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Nuclear Power at McMurdo Station, Antarctica

246 points by aww_dang 5y ago

ClumsyPilot 5y ago
>"it was plagued with problems which ultimately forced its early retirement in 1972" We really need a small reactor witha well tested design, where all the bugs and terthing problems have beeen worked out. It would be so usefull for situatioms like this. "223 reports of abnormal levels of radiation were recorded" Yeah, I would not want to stay at that base.
- JackFr 5y ago
  I would say it must be a cost issue. The US Navy now has 65 years of experience running portable, robust, self-contained nuclear reactors, yet because of cost (and presumably safety) they only put them in submarines and aircraft carriers, where there are compelling use cases that can't be satisfied by fossil fuel power plants.
  - devoutsalsa 5y ago
    We can build small reactors if we really want them. Here’s a recent by the Illinois Energy Prof explaining one such case: “SMR - Small Module Nuclear Reactors — Gas Cooled” => https://youtu.be/TYnqJ4VnRM8 https://youtu.be/TYnqJ4VnRM8
    - Animats 5y ago
      Hopefully better than last time. - Fort St. Vrain, US[1]. High temperature gas cooled reactor. Operated for 12 years. Corrosion problems. Converted to natural gas. - AVR reactor, Germany.[2] Pebble bed reactor. Had a pebble jam. Not repairable. Most fuel removed. Pressure vessel remains on site, with hope of full decommissioning in a century or so. There's a small reactor of this design working at a university in China, and a medium sized one one (200MW electrical output) is supposed to come on line this year. We'll see how that works out. Boring old boiling water and pressurized water reactors have simplicity in the radioactive part, and water is easy to handle. Designs that involve moving pellets or chemical processing of radioactive fluids add much complexity to a system that is very hard if not impossible to repair. The track record of such reactors is not good. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fort_St._Vrain_Generating_Station https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fort_St._Vrain_Generating_Stat... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AVR_reactor https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AVR_reactor
      - p_l 5y ago
        Boring old water cooled reactors (both boiling and pressured) are comparatively dangerous compared to quite well tested lead-bismuth cooled small modular reactors, which not only loadable on train car as self-contained part that needs no internal access, but are self-sealing in case of failure. Of course it's not as exotic as pebble bed reactor, or helium-cooled uranium-thorium reactor.
  - xoa 5y ago
    For the USN (and other military's) ones at least there are many other differing issues and design goals that are divergent enough from civilian usage that it's definitely more then just cost. For example on the most basic issue of fuel, the A4W reactors (found on current USN super carriers) run on highly enriched U235, designed around 93% and as high as 97%. In other words, the fuel is flat out weapons grade by itself. A typical civilian plant is more like 3-5%. Very high enrichment allows more density and very long times between refueling, they can go something like 10 years vs 1-2 years for civilian. But obviously that would be a big proliferation concern even ignoring cost, nor are there many places to get that kind of fuel. For the military that is irrelevant, it's not a limiting problem since the vessels these reactors live on tend to also carry literal nuclear weapons. But it means it won't just transfer to other usage. There are plenty of other differences in naval reactors, like they also formulate with high burn up fuels (metal ceramics, u-al/u-zr) rather then uranium dioxide. Military vessels also have ample trained personnel to throw at maintenance and operations, they can make tradeoffs for things that are more finicky but provide higher performance. They're anything but "self-contained" really, and even the Navy wanted to simplify that. A major goal for the new A1B reactor in the Gerald R. Ford-class supercarriers, as well as normal stuff like "more power, weighs less" was to cut the number of people needed to run the reactors and propulsion. I mean, yeah, all this certainly does add to the cost too. But it's not just about the cost, or rather the design goals and missions are divergent enough that they necessitate costs for military reactors that would be a waste, dangerous, or both elsewhere. Where the Naval reactors might well carry over to I think would be future space usage, a lot of what the navy is worried about with sending a reactor out on a carrier or sub for years seems to overlap with challenges and goals faced by a reactor on a spaceship sent to the outer solar system.
    - nickelpro 5y ago
      Can't put a traditional naval reactor or anything that resembles one on a spacecraft. 1) If it explodes on takeoff you're fucked 2) Naval reactors (and all reactors) require massive heatsinks to dissipate entropy. There's no ocean in space. Space-based nuclear energy is all based around RTGs, reactors have no place in space
      - 5y ago
  - briffle 5y ago
    With an almost unlimited heat-sink available right next to the reactor, plus, nuclear technician training in the Navy is very, very difficult to pass.
    - tbihl 5y ago
      >nuclear technician training in the Navy is very, very difficult to pass. Rigorous, yes, but not "very, very difficult to pass". The Navy needs a consistent stream of replacement operators, and their preferred way of getting them is to take reasonably capable volunteers and tutor/coach/remediate as many people as needed once they're in that group.
      - indymike 5y ago
        As someone who was a reactor opreator in the US Navy I'm laughing my ass off at this: "very, very difficult to pass". 90% of the people I started training with were gone in the first two years!
        MurMan 5y ago
        > 90% of the people I started training with were gone in the first two years! My experience too. Do you remember the "skyhook"? We'd return to the barracks after class and find that the guy next to you had vanished without a trace.
  - merpnderp 5y ago
    A lot of the cost is regulatory. Starting a project where 3/4ths of your time will be your construction crews idling while waiting on your army of lawyers to get injunctions lifted, makes the idea incredibly unattractive to investors. Which is the whole point of people who use the court system as a strategic barrier to new construction, even when they realize they'll likely ultimately lose.
  - njarboe 5y ago
    The problem is that it is insanely costly and cumbersome to get regularly approval to build an experimental reactor in the US (and elsewhere I presume) so nuclear tech is stuck in the 1970's, just 20 years after the first commercial reactor was built. Imagine still using cars, or trains, or computers after only 20 years of development. One has to design the whole reactor on paper before building it and get it approved by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC). If, when you build it, you find you need to make changes to the design that are above a certain threshold, you have to recertify (not sure of the details. Can't find a good link about this). Imagine trying to build something as complicated as a nuclear reactor and you can't make iterative improvements. NuScales design approval process, the approval to be able to build the first reactor, cost $500 million dollars, took 2 million man hours, included over 2 million pages of documents, and after submitting in Jan of 2017 did not get approval until around 4 years later in August of 2020[1]. This is just to be able to build the first design. No wonder nuclear power has seen no progress in the last 50 years. Fortunately this company did persevere and now is planning to build the first power plant in Utah, hoping to be operational in 2030. The people/governments stating that climate change is a crisis, and I do believe there is way too much CO2 in the atmosphere, should be fast tracking this approved tech with as much money as usable to build thousands of these reactors as quickly as possible. [1]https://www.nuscalepower.com/technology/licensing https://www.nuscalepower.com/technology/licensing
