4 ms·

Red Gate Woods: The final resting place of the world's first nuclear reactor

67 points by Cozumel 10y ago

friendly_chap 10y ago
That sign is a bit weakly designed compared to this: http://www.wipp.energy.gov/picsprog/articles/wipp%20exhibit%20message%20to%2012,000%20a_d.htm http://www.wipp.energy.gov/picsprog/articles/wipp%20exhibit%...
- limaoscarjuliet 10y ago
  Exactly my thoughts. Also, despite the message being carved in stone, after only 70 years it has deteriorated already. "There is XXX danger to visitors". Irony?
  - kabdib 10y ago
    Looks like vandalism.
    - sophacles 10y ago
      I'm guessing it originally said "no danger". That gouge looks like the right size for 2 letters.
      - 27182818284 10y ago
        Yes, I had the same though that there was vandalism taking away the "no" so that it intentionally says it is dangerous
  - adanto6840 10y ago
    The article states that the stone does indeed say "There is no danger to visitors" so I'd assume it's vandalism.
  - JulianMorrison 10y ago
    Sabotage, deliberate. The word "no" was removed to make a point. Which makes you wonder who else will sabotage it in the years to come. Maybe the word "danger" is next to go?
  - mjevans 10y ago
    My thoughts were that the sign was left modified as they cannot conclusively say there is NO danger.
chiph 10y ago
Back in high school, we took a tour of the Savannah River Site (this was allowed in the late 70's). We saw things mostly by driving by in a tour bus, but we did get to go into a few buildings, and try out a remote manipulator system (harder than it looks to get good with it). The relevant part was the waste processing area, which had a smokestack (presumably for power). Painted eighty or a hundred feet up was a large stripe. The guide said that that was how deep they were going to bury the building once it had reached end of life. Having just watched "Beneath the Planet of the Apes" I could imagine a future where explorers go down the stack because they were attracted by the 50+ feet that would remain above ground. Curiosity is hard to fight.
- csmattryder 10y ago
  Just like the Star Trek TNG episode "Clues". Humans are a far too curious species for any smoking guns to be left around. I agree with you, our successors will question why there's a tunnel in the ground, why a painted stripe appears within the tunnel, and for what purpose the tunnel was hidden. Though I'm incredibly pessimistic about our future, no matter what signs and warning we give, human curiosity wants to know for what substance those warnings are there to dispel people from, and human greed will ironically want to claim it all.
- coddingtonbear 10y ago
  You might be surprised, but you can probably still get a tour of the Savannah River Site (as long as you're a citizen). I know this because I took a tour of it's sister site in Hanford, WA a year or so ago, and would totally recommend it.
  - mjevans 10y ago
    I've heard that many tours of facilities are less in-depth than they would have been pre... recent notable historic events in the US. I am thankful that I got to see the depths of major hydro-electric facilities in my home state as a child. They inspired awe and wonder in our ability to engineer massive things; though such words were not at all within my vocabulary at that age.
- 10y ago
brian__c 10y ago
Thanks to this, we have some great, legal mountain bike trails in the Chicagoland area. If it wasn't for these reactors being buried there, it would be full of McMansions and strip malls.
ams6110 10y ago
Used to take my dogs there to run around. Nice natural area.
kodt 10y ago
If anyone wants to visit, you can find Site A pretty easily via Google Maps, as someone has added a Historical Place marker for it (41.702199, -87.912165). It's about a 15 minute walk from the nearest parking lot (41.709995, -87.914131). Plot M is about half a mile away from Site A, and is easily missed. If you look on Google Maps for a small clearing just northeast of Site A, that is where Plot M is. (41.707279, -87.910550) The Forest Preserves of Cook County website has some good information about the history of the site: http://fpdcc.com/site-a/ http://fpdcc.com/site-a/
erentz 10y ago
Nuclear history buffs should definitely check out the Manhatten Project B Reactor if ever heading to Washington. Great tour.
- clintonb 10y ago
  Darn! I just returned from a trip to Washington. I wish I had known about the reactor. I guess I have something to look forward to during my next trip! Link for the curious: http://manhattanprojectbreactor.hanford.gov/ http://manhattanprojectbreactor.hanford.gov/
  - coddingtonbear 10y ago
    Don't feel too bad about missing it; you generally have to book tours many months in advance.
    - gene-h 10y ago
      It is now part of a national park: https://www.nps.gov/mapr/index.htm https://www.nps.gov/mapr/index.htm
klodolph 10y ago
Technically, the world's first artificial nuclear reactor. Some eyebrows were raised (and some alarms—was someone stealing enriched uranium?) when they found the resting place of a natural nuclear reactor in 1972. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural_nuclear_fission_reactor https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural_nuclear_fission_reacto...
- gene-h 10y ago
  And we could have used them to answer some important questions in physics, however, they got mined away: https://medium.com/the-physics-arxiv-blog/in-the-1970s-scientists-discovered-a-2-billion-year-old-nuclear-reactor-in-west-africa-4472460b82c2#.u3tvy8ars https://medium.com/the-physics-arxiv-blog/in-the-1970s-scien...
thexcguy 10y ago
This is not far from where I grew up, and I've been there a few times. It's an interesting site that's easy to miss if you're not looking for it. Also, the trails around that part of the FPDCC system are amazing. They might be the one thing I miss about suburban life.
- samgranieri 10y ago
  My parents live not that far from there, and I used to work at Argonne National Labs. I thought the Chicago Pile waste was stored on site on the lab, not in a forest preserve nearby
Animats 10y ago
Here's the remains of the SL-1 nuclear reactor, an experimental unit which had a steam explosion and meltdown in 1961, with its marker.[1] It was at the National Reactor Testing Station in Idaho, located in the middle of nowhere, miles from the nearest other building, just in case. The SL-1 story is in Wikipedia. The marker is probably from 2000, when large rocks were placed over the entire site. It already looks dated. [1] https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/96/SL-1Burial.jpg https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/96/SL-1Buri...

