A Nuclear Engineer in the Twentieth Century

About the Book

How does a chemical engineer, discharged from the Navy, drafted into the Army and assigned to the Medics, get on the Manhattan Atom Bomb Project and become a Nuclear Engineer in the Twentieth Century? With a great deal of luck and a little talent.

In addition to telling this story, the book is written for a lay audience, but for someone having technical and scientific interests, and wanting to better understand the development of nuclear technology in the US. Radiation safety, power economics, risk/benefit analyses, and the societal issues of nuclear waste disposal, including such politically non-touchable areas as -"How many dollars to save a life?" and relatedly - "How safe is safe enough?" - are all discussed.

Mr. Kupp's anecdotes of his youth, his home life, and his 30-year sailing history, all contribute to the realism of the book and round out the story of his life to more than just a technical career.

About the Author

Mr. Robert W. Kupp - PE NY, a graduate Chemical Engineer, began his nuclear career in the Special Engineers Detachment at Oak Ridge Tennessee on the Manhattan Atom Bomb Project in World War II. During the war, and for a time afterward, he worked in the Gaseous Diffusion Plant in several key jobs. He left this position to join the Kellex Corporation (later changed to the Vitro Engineering Company) as a process engineer. Kellex, an Architect Engineering firm, had designed and built the Oak Ridge Gaseous Diffusion Plant, and had just started the design of the several post war nuclear fuel reprocessing plants at Hanford Washington. These massive plants were a requirement for the expanded plutonium weapons production at the beginning of the USÐRussian arms race and the Hydrogen Bomb development,.

Vitro Engineering subsequently designed many civilian nuclear projects and with Mr. Kupp, as their Chief Nuclear Engineer, designed one of the initial nuclear power plants in the US, Indian Point-I, on the Hudson River north of New York City.

In 1960 Mr. Kupp joined with Mr. Sidney Stoller (previously Vice President of Engineering at Vitro) to form Stoller Associates, whose primary charter was to serve the growing commercial nuclear power industry in the development of this new technology. Over the years Stoller Associates grew and as a Corporation served over half of the power utility companies in the US who were building, or were considering building, a nuclear power plant. As Vice President, Mr. Kupp directed much of this consulting work specializing in the nuclear fuel cycle, safety, and power generation economics. In addition to the Electric Utility Industry, the Department of Energy, the United Nations, and many private corporations were also clients. Supplementing his full time company work he taught nuclear engineering as an Adjunct Professor at New York Polytechnic Institute.

After Stoller, Mr. Kupp joined Dames & Moore, an engineering and environmental organization, as a Senior Consultant. In this position his major assignments were in nuclear safety, hazards analysis, and the engineering and risk assessment of nuclear waste treatment and disposal facilities. Outside of his professional career Mr. Kupp has been an avid sailor for more than 30 years, and in later years has taken up painting.