction of the electricity production facility at Shippingport, Pennsylvania was completed, making it the first commercial electric power plant to operate on nuclear energy. The same period witnessed the launching of the first nuclear-powered submarine, known as the Nautilus, after which Hyman Rickover was awarded the rank of admiral.
In the early 1980s Rickover visited Israel as the guest of the IAEC We assembled the senior staff of the IAEC administration and of the research centers at the Nahal Sorek facility to meet the Admiral. At age 82, Rickover was completely lucid and full of energy. His personal escort was reprimanded because all the neon lights in the hallway leading to the meeting room were on. “Why do you allow yourselves to waste electricity like that,” he asked. “Do you have a budget surplus?” His poor escort had no choice but to proceed down the hallway, switch by switch, fulfilling the wishes of the elderly energy conservation tyrant. In the meeting room the Admiral presented us with a brilliant lecture on the history of nuclear reactors.
The preparations for the construction of nuclear power plants in Israel included the selection of a site where it would be possible to safely operate a nuclear reactor. The danger which has been made so eminently clear with the early 2011 Japanese experience now is that posed by earthquakes. We considered a site near Nitzanim Beach, close to the Mediterranean waterline, in order to use sea water to cool the reactor systems. After much work we were forced to give up on the site at Nitzanim, and our surveys were refocused on the Western Negev desert. It was there, near Shivta, that we found a location that would fit the necessary safety requirements.
Preparations for the establishment of nuclear power reactors for the production of electricity could not be made without bringing the issue to the Israeli government for a critical discussion on the principle of the matter. Many questions needed to be answered such as budgeting, negotiations with the American companies and safety issues. Prime Minister Rabin agreed to bring the issue before the government for an initial discussion, and we worked hard with the Israel Electric Corporation preparing our presentation of the issue. At the time, Yigal Alon was Foreign Minister and Yehoshua Rabinovich was Finance Minister. Haim Bar-Lev was Minister of Commerce and Industry and in this capacity was also responsible for the Israel Electric Corporation.
Rather naïvely I thought that if we presented the issue in a clear and focused manner we would receive the broad support of the government. I was certain that the impact of the oil crisis had been great enough to convince the ministers of the project’s importance. Rabin was willing to move forward to the second phase of preparing the project, and Bar-Lev also supported continuing the preliminary work toward purchasing the nuclear plants. We were surprised by the firm opposition of Foreign Minister Alon, which was based on diplomatic considerations. Israel was not a signatory to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), he emphasized, and purchasing a nuclear power plant could potentially result in international pressure on Israel to sign the treaty.
As a loyal custodian of the public treasury, Finance Minister Rabinovich made a presentation that focused on the budgetary burden presented by the project and raised a number of points formulated in an intelligent and sophisticated manner. However, Rabinovich did not bother to inform his fellow ministers that, although the construction of a nuclear power plant required significantly greater investment than a plant fueled by oil or coal, the operating costs over its forty-year life were much lower than the operating costs of a plant operating on fossil fuels. Rabin concluded the meeting by leaving the issue open, but we knew that moving forward would involve a difficult struggle on our part. Primarily, it would require a concerted effort to change the positions of officials at the finance ministry.
We established contact with the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC), which was willing to share the vast knowledge it had acquired during its 20 years of operation. We drafted an agreement for Israeli–American cooperation, and I flew to Washington in 1979 with a group of Israeli nuclear safety officials for the signing ceremony. I tried to understand the great importance with which the US government viewed cooperation on safety issues, and all I could come up with was the possibility that they were hoping to use the issue to bring Israel into the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. Israel did not agree to sign the NPT, and still refrains from doing so today. Instead, it has opted to leave the status of its nuclear technological development intentionally vague.