67 points by Cozumel 10y ago

That sign is a bit weakly designed compared to this: http://www.wipp.energy.gov/picsprog/articles/wipp%20exhibit%20message%20to%2012,000%20a_d.htm http://www.wipp.energy.gov/picsprog/articles/wipp%20exhibit%...

limaoscarjuliet 10y ago
Exactly my thoughts. Also, despite the message being carved in stone, after only 70 years it has deteriorated already. "There is XXX danger to visitors". Irony?
- kabdib 10y ago
  Looks like vandalism.
  - sophacles 10y ago
    I'm guessing it originally said "no danger". That gouge looks like the right size for 2 letters.
    - 27182818284 10y ago
      Yes, I had the same though that there was vandalism taking away the "no" so that it intentionally says it is dangerous
- adanto6840 10y ago
  The article states that the stone does indeed say "There is no danger to visitors" so I'd assume it's vandalism.
- JulianMorrison 10y ago
  Sabotage, deliberate. The word "no" was removed to make a point. Which makes you wonder who else will sabotage it in the years to come. Maybe the word "danger" is next to go?
- mjevans 10y ago
  My thoughts were that the sign was left modified as they cannot conclusively say there is NO danger.

chiph 10y ago

Back in high school, we took a tour of the Savannah River Site (this was allowed in the late 70's). We saw things mostly by driving by in a tour bus, but we did get to go into a few buildings, and try out a remote manipulator system (harder than it looks to get good with it). The relevant part was the waste processing area, which had a smokestack (presumably for power). Painted eighty or a hundred feet up was a large stripe. The guide said that that was how deep they were going to bury the building once it had reached end of life. Having just watched "Beneath the Planet of the Apes" I could imagine a future where explorers go down the stack because they were attracted by the 50+ feet that would remain above ground. Curiosity is hard to fight.