    - beisner 5y ago
      There should be pretty strict regulation for fission reactor development, simply because radioactive materials in runaway reactions can have totally uncontrollable, millennia-spanning consequences. Very few other technologies have this potential - even a regular chemical explosion poses little risk to future generations in a large radius. Certain materials (plutonium, for instance) can reach criticality very quickly and in tiny quantities, and plutonium is a byproduct of fission. (I’m not a nuclear physicist, so my understanding of the real potential here might be wrong, because I have no sense of the quantities that might be experienced). This isn’t a defense of the current regulatory process. The time frames, in particular, sound pretty egregious (4 years to approve a prototype, and 2m pages of documentation feels like a lot, too, but again I don’t know how these things are designed). But I would be extremely uncomfortable with lax regulatory oversight, given that nuclear accidents have permanent, irreversible impacts on society and geography. Now, small-scale reactors may be a different beast entirely. If the quantity of materials is pretty much guaranteed not to have potential to cause problems for anyone but the operators for a short period of time…. Then there certainly seems to be a case for a shorter regulatory cycle. But I would be shocked if scale isn’t already taken into account for the current regulatory burden.
  - duxup 5y ago
    Nuclear powered submarine has a highly trained crew, many are busy monitoring / servicing the reactor. And the reactor brings itself home for service if needed. That seems way different than what you'd want in Antarctica.
- wyldfire 5y ago
  > "223 reports of abnormal levels of radiation were recorded" Yeah, I would not want to stay at that base That's nothing, you should've seen what the local wildlife did to the Norwegian and US bases down there.
  - perihelions 5y ago
    I'm not familiar with this subject, what incident are you referring to?
    - coolsunglasses 5y ago
      It's probably a wry reference to John Carpenter's The Thing.
  - redler 5y ago
    That particular wildlife was actually not local.
    - wyldfire 5y ago
      Oh I dunno about that. IIRC it had been there for far far longer than the first human settlements on Antarctica. Who's the invasive species? The creature minding its own business for 100k years or the humans who start stirring Things up as soon as they get there? ;)
- Denvercoder9 5y ago
  > We really need a small reactor witha well tested design, where all the bugs and terthing problems have beeen worked out. NASA's Kilopower is sort-of aiming to be this, though it has a long way to go to get there.
  - Robotbeat 5y ago
    Kinda too small, though. Those are just 1-10kWe each and extremely expensive.
- dekhn 5y ago
  I think other folks are saying this but the navy solved this problem decades ago.
  - freeflight 5y ago
    That’s just not really true. If that’d be the case then such small nuclear reactors would be powering US military bases and outposts all over the planet. This ain’t a thing for a myriad of reasons, starting from cooling (not much ocean in the middle of the east), to profileration risks (navy designs using weapons grade uranium).
    - dekhn 5y ago
      I'm sorry, I should have said the Army: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Iceworm https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Iceworm shows that we were definitely experimenting with nuclear power for remote military bases. They struggled with air-cooling. I consider reactors with weapons grade uranium to be an acceptable risk, but I don't think it's required for the army reactor style.
      - tkojames 5y ago
        Army is defacto banned to work on anything involving nuclear energy or weapons for awhile now. Rumor is the government does not trust. Pretty interesting. USAF is well quite scary with how bad they manage our nukes..
        p_l 5y ago
        USAF, or specifically SAC, put priority on nuking as many civilian areas in as short amount of time as possible. Safety was a distant concern in that mindset, and led to fun stuff like first generation PADs (which controlled arming process of the warhead) being commonly (iirc, up to 50%?) configured to accept all zeroes as arming code. USN at the same time considered PADs to be undue slowdown in the same mission and had enough power to just not have them mounted, afaik.
- hkai 5y ago
  Here's an idea that Russians did. Put it on the boat! Transportable, plenty of coolant. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_floating_nuclear_power_station https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_floating_nuclear_pow...
  - acidburnNSA 5y ago
    Shipyard constructed floating nuclear power stations are a truly excellent idea. You get economies of mass production and scale in the factory to reduce costs and speed up timelines, and you get extra safety from being in coolant, decoupled from earthquakes, and in deep enough water to not have tsunamis. You have more weather to worry about, and piracy, but in the balance shipyard nuclear is one of the most intriguing ways to really decarbonize the planet at scale quickly. In the US, Offshore Power Systems tried this in the 1970s. They hired 1000 people, formed a joint venture with Newport News, bought and installed the world's largest gantry crane at their construction yard in Jacksonville, FL, and got a license to construct 8 gigawatt scale floating reactors from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. Wild story [1]. [1] https://whatisnuclear.com/blog/2020-01-26-offshore-power-systems.html https://whatisnuclear.com/blog/2020-01-26-offshore-power-sys...
    - Robotbeat 5y ago
      We should do this in Newport News (near the existing nuclear shipyard), actually. Great use of the coal terminal area once we retire those.
    - Krasnol 5y ago
      Why are they an excellent idea? Where would it justify the cost of construction and operation?
  - kilroy123 5y ago
    That's a damn good idea actually. Though, not so practical in Arctic waters.
- tantalor 5y ago
  terthing?
  - unwind 5y ago
    *Teething, for sure.
- julienchastang 5y ago
  Whats more: "In addition to problems with the drinking water and environmental contamination, there were several recorded instances of crew radiation exposure, some resulting in injury. [7] During the plant operation, 223 reports of abnormal levels of radiation were recorded. [7] Of these cases, 14 resulted in injury and 123 resulted in exposure in the amount of 0.350 rem over a period of 7 days." What was the nature of these injuries?
godmode2019 5y ago
Was this public knowledge? That base is located on New Zealand territory and they are nuclear free by law.
- thewopr 5y ago
