On January 3, 1961, the SL-1, a small boiling water reactor designed for powering and heating remote radar stations, exploded. All three operators on the site were killed in the accident, leaving investigators to determine what happened. The July issue of Atomic Energy Insights provides the results of the investigations and reveals some information that was never part of the official reports.
Russian Floating Power Stations (June 11, 1996: Source-NucNet, an Internet service of the European Nuclear Agency) – Officials at the Kurchatov Atomic Energy Institute in Moscow have announced that the technical design stage for a series of floating nuclear power stations is now complete. Each power plant will consist of two 70 Mwe pressurized water…
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…
(Note from the editor: The following story is conjecture supported by interviews of first hand sources and a careful review of the written history. It is tempered with an understanding of reactor operations and human nature gained during more than six years in supervisory positions in military nuclear power plants. The mystery, however, is more…
At 9:01 pm on January 3, 1961, the first indication of trouble at SL-1 was received at Atomic Energy Commission Fire Stations. The alarm, which was triggered by one of several measured parameters at the plant, was immediately broadcast over all National Reactor Testing Station radio networks. By 9:10 pm, fire trucks and security personnel…