While we were in America for the signing of the agreement, fate provided me with a startling once in a lifetime experience. The day of the signing ceremony, a mishap occurred in one of the reactors of the Three Mile Island power plant in Pennsylvania. The Americans informed us that they were dealing with the accident, and we were able to follow the events that followed in and around the site itself. At first it was all quite frightening. A helicopter bearing devices to measure the radiation levels transmitted data indicating higher than usual levels of radiation above the site. Although this reading later turned out to be mistaken, the data appeared extremely dangerous to the governor of Pennsylvania, who was following the developments from emergency headquarters in his office in the state capital of Harrisburg, along with advisors from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC). The governor ordered the evacuation of an eight-mile radius around the damaged reactor...opulation of 25,000. The media frenzy surrounding the event was immense, and even after it was announced that the initial radiation reading had been flawed and that radiation levels in the area were actually not high, no one believed it. The governor’s evacuation order and the television images of the exodus of the population from the area surrounding the nuclear power plant were enough to firmly establish the general belief that a real nuclear disaster had taken place.
We were surprised when the directors of the NRC offered to take us on a tour of the site where the nuclear mishap had occurred. When we arrived at the site in a small convoy of vehicles, it was completely closed down. We took a relatively small tour next to the damaged reactor, and from outside we could see the structure of the reactor, the turbines, and the water cooling towers. We were not permitted to leave the vehicles, and we were taken to the site’s administration building where we were briefed on each phase of the accident. It was still difficult at that early stage to ascertain all the details but we learned from briefings that at 4 a.m. the water pump supplying the second cooling system had failed, which was unrelated to the first nuclear loop. The reactor technicians had not identified the problem as a loss of cooling water. Although the emergency pumps that were supposed to kick in automatically to return water to the reactor did in fact begin to operate, the water still could not reach the reactor core. During a drill carried out the previous day, the valves that allowed the emergency cooling water to reach the core had been closed, and someone had forgotten to open them again. Only a few hours after the core meltdown did the plant workers manage to get water flowing properly to cool the inside of the reactor. No radioactive material had been emitted from the sealing of the reactor structure, but the reactor itself was completely destroyed. On this basis our colleagues from the NRC concluded that the accident had been caused by a chain reaction of planning errors and some human errors. However, the American nuclear industry could be praised for the plant structure, which provided a safety backup that effectively prevented the leakage of radioactive material into the environment.
With Prime Minister Menachem Begin while the author was director general of the Israel Atomic Energy Comission. At Begin’s left is Shalhevet Freier, my predecessor at the IAEC
I recalled this explanation of the accident at Three Mile Island many years later, long after I had completed my tenure as director-general of the IAEC, when my wife Naomi and I were visiting the Ukraine and I insisted on visiting the museum at Chernobyl that documented the nuclear accident that had taken place there. Because the Russian nuclear reactors were not built according to the standard Western safety criteria, the temperature of the Chernobyl reactor was able to r
ise uncontrollably and resulted in an explosion. The explosion caused a huge fire, which contaminated the atmosphere by scattering radioactive material throughout an area of dozens of square kilometers.
Nonetheless, nuclear power plants remained on the Israeli agenda, and Prime Minister Menachem Begin was briefed on the preparatory work that had been completed while Yitzhak Rabin was in office. Our contacts with the American power plant production companies continued, as did our assessment of the designated site in the northern Negev. The fact that we had signed an American–Israeli agreement for cooperation in the realm of nuclear reactor safety reinforced the good will and efforts of the American companies.
With Prime Minister Menachem Begin at the nuclear research center in Dimona
Our path toward the construction of nuclear power plants was overshadowed by one major obstacle: Israel’s refusal to sign the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. We wrestled with the issue a great deal and regarded the idea of demilitarization as an intermediate means by which Israel could acquire a higher scientific standing. In 1974 the UN General Assembly called on all countries in the Middle East to sign the NPT, which envisioned the establishment of a nuclear weapons free zone throughout the region, and for the countries to pledge not to produce nuclear weapons. By that time an agreement had already been reached for the establishment of such a zone in South America, and most Latin American countries had already signed the Latin American Nuclear Free Zone Treaty in Tlatelolco, a section of Mexico City. Talks concerning similar treaties were held in the South Pacific and Southeast Asia.