  It was public knowledge. Further, there is no such thing as New Zealand territory (or anyone's territory for that matter) in Antarctica. There are existing territorial claims, but they are overlapping and basically nullified by the Antarctic Treaty. https://www.antarctica.gov.au/about-antarctica/law-and-treaty/history/antarctic-territorial-claims/ https://www.antarctica.gov.au/about-antarctica/law-and-treat...
  - nuccy 5y ago
    Moreover the New Zealand nuclear-free zone was established only in the 80s [1]. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Zealand_nuclear-free_zone https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Zealand_nuclear-free_zone
- MattGaiser 5y ago
  It is not really recognized as NZ territory as Antarctic claims are not recognized by most nations.
- justin66 5y ago
  I didn't downvote you but it takes about 30 seconds to discover that the New Zealand Nuclear Free Zone, Disarmament, and Arms Control Act was passed in 1987, well after the reactor discussed in the article was decommissioned.
- andylynch 5y ago
  This predates the New Zealand Nuclear Free Zone created in 1984 and in any case this is not New Zealand territory. But land-based nuclear power is perfectly legal in New Zealand, just unpopular & undeveloped, in favour of oil, gas, hydroelectric, and more recently wind. One unusual barrier to NZ nuclear power is that the common designs would be too big to maintain a balanced grid; a single 1GW commercial reactor could supply 1/7 of NZ's electricity.
Clewza313 5y ago
There's been talk of shipping a nuclear reactor to power a base on Mars. The Antarctic experience indicates pretty clearly that from a reliability point of view, we're almost certainly better off with solar panels, wind turbines and batteries.
- enkid 5y ago
  Are wind turbines really viable with Mars's atmosphere?
  - ceejayoz 5y ago
    Not very. https://www.nasa.gov/centers/ames/news/releases/2001/01_72AR.html https://www.nasa.gov/centers/ames/news/releases/2001/01_72AR... > "Only during dust storms on Mars is there enough wind energy to operate a wind turbine," said Michael Flynn, another NASA Ames scientist. On Earth about 10 meters (33 feet) per second wind speed is needed to make electricity with wind turbines; on Mars about 30 meters (98 feet) is needed because of the extremely thin air, according to Bubenheim.
    - qayxc 5y ago
      Incidentally, though, during storms is when power is needed most, as solar won't work very well during that time.
      - ceejayoz 5y ago
        Sure, but a nuclear plant solves that issue without sitting around being useless 90% of the time.
        qayxc 5y ago
        But do you have the necessary infrastructure to maintain a nuclear reactor on Mars? As the article points out, the device required significant manpower, had reliability issues and wasn't cost effective. While it'd be relatively simple to build wind power locally once infrastructure is in place, the same cannot be said for nuclear power on Mars. Autonomy and self-reliance are critical factors for outposts on Mars - a point that cannot be overstated.
mattr47 5y ago
We have been running small nuclear reactors for decades now on USN carriers and submarines with an incredible safety record.
- mattr47 5y ago
  Icebreakers are included in this as well. Wow. https://world-nuclear.org/information-library/non-power-nuclear-applications/transport/nuclear-powered-ships.aspx https://world-nuclear.org/information-library/non-power-nucl...
- nickelpro 5y ago
  Yes, but they're far less cost efficient than diesel. That's why the nuclear cruisers were retired. For the carriers and especially the subs the nuclear plants provide operational capacity that diesel can't match. For a research station that's not a concern.
  - ComputerGuru 5y ago
    Because the “cost of diesel” doesn’t factor in any externalities whatsoever, of which there are many.
    - nickelpro 5y ago
      Of course, but those externalities are for more expensive/less cost efficient when discussing uranium and nuclear power than anything involving diesel. Personnel training, fuel production, equipment maintenance, pick an angle to inspect and you'll find the nuclear solution is far more expensive than traditional power plants.
      - Manuel_D 5y ago
        Cost of operation isn't an externality. Externalities are costs we don't directly pay for, like carbon emissions causing global warming. Fossil fuels have incalculably higher externalities in this regard.
      - 5y ago
siliconunit 5y ago
When one considers the whole loop from incredibly polluting mining to disposing and keeping everything decontaminated in the process, fission nuclear should only be seen as a last resort option, as much as I see the great progress that has been made of course. I would have gone geothermal in Antarctica... with modern super depth drilling tech, and hot water as side effect, looks like a promising choice.
- Accujack 5y ago
  Update your knowledge of nuclear power. Mining can be done cleanly or not at all, and nuclear power plants generate very little waste - most of the waste that exists is from bomb making. Newer fission tech has a lot of promise... if people who are convinced they already know all about nuclear energy can be troubled to learn about it.
  - ncmncm 5y ago
    What we know about it is that it is the most expensive alternative. Building, operating, and maintaining a new solar installation is cheaper than just operating and maintaining a nuke steam generator, ignoring the huge construction and decommissioning costs. We finally got the ramshackle Indian Point and Diablo Canyon contraptions shut down, after decades of constant effort, and now it will cost a billion dollars and a decade or two to take them apart.
  - beders 5y ago
    Update your knowledge of nuclear power. The economics don't pan out. The opportunity costs alone are staggering. https://www.leonardodicaprio.org/the-7-reasons-why-nuclear-energy-is-not-the-answer-to-solve-climate-change/ https://www.leonardodicaprio.org/the-7-reasons-why-nuclear-e... https://web.stanford.edu/group/efmh/jacobson/Articles/I/NuclearVsWWS.pdf https://web.stanford.edu/group/efmh/jacobson/Articles/I/Nucl...
- roywiggins 5y ago
  We have enough "waste" nuclear material that could be burned again in advanced reactors that mining doesn't have to be a thing if we really got our act together. Also, the question really is about carbon emissions vs other types of environmental impact. Batteries and solar panels require great gobs of mining infrastructure too.
erk__ 5y ago
The US did a similar thing at Camp Century [1] on Greenland. They installed a PM-2A nuclear reactor there, as far as I know they relayed very sparse information to the Danish goverment during the time, especially about the secret Project Iceworm [2]. There was a danish article about it with some good pictures of the camp including one which looks like a part of the reactor [3] [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Camp_Century https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Camp_Century [2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Iceworm https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Iceworm [3]: https://www.dr.dk/nyheder/webfeature/century https://www.dr.dk/nyheder/webfeature/century
- acidburnNSA 5y ago
  And there's a great 30 minute video about it as well! [1] [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=28NYczAuXl4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=28NYczAuXl4
- psanford 5y ago
  The was also the B-52 crash out side of the Thule air force base in Greenland, which was carrying a nuclear warhead[0]. This, in an area designated as a nuclear-free zone by the Danish government. The cleanup project was unofficially referred to as "Dr Freezelove" by the Americans involved, which is a bit disturbing when you think about how Dr. Strangelove ends. [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1968_Thule_Air_Base_B-52_crash https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1968_Thule_Air_Base_B-52_crash
