US Army Nuclear Power Program related articles
Charlie Porter and Roger Hale both have stories of interest. Charlie lives in the shadow of several monster wind turbines, Roger helped to build the PM-2A at Camp Century. Charlie Porter had a nice little horse farm in northwest Missouri. He now really wants to sell that farm and move away because his neighbors are…
Talking about nuclear fission power from California Shane and I talked about my Google Tech Talk titled “Fission is the new Fire”, the power of competition and human interests, the difference in atomic success between the US and France (emphasizing the fact that the US produces 2 times as much electricity with nuclear power as…
Like the United States, Russia has a long history of operating nuclear powered ships and submarines. Russia, and its atomic ancestor, the Soviet Union, has experienced a few more major problems with the technology. They have not had quite the financial resources, political support, technical leadership and discipline that has helped to ensure the almost…
Small nuclear power plants can deliver the benefits of electrical power to the 2 billion people that currently do not have access to electricity. Shane and I were inspired by an article titled “Nuclear to the rescue” by Paul Driessen who also wrote “Eco-Imperialism: Green Power Black Death.”. I had posted a comment about the…
Before the discovery of nuclear fission, the only power source capable of supplying reliable electrical energy in remote locations was a combustion engine. Because of its compact nature compared to a coal fired steam engine, the internal combustion engine was the power system of choice. When engineers realized that a fission power plant could operate…
Recently I took my family to the Tampa, Florida Museum of Science and Industry (MOSI), which had a traveling exhibit on Antarctica. The display included a great deal of information about the dedicated explorers and unique wildlife indigenous to that remote land with one of the harshest climates on earth. Several of the exploration groups…
The U. S. Navy began intensive involvement in Antarctic research missions during 1955 in preparation for the International Geophysical Year. The Department of Defense assigned the Navy the responsibility of maintaining and supplying the logistical needs of permanent research stations located in Antarctica. The assignment was based on the fact that the Navy had the…
Sources for Atomic Energy Insights August 1996 (Power Barges) Simpson, John Nuclear Power from Underseas to Outer Space, American Nuclear Society, La Grange Park, IL 1995. Valenti, Michael Power Plants to Go, Mechanical Engineering, May 1996. Raytheon and Westinghouse Consortium Awarded 382 Million for Pakistani Power Project, Press Release dated April 22, 1996. Floating N-Plants:…
The Army Nuclear Power program recognized the potential benefits of putting a nuclear power plant on a water mobile platform in the early 1960s. In January, 1963, construction began on the Sturgis, a World War II vintage Liberty ship hull modified to accept installation of a 10,000 kilowatt pressurized water nuclear steam plant. Designated the…
The SL-1 accident was initiated by the rapid withdrawal of the central control rod. Starting from a fully shutdown condition, the action produced a condition in the core technically known as a prompt criticality. When the SL-1 reactor achieved prompt criticality, a number of events happened in rapid succession. The core power level pulsed to…
The Army’s designation , SL-1, tells us that the plant was a stationary, low power reactor, and that it was the first of its kind. The design work was done by Argonne National Laboratory in 1955-1956 under the name Argonne Low Power Reactor (ALPR). SL-1’s mission was to provide power to radar stations along the…
One common link in the training of most nukes is the viewing of a grainy, black and white documentary on the aftermath of an accident at a reactor known as SL-1. The accident occured on January 3, 1961 at the Atomic Energy Commission’s National Reactor Testing Station near Idaho Falls Idaho. Three people died in…