World's First Full-Scale Nuclear Reactor
The B Reactor is the centerpiece of a global and local story that required tremendous effort and ingenuity from many people. The uranium that fueled the B Reactor was mined primarily in the Belgian Congo and refined in northern Canada. Several processing plants in the US further refined and milled uranium into billets. The billets were then shipped to Hanford’s fuel-fabrication area Machines shaped the billets into fuel slugs and sealed the uranium slugs in aluminum jackets.