- MomoXenosaga 5y ago
  I have no doubt the Danish government knew exactly what was going on just not in an official capacity that would allow them to answer any questions in parliament. The Japanse use the same sophistry when asked about nuclear weapons on US bases (in violation of the Japanse constitution).
- stainforth 5y ago
  How many men (yes mostly men) were a part of this and yet all those personal stories lost
wpietri 5y ago
This reminds me of a lot of technology work. "It seemed like a really promising idea, but when we got into it the practical details made it not very practical." I'll leave it to others to name examples, but there are reasons I'm a member: http://boringtechnology.club/ http://boringtechnology.club/
MurMan 5y ago
I was a nuclear power plant operator on a submarine during this period. Wanting another challenge (young & crazy ...), I applied for duty at McMurdo Station in 1971. My request was not approved and I was told that the Navy had a shortage of qualified submarine nuc's. Sounds like the Navy had already decided to decommission it. I've always regretted not going to Antarctica, but this article makes me think that I dodged a bullet. This plant was a maintenance nightmare. Plus, operating a reactor with a mix of personnel sounds bad. We certainly had our personnel issues on subs, but at least all of us in Engineering had the shared experiences of nuclear power school, prototype training, and sub qualification.
- TameAntelope 5y ago
  That's amazing and specific experience, very cool! One thing I noticed at the top of the article was that they used the steam as a source of fresh water as well, did subs do this too, when you worked on them?
  - nielsbot 5y ago
    You might find this series from Smarter Every Day interesting. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g3Ud6mHdhlQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g3Ud6mHdhlQ I didn't find a bit about how they make drinking water, but here's an episode about how they regenerate their oxygen on a nuclear sub.
  - MurMan 5y ago
    Yes. Subs use low-pressure steam to desalinate sea water. Having lots of fresh water for showers was a huge benefit of nuc boats over diesel boats.
    - Zenst 5y ago
      Handy, also for oxygen production. Did you ever have to light the candle?
      - MurMan 5y ago
ArcturianDeath 5y ago
Nothing about the 33 Million Year Old Octagon and the dead aliens as the real reason they are there
Xophmeister 5y ago
I believe the USSR installed nuclear reactors in unmanned lighthouses along its remote northern coast. I don’t know if that’s as far north as McMurdo station is south. I also suppose, with them being unmanned, they may have had less strict safety requirements.
- jackdeansmith 5y ago
  Those are RTGs that harvest a couple hundred watts of decay heat for really remote applications. Often used in space probes, etc... Bit of a different safety profile since they're low power and generally don't have any moving parts.
  - lightgreen 5y ago
    > since they're low power and generally don't have any moving parts Rather since they don't have a critical mass/configuration which makes them impossible to explode.
    - jackdeansmith 5y ago
      Right, yeah that's more important, there's no way to get a runaway chain reaction with an RTG
wumpus 5y ago
Here's an early example of a low-maintenance low-crew small reactor: http://large.stanford.edu/courses/2017/ph241/berrios1/ http://large.stanford.edu/courses/2017/ph241/berrios1/
eigenhombre 5y ago
I deployed to South Pole ten times from 1997 to 2011, each time passing through McMurdo both southbound and northbound. Of course I knew about the reactor, and walked around that area several times, but it is fascinating now to read a more detailed history. Especially fascinating is the notion that the reactor had to fit in an LC-130, in order to be used at the Pole. I definitely would have been less than excited to be at the Pole if that reactor had been the main power source. (Not sure how jazzed I would have been to be a passenger on said LC-130, either.) That being said, I wonder if some of the compact reactor designs being generated today[1] would actually wind up being a good fit for remote sites like the Pole. The current power plant runs on AN8 jet fuel and spews smoke/steam into the air 24/7. Clean power generation there is difficult because of lack of consistent wind and sun energy (pilot programs were in place at various times when I was there). Parenthetically, the Pole's Clean Air facility there has some of the cleanest air in the world (upwind of the power plant). Their continuous CO2 measurements, graphed prominently on one wall when I visited, were sobering indeed to contemplate. [1] e.g., https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27133196 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27133196 [2] https://cdiac.ess-dive.lbl.gov/trends/co2/graphics/South_Pole_CO2.jpg https://cdiac.ess-dive.lbl.gov/trends/co2/graphics/South_Pol...
- rossjudson 5y ago
  Nothing that a really, really, really, really long extension cord won't fix. ;) (Google Australia-ASEAN power link)
ncmncm 5y ago
This project was a disaster, no matter how you slice it. It is very lucky that it failed only as much as it did. That it was down so much of the time made it worse than useless: expensive to build, expensive to operate, expensive to maintain, ruinously expensive to clean up after, and didn't even provide reliable baseload power. The experience does not suggest that small-format nukes are simpler to operate and maintain than big ones. There is no plausible scenario where small-format nukes are a better investment than a solar + wind + storage system, terrestrially. On Mars or the moon, leaks might not matter so much, although the catastrophic failure likely to follow would leave users without power. Even with insolation on Mars much reduced, solar remains the overwhelmingly better choice by any measure. On the moon, dark for two weeks at a stretch calls for more clever engineering. An 11,000 km equatorial superconducting transmission line with distributed solar panels could power quite a lot of activity. Even a 5500 km system would be immediately useful, given a vertically-oriented array at each end. But solar and storage would probably be cheaper. A flywheel constructed above-ground, hundreds of meters across (dumbell style, at first) would store quite a lot of energy. Structure could be just a cable on top of a tower; when stopped, the counterweights hang vertically, and swing out as it spins up. https://caseyhandmer.wordpress.com/2021/04/25/powering-the-lunar-base/#comment-5618 https://caseyhandmer.wordpress.com/2021/04/25/powering-the-l...
dukeofdoom 5y ago
My Dad was telling me some story how there's a secret military base in volcano in Antartica built by by Nazis. I'm convinced he was retelling a movie plot line. Anyone see a movie like this?
- aww_dang 5y ago
  Hoping this will tickle your imagination. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eLPedQdHAKc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eLPedQdHAKc There are a few movie plots featuring Antarctic Nazis. You might find the bits about Admiral Byrd's "Operation High Jump" interesting.
SkyMarshal 5y ago
The course this was submitted for is interesting too: Introduction to Nuclear Energy PH241 - Stanford University - Winter 2014 http://large.stanford.edu/courses/2014/ph241/ http://large.stanford.edu/courses/2014/ph241/
pomian 5y ago
This reminds me of Alistair Maclean's book: Ice Station Zebra. Great book.

