Mr. ROWAND. The Germans have an estimate of somewhere between $6 and $7 million for the equipment for the Otto Hahn. It is important to point out that the Savannah has 22,000 shaft horsepower and the Otto Hahn has only 10,000 shaft horsepower Also German labor and material costs are quite different than they are in this country. In the order of one-third or less on labor costs.

Mr. MAILLIARD. Of course, if you built the Savannah plant at today's prices it would cost more than $15 million, would it not?

Mr. ROWAND. I couldn't say for sure that it would because we have learned a lot too in the meantime. We have offered to AEIL a much larger and more sophisticated design and one more economically competitive than the Otto Hahn.

Mr. MAILLIARD. I think it was Mr. Reinecke yesterday that asked Mr. Shaw about the exchange of information and that seems to bear a little bit on this question. I gather your last comment indicates that nothing that we have supplied in the Otto Hahn situation puts anybody out ahead of us in technology.

Mr. ROWAND. I think in design technology this is correct.

Mr. MAILLIARD. Your company is capable of an even more advanced design at this point.

Mr. ROWAND. And we submitted this 14 months ago to AEIL.

Mr. MAILLIARD. I noticed with some interest that there is quite a lot of propaganda material being floated around on the SST. I wonder whether the industry of which your company is an important part is making any effort to inform the public of the possible potential values to the United States of going ahead with this kind of program.

Mr. ROWAND. Did I understand you to say the SST?

Mr. MAILLIARD. The point I am making is that the aerospace industry seems to do a lot of pretty successful propagandizing to keep public support going for its program. I wondered whether we don't fall down in that regard in the maritime industry.

Mr. ROWAND. We for one, generally are rather reserved in what we shout from the housetops so to speak about our capabilities and accomplishments, unless we have something in hand that we are actually doing.

Mr. MAILLIARD. For example, justifying the very large Government investment in the SST. I just have one thing here put out by Boeing where it shows what terrible calamities would befall if we did not proceed with this. They go into the effects on balance of payments and all kinds of things in justification. Yet when we had testimony yesterday from the Atomic Energy Commission that they are spending the handsome sum of $100,000 a year for development of propulsion in the maritime field I wonder if some similar case could not be made. Certainly the testimony you had this morning would indicate that the potential here is very large and if we neglect it a similar adverse situation might occur.

Mr. ROWAND. At the request of the Joint Committee on Atomic Energy last summer, B. & W. prepared a broad analysis of this. Although we are not capable in the entire field of merchant ship economics, by using information publicly available and our own input, we prepared an economic comparison for the joint committee and submitted it in September 1966. It outlined many of the things that Admiral James

said this morning. For a 30 knot containerized ship that handles some 13,00 cargo tons per trip a nuclear ship for 30 knots required about 105,000 shaft horsepower. At that power level, a nuclear ship compared favorably with an oil-fired ship, and showed that recapture of any subsidy would occur in a relatively few years. The cost as I remember was $7 million higher for the nuclear ship.

Mr. MAILLIARD. Would you have been able to perform these services in the design of the Otto Hahn plant if you had not had experience with the Savannah plant?

Mr. ROWAND. I am quite sure we would not. I doubt if we would have been asked to do so, if we had not had that experience behind

us.

Mr. MAILLIARD. It seems to me to stress not only the importance of continuing to get value out of the investment in the Savannah but not to waste too much time to get you or one of your competitors into the next generation in this field.

Mr. ROWAND. We have been doing subsequent design work largely with our own funds. You mentioned about spending money for the merchant marine program. We have and are spending this year in our test reactor at our research and development center in Lynchburg $170,000 for irradiating burnable poison materials for use in marine nuclear cores. It is only by obtaining this kind of information that you determine how much the fuel can be burned without having failures, swelling, and the like. We are contributing more than half the money involved in a study we are making for the Maritime Administration on safety of our advanced reactor plant this year.

Mr. MAILLIARD. I have one final question. You referred to a West German technical journal showing how they hoped to reach a position competitive with conventional power ships by 1970. I wonder if it would be useful, Mr. Chairman, to include that in the record. Could you make it available?

Mr. ROWAND. We certainly would be happy to do so.