csmattryder 10y ago
Just like the Star Trek TNG episode "Clues". Humans are a far too curious species for any smoking guns to be left around. I agree with you, our successors will question why there's a tunnel in the ground, why a painted stripe appears within the tunnel, and for what purpose the tunnel was hidden. Though I'm incredibly pessimistic about our future, no matter what signs and warning we give, human curiosity wants to know for what substance those warnings are there to dispel people from, and human greed will ironically want to claim it all.
coddingtonbear 10y ago
You might be surprised, but you can probably still get a tour of the Savannah River Site (as long as you're a citizen). I know this because I took a tour of it's sister site in Hanford, WA a year or so ago, and would totally recommend it.
- mjevans 10y ago
  I've heard that many tours of facilities are less in-depth than they would have been pre... recent notable historic events in the US. I am thankful that I got to see the depths of major hydro-electric facilities in my home state as a child. They inspired awe and wonder in our ability to engineer massive things; though such words were not at all within my vocabulary at that age.
10y ago

brian__c 10y ago

Thanks to this, we have some great, legal mountain bike trails in the Chicagoland area. If it wasn't for these reactors being buried there, it would be full of McMansions and strip malls.

ams6110 10y ago

Used to take my dogs there to run around. Nice natural area.

kodt 10y ago

If anyone wants to visit, you can find Site A pretty easily via Google Maps, as someone has added a Historical Place marker for it (41.702199, -87.912165). It's about a 15 minute walk from the nearest parking lot (41.709995, -87.914131). Plot M is about half a mile away from Site A, and is easily missed. If you look on Google Maps for a small clearing just northeast of Site A, that is where Plot M is. (41.707279, -87.910550) The Forest Preserves of Cook County website has some good information about the history of the site: http://fpdcc.com/site-a/ http://fpdcc.com/site-a/

erentz 10y ago

Nuclear history buffs should definitely check out the Manhatten Project B Reactor if ever heading to Washington. Great tour.

clintonb 10y ago
Darn! I just returned from a trip to Washington. I wish I had known about the reactor. I guess I have something to look forward to during my next trip! Link for the curious: http://manhattanprojectbreactor.hanford.gov/ http://manhattanprojectbreactor.hanford.gov/
- coddingtonbear 10y ago
  Don't feel too bad about missing it; you generally have to book tours many months in advance.
  - gene-h 10y ago
    It is now part of a national park: https://www.nps.gov/mapr/index.htm https://www.nps.gov/mapr/index.htm

klodolph 10y ago

Technically, the world's first artificial nuclear reactor. Some eyebrows were raised (and some alarms—was someone stealing enriched uranium?) when they found the resting place of a natural nuclear reactor in 1972. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural_nuclear_fission_reactor https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural_nuclear_fission_reacto...

gene-h 10y ago
And we could have used them to answer some important questions in physics, however, they got mined away: https://medium.com/the-physics-arxiv-blog/in-the-1970s-scientists-discovered-a-2-billion-year-old-nuclear-reactor-in-west-africa-4472460b82c2#.u3tvy8ars https://medium.com/the-physics-arxiv-blog/in-the-1970s-scien...

thexcguy 10y ago

This is not far from where I grew up, and I've been there a few times. It's an interesting site that's easy to miss if you're not looking for it. Also, the trails around that part of the FPDCC system are amazing. They might be the one thing I miss about suburban life.

samgranieri 10y ago
My parents live not that far from there, and I used to work at Argonne National Labs. I thought the Chicago Pile waste was stored on site on the lab, not in a forest preserve nearby

Animats 10y ago

Here's the remains of the SL-1 nuclear reactor, an experimental unit which had a steam explosion and meltdown in 1961, with its marker.[1] It was at the National Reactor Testing Station in Idaho, located in the middle of nowhere, miles from the nearest other building, just in case. The SL-1 story is in Wikipedia. The marker is probably from 2000, when large rocks were placed over the entire site. It already looks dated. [1] https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/96/SL-1Burial.jpg https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/96/SL-1Buri...