246 points by aww_dang 5y ago

>"it was plagued with problems which ultimately forced its early retirement in 1972" We really need a small reactor witha well tested design, where all the bugs and terthing problems have beeen worked out. It would be so usefull for situatioms like this. "223 reports of abnormal levels of radiation were recorded" Yeah, I would not want to stay at that base.

JackFr 5y ago
I would say it must be a cost issue. The US Navy now has 65 years of experience running portable, robust, self-contained nuclear reactors, yet because of cost (and presumably safety) they only put them in submarines and aircraft carriers, where there are compelling use cases that can't be satisfied by fossil fuel power plants.
- devoutsalsa 5y ago
  We can build small reactors if we really want them. Here’s a recent by the Illinois Energy Prof explaining one such case: “SMR - Small Module Nuclear Reactors — Gas Cooled” => https://youtu.be/TYnqJ4VnRM8 https://youtu.be/TYnqJ4VnRM8
  - Animats 5y ago
    Hopefully better than last time. - Fort St. Vrain, US[1]. High temperature gas cooled reactor. Operated for 12 years. Corrosion problems. Converted to natural gas. - AVR reactor, Germany.[2] Pebble bed reactor. Had a pebble jam. Not repairable. Most fuel removed. Pressure vessel remains on site, with hope of full decommissioning in a century or so. There's a small reactor of this design working at a university in China, and a medium sized one one (200MW electrical output) is supposed to come on line this year. We'll see how that works out. Boring old boiling water and pressurized water reactors have simplicity in the radioactive part, and water is easy to handle. Designs that involve moving pellets or chemical processing of radioactive fluids add much complexity to a system that is very hard if not impossible to repair. The track record of such reactors is not good. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fort_St._Vrain_Generating_Station https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fort_St._Vrain_Generating_Stat... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AVR_reactor https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AVR_reactor
    - p_l 5y ago
      Boring old water cooled reactors (both boiling and pressured) are comparatively dangerous compared to quite well tested lead-bismuth cooled small modular reactors, which not only loadable on train car as self-contained part that needs no internal access, but are self-sealing in case of failure. Of course it's not as exotic as pebble bed reactor, or helium-cooled uranium-thorium reactor.
- xoa 5y ago
  For the USN (and other military's) ones at least there are many other differing issues and design goals that are divergent enough from civilian usage that it's definitely more then just cost. For example on the most basic issue of fuel, the A4W reactors (found on current USN super carriers) run on highly enriched U235, designed around 93% and as high as 97%. In other words, the fuel is flat out weapons grade by itself. A typical civilian plant is more like 3-5%. Very high enrichment allows more density and very long times between refueling, they can go something like 10 years vs 1-2 years for civilian. But obviously that would be a big proliferation concern even ignoring cost, nor are there many places to get that kind of fuel. For the military that is irrelevant, it's not a limiting problem since the vessels these reactors live on tend to also carry literal nuclear weapons. But it means it won't just transfer to other usage. There are plenty of other differences in naval reactors, like they also formulate with high burn up fuels (metal ceramics, u-al/u-zr) rather then uranium dioxide. Military vessels also have ample trained personnel to throw at maintenance and operations, they can make tradeoffs for things that are more finicky but provide higher performance. They're anything but "self-contained" really, and even the Navy wanted to simplify that. A major goal for the new A1B reactor in the Gerald R. Ford-class supercarriers, as well as normal stuff like "more power, weighs less" was to cut the number of people needed to run the reactors and propulsion. I mean, yeah, all this certainly does add to the cost too. But it's not just about the cost, or rather the design goals and missions are divergent enough that they necessitate costs for military reactors that would be a waste, dangerous, or both elsewhere. Where the Naval reactors might well carry over to I think would be future space usage, a lot of what the navy is worried about with sending a reactor out on a carrier or sub for years seems to overlap with challenges and goals faced by a reactor on a spaceship sent to the outer solar system.
  - nickelpro 5y ago
    Can't put a traditional naval reactor or anything that resembles one on a spacecraft. 1) If it explodes on takeoff you're fucked 2) Naval reactors (and all reactors) require massive heatsinks to dissipate entropy. There's no ocean in space. Space-based nuclear energy is all based around RTGs, reactors have no place in space
    - 5y ago
- briffle 5y ago
  With an almost unlimited heat-sink available right next to the reactor, plus, nuclear technician training in the Navy is very, very difficult to pass.
  - tbihl 5y ago
    >nuclear technician training in the Navy is very, very difficult to pass. Rigorous, yes, but not "very, very difficult to pass". The Navy needs a consistent stream of replacement operators, and their preferred way of getting them is to take reasonably capable volunteers and tutor/coach/remediate as many people as needed once they're in that group.
    - indymike 5y ago
      As someone who was a reactor opreator in the US Navy I'm laughing my ass off at this: "very, very difficult to pass". 90% of the people I started training with were gone in the first two years!
      - MurMan 5y ago
        > 90% of the people I started training with were gone in the first two years! My experience too. Do you remember the "skyhook"? We'd return to the barracks after class and find that the guy next to you had vanished without a trace.
- merpnderp 5y ago
  A lot of the cost is regulatory. Starting a project where 3/4ths of your time will be your construction crews idling while waiting on your army of lawyers to get injunctions lifted, makes the idea incredibly unattractive to investors. Which is the whole point of people who use the court system as a strategic barrier to new construction, even when they realize they'll likely ultimately lose.
- njarboe 5y ago
  The problem is that it is insanely costly and cumbersome to get regularly approval to build an experimental reactor in the US (and elsewhere I presume) so nuclear tech is stuck in the 1970's, just 20 years after the first commercial reactor was built. Imagine still using cars, or trains, or computers after only 20 years of development. One has to design the whole reactor on paper before building it and get it approved by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC). If, when you build it, you find you need to make changes to the design that are above a certain threshold, you have to recertify (not sure of the details. Can't find a good link about this). Imagine trying to build something as complicated as a nuclear reactor and you can't make iterative improvements. NuScales design approval process, the approval to be able to build the first reactor, cost $500 million dollars, took 2 million man hours, included over 2 million pages of documents, and after submitting in Jan of 2017 did not get approval until around 4 years later in August of 2020[1]. This is just to be able to build the first design. No wonder nuclear power has seen no progress in the last 50 years. Fortunately this company did persevere and now is planning to build the first power plant in Utah, hoping to be operational in 2030. The people/governments stating that climate change is a crisis, and I do believe there is way too much CO2 in the atmosphere, should be fast tracking this approved tech with as much money as usable to build thousands of these reactors as quickly as possible. [1]https://www.nuscalepower.com/technology/licensing https://www.nuscalepower.com/technology/licensing
  - beisner 5y ago
    There should be pretty strict regulation for fission reactor development, simply because radioactive materials in runaway reactions can have totally uncontrollable, millennia-spanning consequences. Very few other technologies have this potential - even a regular chemical explosion poses little risk to future generations in a large radius. Certain materials (plutonium, for instance) can reach criticality very quickly and in tiny quantities, and plutonium is a byproduct of fission. (I’m not a nuclear physicist, so my understanding of the real potential here might be wrong, because I have no sense of the quantities that might be experienced). This isn’t a defense of the current regulatory process. The time frames, in particular, sound pretty egregious (4 years to approve a prototype, and 2m pages of documentation feels like a lot, too, but again I don’t know how these things are designed). But I would be extremely uncomfortable with lax regulatory oversight, given that nuclear accidents have permanent, irreversible impacts on society and geography. Now, small-scale reactors may be a different beast entirely. If the quantity of materials is pretty much guaranteed not to have potential to cause problems for anyone but the operators for a short period of time…. Then there certainly seems to be a case for a shorter regulatory cycle. But I would be shocked if scale isn’t already taken into account for the current regulatory burden.
- duxup 5y ago
  Nuclear powered submarine has a highly trained crew, many are busy monitoring / servicing the reactor. And the reactor brings itself home for service if needed. That seems way different than what you'd want in Antarctica.
wyldfire 5y ago
> "223 reports of abnormal levels of radiation were recorded" Yeah, I would not want to stay at that base That's nothing, you should've seen what the local wildlife did to the Norwegian and US bases down there.
- perihelions 5y ago
  I'm not familiar with this subject, what incident are you referring to?
  - coolsunglasses 5y ago
    It's probably a wry reference to John Carpenter's The Thing.
- redler 5y ago
  That particular wildlife was actually not local.
  - wyldfire 5y ago
    Oh I dunno about that. IIRC it had been there for far far longer than the first human settlements on Antarctica. Who's the invasive species? The creature minding its own business for 100k years or the humans who start stirring Things up as soon as they get there? ;)
Denvercoder9 5y ago
> We really need a small reactor witha well tested design, where all the bugs and terthing problems have beeen worked out. NASA's Kilopower is sort-of aiming to be this, though it has a long way to go to get there.
- Robotbeat 5y ago
  Kinda too small, though. Those are just 1-10kWe each and extremely expensive.
dekhn 5y ago
I think other folks are saying this but the navy solved this problem decades ago.
- freeflight 5y ago
  That’s just not really true. If that’d be the case then such small nuclear reactors would be powering US military bases and outposts all over the planet. This ain’t a thing for a myriad of reasons, starting from cooling (not much ocean in the middle of the east), to profileration risks (navy designs using weapons grade uranium).
  - dekhn 5y ago
    I'm sorry, I should have said the Army: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Iceworm https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Iceworm shows that we were definitely experimenting with nuclear power for remote military bases. They struggled with air-cooling. I consider reactors with weapons grade uranium to be an acceptable risk, but I don't think it's required for the army reactor style.
    - tkojames 5y ago
      Army is defacto banned to work on anything involving nuclear energy or weapons for awhile now. Rumor is the government does not trust. Pretty interesting. USAF is well quite scary with how bad they manage our nukes..
      - p_l 5y ago
        USAF, or specifically SAC, put priority on nuking as many civilian areas in as short amount of time as possible. Safety was a distant concern in that mindset, and led to fun stuff like first generation PADs (which controlled arming process of the warhead) being commonly (iirc, up to 50%?) configured to accept all zeroes as arming code. USN at the same time considered PADs to be undue slowdown in the same mission and had enough power to just not have them mounted, afaik.
hkai 5y ago
Here's an idea that Russians did. Put it on the boat! Transportable, plenty of coolant. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_floating_nuclear_power_station https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_floating_nuclear_pow...
- acidburnNSA 5y ago
  Shipyard constructed floating nuclear power stations are a truly excellent idea. You get economies of mass production and scale in the factory to reduce costs and speed up timelines, and you get extra safety from being in coolant, decoupled from earthquakes, and in deep enough water to not have tsunamis. You have more weather to worry about, and piracy, but in the balance shipyard nuclear is one of the most intriguing ways to really decarbonize the planet at scale quickly. In the US, Offshore Power Systems tried this in the 1970s. They hired 1000 people, formed a joint venture with Newport News, bought and installed the world's largest gantry crane at their construction yard in Jacksonville, FL, and got a license to construct 8 gigawatt scale floating reactors from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. Wild story [1]. [1] https://whatisnuclear.com/blog/2020-01-26-offshore-power-systems.html https://whatisnuclear.com/blog/2020-01-26-offshore-power-sys...
  - Robotbeat 5y ago
    We should do this in Newport News (near the existing nuclear shipyard), actually. Great use of the coal terminal area once we retire those.
  - Krasnol 5y ago
    Why are they an excellent idea? Where would it justify the cost of construction and operation?
- kilroy123 5y ago
  That's a damn good idea actually. Though, not so practical in Arctic waters.
tantalor 5y ago
terthing?
- unwind 5y ago
  *Teething, for sure.
julienchastang 5y ago
Whats more: "In addition to problems with the drinking water and environmental contamination, there were several recorded instances of crew radiation exposure, some resulting in injury. [7] During the plant operation, 223 reports of abnormal levels of radiation were recorded. [7] Of these cases, 14 resulted in injury and 123 resulted in exposure in the amount of 0.350 rem over a period of 7 days." What was the nature of these injuries?

