Carl Higby

After graduating Washington State University in 1950, Carl Higby was recruited to work at Hanford as an operations supervisor for the reactors. Higby discusses some of the problems that arose when the reactor was online, and explains how impurities in the coolant water could plug some of the sensor tubes and force them to shut the reactor down. Higby also discusses the innovation of the Ball-3X System, a safety method that included a hopper of small boron steel balls that would be dropped into the reactor and fill up the vertical rod safety channel, shutting the reactor down and preventing a critical meltdown.