Mr. MAILLIARD. I presume it is in German but I guess we could get it translated. It is on the last page of your statement where you identify the technical journal.

Mr. ROWAND. We will translate it as well. They list several test programs that they hope to accomplish on the Otto Hahn to prove out advanced technology, to reach this competitive position.

Mr. MAILLIARD. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I think it would be worthwhile to have that as part of the record.

The CHAIRMAN. With no objection.

(The material mentioned follows Mr. Rowand's testimony.)

The CHAIRMAN. I have just one question. On page 1 you say, “We have also continued to provide supporting services, at some considerable sacrifice, to help keep the Savannah running." Do you have any part of that Galveston setup? On page 2 you say, "Although we have provided senior technical personnel as nuclear advisers aboard the ship in all of her operations to date, it is imposing quite a hardship on us to do so since these senior personnel are urgently needed in our advanced design activities." Would you care to elaborate just how far you are going on this on your own? Are you paid by the Government or doing this on a voluntary basis?

Mr. ROWAND. No; we are being paid for this, Mr. Chairman, for our out-of-pocket costs. It is taking some of our key personnel, who are qualified and licensed for this activity, out of the stream of safety analysis work and other very important activities that are going on today.

The CHAIRMAN. Is it possible that these men could be replaced by the Government?

Mr. ROWAND. Well, we have been talking with the Maritime Administration and with the operating company about the possibility of having these men replaced by one or more of the people now in the employ of the operating company who are most capable people. It was part of the licensing procedure that the reactor designer furnish such help. We have eight or 10 people that are qualified and licensed for this operation.

The CHAIRMAN. Mr. Downing.

Mr. DOWNING. Mr. Rowand, how far have we gone down the road toward putting this reactor in a little "black box?" The Otto Hahn is probably more sophisticated than the reactor in the Savannah. The Enterprise has eight reactors and the upcoming atomic carrier has only two reactors. Are we progressing toward the end of making this smaller and more efficient and less costly?

Mr. ROWAND. The one we proposed to AEIL was a single reactor for 105,000 shaft horsepower.

Mr. DOWNING. Was this a smaller design than the reactor in the Savannah?

Mr. ROWAND. Considerably, relative to its specific size and its capacity.

Mr. DOWNING. The Otto Hahn reactor relative to the Savannah, is that a more efficient and a smaller engine?

Mr. ROWAND. When you say efficient, I believe that the fuel cost for the core in the Otto Hahn is very little different than the core in the Savannah. The core that we proposed to AEIL was much more efficient. It had zircaloy cladding instead of stainless steel and a much more efficient control rod drive system than either the Savannah or the Otto Hahn, and very similar, by the way, to the cores for utility plants. Mr. DOWNING. Has B. & W. developed a small reactor that can possibly go into an airplane?

Mr. ROWAND. No. Although this is off the point, we expect to obtain neptunium and perhaps americium from the spent fuel from the Duke power reactors about 5 years from now. There could be quite a market for these two fuels for space travel, because they don't need as much shielding.

Mr. DOWNING. That's another question. Have you reduced your shielding requirements? The Savannah has an extremely bulky operation when you see it. Is all of this necessary now with the present state of the art?

Mr. ROWAND. I have to refer now to utility practice. We are being required, and I think rightfully so at this stage, to be redundant and to be careful in the whole safety area both in engineered safeguards and containment to prevent any fissionable material spreading in case of a major accident. I would think that we are going to be required to do the same for any future nuclear ships, however, I don't think that

this is a major consideration in the economics. Compared to the Savannah, relatively I would say that there should be considerable saving. Mr. DOWNING. Thank you very much.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

The CHAIRMAN. Mr. Edwards.

Mr. EDWARDS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. You indicate in your statement that the Savannah has proved to be a safe ship as far as nuclear conditions are concerned, you have had no radioactive liquid of any kind released in any port or anything like this. What is a millicurie? How small is that? What does that mean, 9 millicuries of total detectable activity?

Mr. ROWAND. Well, its magnitude is much smaller than allowable. Mr. Smith tells me that a millicurie is the amount of material that gives 3.7 times 10 to the seventh disintegrations per second.