godmode2019 5y ago

Was this public knowledge? That base is located on New Zealand territory and they are nuclear free by law.

thewopr 5y ago
It was public knowledge. Further, there is no such thing as New Zealand territory (or anyone's territory for that matter) in Antarctica. There are existing territorial claims, but they are overlapping and basically nullified by the Antarctic Treaty. https://www.antarctica.gov.au/about-antarctica/law-and-treaty/history/antarctic-territorial-claims/ https://www.antarctica.gov.au/about-antarctica/law-and-treat...
- nuccy 5y ago
  Moreover the New Zealand nuclear-free zone was established only in the 80s [1]. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Zealand_nuclear-free_zone https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Zealand_nuclear-free_zone
MattGaiser 5y ago
It is not really recognized as NZ territory as Antarctic claims are not recognized by most nations.
justin66 5y ago
I didn't downvote you but it takes about 30 seconds to discover that the New Zealand Nuclear Free Zone, Disarmament, and Arms Control Act was passed in 1987, well after the reactor discussed in the article was decommissioned.
andylynch 5y ago
This predates the New Zealand Nuclear Free Zone created in 1984 and in any case this is not New Zealand territory. But land-based nuclear power is perfectly legal in New Zealand, just unpopular & undeveloped, in favour of oil, gas, hydroelectric, and more recently wind. One unusual barrier to NZ nuclear power is that the common designs would be too big to maintain a balanced grid; a single 1GW commercial reactor could supply 1/7 of NZ's electricity.

