American Nuclear Society Student Section University of Puerto Rico at Mayagüez
#MakeNuclearMatter
Puerto Rico Nuclear History Awareness Program
About
The Puerto Rico Nuclear History Awareness Program (PR-NHAP) was created by the American Nuclear Society Student Section at the University of Puerto Rico at Mayaguez (ANS UPRM) in 2022 to raise awareness of the island’s rich history in nuclear sciences. The project is funded by the American Nuclear Society’s 2022 George A. Ferguson Grant.
Objectives
The PR-NHAP aims to initiate conversations regarding Puerto Rico’s nuclear history and improve public opinion of nuclear sciences and technology within the Latin-American community by carrying out community outreach events at multiple levels and providing free and easily accessible bi-lingual educational content. All outreach efforts should focus on answering the public’s questions with factual, unbiased, clear information.
The goal for the 2022-2023 academic year was to reach out to a minimum of 300 people through multiple strategies, including seminars, K-12 outreach events, educational fieldtrips, or publishing educational articles or infographics.
A Summary of the History of Nuclear Sciences in Puerto Rico
The nuclear engineering field was present in the island of Puerto Rico during the 1950s through the 1970s. Projects such as the Puerto Rico Nuclear Center (later named Center for Energy and Environment Research) and the Boiling Nuclear Superheater (BONUS) Reactor Facility employed thousands of scientists and engineers, and carried out important research projects related to nuclear energy, applications of nuclear sciences in medicine, and environmental studies. Despite the University of Puerto Rico’s rich history in nuclear engineering research, including the previous offering of a Nuclear Engineering masters degree, the university does not currently offer nuclear engineering courses in any of its 11 campuses.
Puerto Rico’s BONUS Facility, a nuclear power plant prototype located in Domes Beach, Rincón, was created to research boiling-superheating in the late 1960s, and was quickly decommissioned in 1969–70 due to technical difficulties. The local community’s perceived failure of BONUS, followed by the Three Mile Island and Chernobyl nuclear accidents, led to a lack of support for nuclear power in Puerto Rico and over time, most projects were shut down for various reasons. Today, nuclear energy remains a controversial topic in the island. Still, relevant research is currently being conducted at the UPRM’s Bubble Dynamics Laboratory facilities.
Topics related to the detection, characterization, generation, and manipulation of microbubbles and nanobubbles for visualization of multiphase flows to improve the designs, efficiencies, and safety of current water-based reactors, as well as Generation IV molten salt technologies have gained traction. Furthermore, the student and faculty communities have demonstrated interest in the implementation of a nuclear engineering minor at the university.
Boiling Nuclear Superheater (BONUS)
In the 1960s, the Boiling Nuclear Superheater (BONUS) Experimental Reactor Facility, located in Rincón, Puerto Rico, was built. After a political, economical, and social decline in interest in nuclear science research, most projects were shut down. Once the BONUS facility was shut down and decommissioned, it was turned into a museum run by the Department of Energy, and is formally known as Museo Tecnológico BONUS Dr. Modesto Iriarte.
The existence of this plant is not common knowledge within the island, and many of our inhabitants are not aware that Puerto Rico has had 3 active nuclear reactors throughout it’s history.
ANS UPRM Student Section
The ANS UPRM Student Section was officially approved on November 19th, 2019 by the ANS Board of Directors during the 2019 Winter Meeting in Washington, D.C. with the purpose of raising awareness about nuclear science and technology. It was founded by four undergraduate students from the university’s chemical engineering department. The student section started out with 25 members, quickly growing to over 200 members over the course of the next few years.
In the authorization petition submitted by
the organizing students to the Board in 2019, the primary stated objective was to educate the Puerto Rican communities on subjects regarding nuclear sciences to help reduce and prevent the propagation of stigmas and misinformation and to create meaningful connections between students and professionals interested in researching areas related to nuclear subjects.
Today, the section continues to pursue its mission with the support of the University of Puerto Rico at Mayaguez, the Nuclear Alternative Project, the American Nuclear Society, and multiple small groups of students and professionals in the nuclear field. In recent years, the section and it’s members have received several recognitions, grants, and awards from the American Nuclear Society at a national level.
Nuclear Energy in Puerto Rico
Historically, there have been a total of three Nuclear Reactors in Puerto Rico. The most well known reactor was located at the Boiling Nuclear Superheater (BONUS) Reactor Facility in Rincón, Puerto Rico. The other two were located in the Center for Energy and Environmental Research (CEER). The Puerto Rico Nuclear Center (PRNC) was established by the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission (AEC) in 1957, with facilities in located in the two largest campuses of the University of Puerto Rico: Mayagüez and Rio Piedras. The name was later changed to Center for Energy and Environmental Research in 1976.
The CEER Rio Piedras Site contained the Bio-Medical Life Sciences Research and Training Center, which was created under the 1958 Atoms for Peace program. The facility has since been used fer educational and research purposes. Multiple studies on nuclear medicine, radiotherapy, and ecology were conducted at this site. Decontamination activities were carried out in the early 1980s before transfering the facility to the UPRM. Abnormal radiation levels are no longer detected in the area.
The CEER Mayagüez site contained multiple laboratories, marine study facilities, a nuclear reactor for research purposes, and a nuclear reactor for training purposes. The 1-megawatt materials testing research reactor was operational from 1960-1971, when it was replaced with a 2-megawatt TRIGA (Training, Research, Isotope, General Atomics) research reactor. The training reactor, an L-77 reactor, operated periodically until September 1976, when both reactors were decommissioned. The final fuel components were removed in 1981, in 1992 the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency determined that the site was safe, and the final decontamination and restauration efforts were completed in 1997.
The potential future use of Small Modular Reactors to meet Puerto Rico’s energy needs is the subject of a feasibility study conducted by the Nuclear Alternative Project, a non-profit group led by Puerto Rican engineers trained in the U.S. nuclear industry.
The American Nuclear Society Student Section at the University of Puerto Rico at Mayaguez not provided an official statement on their standing on the subject of applications of nuclear energy in the island, but has generally remained neutral in the issue.
Center for Energy and Environment Research [CEER]
The Puerto Rico Nuclear Center, also known as the Center for Energy and Environment Research, was founded in 1957 as a nuclear training and research institution. The facilities in Mayagüez housed a one megawatt MTR research reactor, which became operational in 1960. The facility received annual support of approximately $2 million from the AEC (Atomic Energy Commission) for ten years, facilitating training and research activities. In 1971, the MTR was closed down and replaced with a two megawatt TRIGA research reactor, although it was not generally operated at power levels exceeding 1.2 megawatts.
In 1976, the center’s name was changed to the Center for Energy and Environmental Research (CEER), and its mission expanded to include research, development, and training for both nuclear and non-nuclear energy technologies. At that time, the programs were transferred to the University of Puerto Rico. The TRIGA reactor was shut down on September 30, 1976, and a decommissioning and removal program for the reactor was initiated.