Mr. EDWARDS. That is what I thought it was. I did not know whether it was a sixth or seventh. I suppose what I am getting at is: is this small amount capable of killing fish or whatnot, or is it really something that you can hardly detect?

Mr. ROWAND. I think it is about one-one-thousandth of what is permitted by the safety analysis.

Mr. EDWARDS. So that you would say in this respect that the Savannah has exceeded all expectations as far as safety is concerned? Mr. ROWAND. Yes.

Mr. EDWARDS. Doesn't it strike you as a little bit odd that we have gone to this great expense and opened the door to ports of the world to this type of ship and that we now appear to be about to fall by the wayside in capitalizing on it so that we have opened the door for the Otto Hahn, for example, and this ship will be able to go into ports that perhaps would not have been opened to it.

I gather from your statement that this concerns you and that we should be moving forward with an ongoing program of nuclear propulsion. Is that a fair statement?

Mr. ROWAND. That is right. My personal opinion is that it would be tragic if this took place.

Mr. EDWARDS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

The CHAIRMAN. Mr. Rogers.

Mr. ROGERS. It is my understanding that you think we should continue the Savannah in operation but do more research as to changing its power?

Mr. ROWAND. I think that we should be getting on with a program as a nation for the follow-on. These must be in the area of these large, fast cargo ships and particularly on the long hauls like trade route 12. Mr. ROGERS. Would it be cheaper to do it with the Savannah, to continue research and try to change the power system in the Savannah or would it be better to do it with another ship?

Mr. ROWAND. I am going to speak now as having been with B. & W. for 37 years and have always been in the engineering, development, and service end of our business. It has been my experience that you learn by doing, as we have with the Savannah in fact. The ship should continue to operate and not be laid up somewhere for several years making a lot of changes. I think it would be much more costly, and less effective, to do the job that way, than to have the Savannah keep

running and be building something to follow on and take its place. Mr. ROGERS. Another ship, in other words?

Mr. ROWAND. Yes, or ships.

Mr. ROGERS. Rather than do the work with the Savannah itself. Mr. ROWAND. That is right.

Mr. ROGERS. You think this would offer enough opportunity to advance our technology?

Mr. ROWAND. In the Savannah we will learn many things yet such as: what are the weak spots? When do we have our first fuel failure? These kind of things you can only learn by operating. This is true whether it is at sea or on land.

Mr. ROGERS. Then it is your understanding, I presume, that if this were laid up there is no ongoing program at all in this area?

Mr. ROWAND. Well, that is the present status as I understand it. I think it would be tragic to see the men that have been trained go off into other areas because probably they would never be back.

Mr. ROGERS. I understand that the cost for laying up the ship would be considerable, too. Is that your understanding?

Mr. ROWAND. I don't have any expertise in this direction, but I have heard numbers from $112 to $9 million. I can put no substance to those

numbers.

Mr. ROGERS. And the cost to the Government in operating the ship now is what?

Mr. ROWAND. It is something less than $2 million as I understand the numbers given by the Maritime Administration.

Mr. ROGERS. Thank you very much.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman."

The CHAIRMAN. Mr. Reinecke.

Mr. REINECKE. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. Rowand, yesterday we learned that the Atomic Energy Commission is not particularly interested in the Savannah other than as a matter of record. Would you or your company be in a position to write a program that would provide some meaningful results for future operation of the Savannah?

Mr. ROWAND. We certainly would be; yes, sir.

Mr. REINECKE. And you feel that there would be some date that would be of significant value to the reactor design and manufacturing industry and the merchant marine in general.

Mr. ROWAND. The most important is to make all those parts that are there operate and get experience from them. We find this important in all our work.

Mr. REINECKE. In your statement you indicated that B. & W.'s participation in the Savannah was $13.3 million and the total ship cost according to the figure was $55 million. Why is there the large difference? Was your $13 million participation the power unit and instrumentation installed?

Mr. ROWAND. It was for all of the equipment we furnished, plus the core, the turbine and the gears-which normally B. & W. does not furnish-and all the piping and other equipment.

Mr. REINECKE. Was that installed or was that just furnished? Mr. ROWAND. No, that was for the equipment delivered.

Mr. REINECKE. I was wondering why the $42 million difference? Mr. ROWAND. Our price also included the first time engineering.