Clewza313 5y ago

There's been talk of shipping a nuclear reactor to power a base on Mars. The Antarctic experience indicates pretty clearly that from a reliability point of view, we're almost certainly better off with solar panels, wind turbines and batteries.

enkid 5y ago
Are wind turbines really viable with Mars's atmosphere?
- ceejayoz 5y ago
  Not very. https://www.nasa.gov/centers/ames/news/releases/2001/01_72AR.html https://www.nasa.gov/centers/ames/news/releases/2001/01_72AR... > "Only during dust storms on Mars is there enough wind energy to operate a wind turbine," said Michael Flynn, another NASA Ames scientist. On Earth about 10 meters (33 feet) per second wind speed is needed to make electricity with wind turbines; on Mars about 30 meters (98 feet) is needed because of the extremely thin air, according to Bubenheim.
  - qayxc 5y ago
    Incidentally, though, during storms is when power is needed most, as solar won't work very well during that time.
    - ceejayoz 5y ago
      Sure, but a nuclear plant solves that issue without sitting around being useless 90% of the time.
      - qayxc 5y ago
        But do you have the necessary infrastructure to maintain a nuclear reactor on Mars? As the article points out, the device required significant manpower, had reliability issues and wasn't cost effective. While it'd be relatively simple to build wind power locally once infrastructure is in place, the same cannot be said for nuclear power on Mars. Autonomy and self-reliance are critical factors for outposts on Mars - a point that cannot be overstated.

mattr47 5y ago

We have been running small nuclear reactors for decades now on USN carriers and submarines with an incredible safety record.

mattr47 5y ago
Icebreakers are included in this as well. Wow. https://world-nuclear.org/information-library/non-power-nuclear-applications/transport/nuclear-powered-ships.aspx https://world-nuclear.org/information-library/non-power-nucl...
nickelpro 5y ago
Yes, but they're far less cost efficient than diesel. That's why the nuclear cruisers were retired. For the carriers and especially the subs the nuclear plants provide operational capacity that diesel can't match. For a research station that's not a concern.
- ComputerGuru 5y ago
  Because the “cost of diesel” doesn’t factor in any externalities whatsoever, of which there are many.
  - nickelpro 5y ago
    Of course, but those externalities are for more expensive/less cost efficient when discussing uranium and nuclear power than anything involving diesel. Personnel training, fuel production, equipment maintenance, pick an angle to inspect and you'll find the nuclear solution is far more expensive than traditional power plants.
    - Manuel_D 5y ago
      Cost of operation isn't an externality. Externalities are costs we don't directly pay for, like carbon emissions causing global warming. Fossil fuels have incalculably higher externalities in this regard.
    - 5y ago

siliconunit 5y ago

When one considers the whole loop from incredibly polluting mining to disposing and keeping everything decontaminated in the process, fission nuclear should only be seen as a last resort option, as much as I see the great progress that has been made of course. I would have gone geothermal in Antarctica... with modern super depth drilling tech, and hot water as side effect, looks like a promising choice.

Accujack 5y ago
Update your knowledge of nuclear power. Mining can be done cleanly or not at all, and nuclear power plants generate very little waste - most of the waste that exists is from bomb making. Newer fission tech has a lot of promise... if people who are convinced they already know all about nuclear energy can be troubled to learn about it.
- ncmncm 5y ago
  What we know about it is that it is the most expensive alternative. Building, operating, and maintaining a new solar installation is cheaper than just operating and maintaining a nuke steam generator, ignoring the huge construction and decommissioning costs. We finally got the ramshackle Indian Point and Diablo Canyon contraptions shut down, after decades of constant effort, and now it will cost a billion dollars and a decade or two to take them apart.
- beders 5y ago
  Update your knowledge of nuclear power. The economics don't pan out. The opportunity costs alone are staggering. https://www.leonardodicaprio.org/the-7-reasons-why-nuclear-energy-is-not-the-answer-to-solve-climate-change/ https://www.leonardodicaprio.org/the-7-reasons-why-nuclear-e... https://web.stanford.edu/group/efmh/jacobson/Articles/I/NuclearVsWWS.pdf https://web.stanford.edu/group/efmh/jacobson/Articles/I/Nucl...
roywiggins 5y ago
We have enough "waste" nuclear material that could be burned again in advanced reactors that mining doesn't have to be a thing if we really got our act together. Also, the question really is about carbon emissions vs other types of environmental impact. Batteries and solar panels require great gobs of mining infrastructure too.

erk__ 5y ago

The US did a similar thing at Camp Century [1] on Greenland. They installed a PM-2A nuclear reactor there, as far as I know they relayed very sparse information to the Danish goverment during the time, especially about the secret Project Iceworm [2]. There was a danish article about it with some good pictures of the camp including one which looks like a part of the reactor [3] [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Camp_Century https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Camp_Century [2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Iceworm https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Iceworm [3]: https://www.dr.dk/nyheder/webfeature/century https://www.dr.dk/nyheder/webfeature/century

acidburnNSA 5y ago
And there's a great 30 minute video about it as well! [1] [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=28NYczAuXl4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=28NYczAuXl4
psanford 5y ago
The was also the B-52 crash out side of the Thule air force base in Greenland, which was carrying a nuclear warhead[0]. This, in an area designated as a nuclear-free zone by the Danish government. The cleanup project was unofficially referred to as "Dr Freezelove" by the Americans involved, which is a bit disturbing when you think about how Dr. Strangelove ends. [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1968_Thule_Air_Base_B-52_crash https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1968_Thule_Air_Base_B-52_crash
MomoXenosaga 5y ago
I have no doubt the Danish government knew exactly what was going on just not in an official capacity that would allow them to answer any questions in parliament. The Japanse use the same sophistry when asked about nuclear weapons on US bases (in violation of the Japanse constitution).
stainforth 5y ago
How many men (yes mostly men) were a part of this and yet all those personal stories lost

wpietri 5y ago

This reminds me of a lot of technology work. "It seemed like a really promising idea, but when we got into it the practical details made it not very practical." I'll leave it to others to name examples, but there are reasons I'm a member: http://boringtechnology.club/ http://boringtechnology.club/

MurMan 5y ago

I was a nuclear power plant operator on a submarine during this period. Wanting another challenge (young & crazy ...), I applied for duty at McMurdo Station in 1971. My request was not approved and I was told that the Navy had a shortage of qualified submarine nuc's. Sounds like the Navy had already decided to decommission it. I've always regretted not going to Antarctica, but this article makes me think that I dodged a bullet. This plant was a maintenance nightmare. Plus, operating a reactor with a mix of personnel sounds bad. We certainly had our personnel issues on subs, but at least all of us in Engineering had the shared experiences of nuclear power school, prototype training, and sub qualification.

TameAntelope 5y ago
That's amazing and specific experience, very cool! One thing I noticed at the top of the article was that they used the steam as a source of fresh water as well, did subs do this too, when you worked on them?
- nielsbot 5y ago
  You might find this series from Smarter Every Day interesting. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g3Ud6mHdhlQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g3Ud6mHdhlQ I didn't find a bit about how they make drinking water, but here's an episode about how they regenerate their oxygen on a nuclear sub.
- MurMan 5y ago
  Yes. Subs use low-pressure steam to desalinate sea water. Having lots of fresh water for showers was a huge benefit of nuc boats over diesel boats.
  - Zenst 5y ago
    Handy, also for oxygen production. Did you ever have to light the candle?
    - MurMan 5y ago

ArcturianDeath 5y ago

Nothing about the 33 Million Year Old Octagon and the dead aliens as the real reason they are there

Xophmeister 5y ago

I believe the USSR installed nuclear reactors in unmanned lighthouses along its remote northern coast. I don’t know if that’s as far north as McMurdo station is south. I also suppose, with them being unmanned, they may have had less strict safety requirements.

jackdeansmith 5y ago
Those are RTGs that harvest a couple hundred watts of decay heat for really remote applications. Often used in space probes, etc... Bit of a different safety profile since they're low power and generally don't have any moving parts.
- lightgreen 5y ago
  > since they're low power and generally don't have any moving parts Rather since they don't have a critical mass/configuration which makes them impossible to explode.
  - jackdeansmith 5y ago
    Right, yeah that's more important, there's no way to get a runaway chain reaction with an RTG

wumpus 5y ago

Here's an early example of a low-maintenance low-crew small reactor: http://large.stanford.edu/courses/2017/ph241/berrios1/ http://large.stanford.edu/courses/2017/ph241/berrios1/

eigenhombre 5y ago

I deployed to South Pole ten times from 1997 to 2011, each time passing through McMurdo both southbound and northbound. Of course I knew about the reactor, and walked around that area several times, but it is fascinating now to read a more detailed history. Especially fascinating is the notion that the reactor had to fit in an LC-130, in order to be used at the Pole. I definitely would have been less than excited to be at the Pole if that reactor had been the main power source. (Not sure how jazzed I would have been to be a passenger on said LC-130, either.) That being said, I wonder if some of the compact reactor designs being generated today[1] would actually wind up being a good fit for remote sites like the Pole. The current power plant runs on AN8 jet fuel and spews smoke/steam into the air 24/7. Clean power generation there is difficult because of lack of consistent wind and sun energy (pilot programs were in place at various times when I was there). Parenthetically, the Pole's Clean Air facility there has some of the cleanest air in the world (upwind of the power plant). Their continuous CO2 measurements, graphed prominently on one wall when I visited, were sobering indeed to contemplate. [1] e.g., https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27133196 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27133196 [2] https://cdiac.ess-dive.lbl.gov/trends/co2/graphics/South_Pole_CO2.jpg https://cdiac.ess-dive.lbl.gov/trends/co2/graphics/South_Pol...

rossjudson 5y ago
Nothing that a really, really, really, really long extension cord won't fix. ;) (Google Australia-ASEAN power link)

ncmncm 5y ago

This project was a disaster, no matter how you slice it. It is very lucky that it failed only as much as it did. That it was down so much of the time made it worse than useless: expensive to build, expensive to operate, expensive to maintain, ruinously expensive to clean up after, and didn't even provide reliable baseload power. The experience does not suggest that small-format nukes are simpler to operate and maintain than big ones. There is no plausible scenario where small-format nukes are a better investment than a solar + wind + storage system, terrestrially. On Mars or the moon, leaks might not matter so much, although the catastrophic failure likely to follow would leave users without power. Even with insolation on Mars much reduced, solar remains the overwhelmingly better choice by any measure. On the moon, dark for two weeks at a stretch calls for more clever engineering. An 11,000 km equatorial superconducting transmission line with distributed solar panels could power quite a lot of activity. Even a 5500 km system would be immediately useful, given a vertically-oriented array at each end. But solar and storage would probably be cheaper. A flywheel constructed above-ground, hundreds of meters across (dumbell style, at first) would store quite a lot of energy. Structure could be just a cable on top of a tower; when stopped, the counterweights hang vertically, and swing out as it spins up. https://caseyhandmer.wordpress.com/2021/04/25/powering-the-lunar-base/#comment-5618 https://caseyhandmer.wordpress.com/2021/04/25/powering-the-l...

dukeofdoom 5y ago

My Dad was telling me some story how there's a secret military base in volcano in Antartica built by by Nazis. I'm convinced he was retelling a movie plot line. Anyone see a movie like this?

aww_dang 5y ago
Hoping this will tickle your imagination. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eLPedQdHAKc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eLPedQdHAKc There are a few movie plots featuring Antarctic Nazis. You might find the bits about Admiral Byrd's "Operation High Jump" interesting.

SkyMarshal 5y ago

The course this was submitted for is interesting too: Introduction to Nuclear Energy PH241 - Stanford University - Winter 2014 http://large.stanford.edu/courses/2014/ph241/ http://large.stanford.edu/courses/2014/ph241/

pomian 5y ago

This reminds me of Alistair Maclean's book: Ice Station Zebra. Great book.