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The U.S. Army tried portable nuclear power at remote bases 60 years ago
- tkojames 5y agoThe army straight up scares me with nukes... Air force is barely better. The USA navy knows what they are doing with reactors.. at they safe so no clue. But I am not trusting anybody in USA military except for the navy to deal with nuclear reactors.
- credit_guy 5y agoIt looks like the Department of Defense is considering such reactors again [1], and the author of this article is very much against it. So much so that he published this exact same article at least 3 times before [2], [3], [4]. [1] https://www.defensenews.com/smr/energy-and-environment/2021/03/23/portable-nuclear-reactor-project-moves-forward-at-pentagon/ https://www.defensenews.com/smr/energy-and-environment/2021/... [2] https://theconversation.com/the-us-army-tried-portable-nuclear-power-at-remote-bases-60-years-ago-it-didnt-go-well-164138 https://theconversation.com/the-us-army-tried-portable-nucle... [3] https://www.civilbeat.org/2021/07/project-pele-the-military-is-exploring-portable-nuclear-reactors/ https://www.civilbeat.org/2021/07/project-pele-the-military-... [4] https://www.businessinsider.com/us-military-is-trying-to-build-portable-nuclear-reactors-again-2021-7 https://www.businessinsider.com/us-military-is-trying-to-bui...
- mjevans 5y agoIt really does read like a scare mongering fear article. Including mention of problems but no concrete followup with current details, or at the very least a mention of no resolution to the issue as of a specific time of fact-finding.
- graderjs 5y agoAnti-nuclear fear-mongering piece, you say? Why that has the mark of the oilman, has it not?
- MomoXenosaga 5y agoPortable nuclear reactors sounds like a new way for government contractors to make a few billion. I suppose now that the war on terror is winding down they're all scrambling for new revenue.
- tiahura 5y agoSurely the taliban could make use of a few of these.
- kortilla 5y agoNuclear has two enemies: the fossil fuels crowd, and the solar/wind crowd. The latter doesn’t like nuclear because the plants are still big corporate driven endeavors so they don’t “democratize energy”. The socialist faction of the Democratic Party isn’t particularly interested in solutions to climate change that don’t require massive government expansion into the energy market.
- adolph 5y ago[Baptists] take the moral high ground, while the bootleggers persuade the politicians quietly, behind closed doors. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bootleggers_and_Baptists https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bootleggers_and_Baptists
- ZeroGravitas 5y agoI would have thought pro-nuclear and massive government expansion go together, but you seem to be arguing the opposite. I've noticed this discrepancy before with libertarians pointing to the French nuclear program as a big success. What kind of massive expansion of government into energy markets are you thinking of that helps renewables but not nuclear?
- graderjs 5y agoI think their argument is more that the economics are heavily centralized in nuclear so it resists government intervention.
- Retric 5y agoIt’s common for identical articles to be on different websites https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Web_syndication https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Web_syndication Which traces it’s roots back through TV, radio, and newspapers. Historically thousands of newspapers used to publish the same comics.
- kupopuffs 5y agodummies, should've invented the Internet and Search Engines
- andyxor 5y agoThe author is a geologist at University of Vermont with no apparent connection to energy space except for his environmental activism. on a separate note, NASA had a recent breakthrough after decades of "paper reactors", building and testing the safest and smallest reactor so far based on a new solid core design https://www.nasa.gov/directorates/spacetech/kilopower/ https://www.nasa.gov/directorates/spacetech/kilopower/
- nitrogen 5y agoenvironmental activism. My physics teacher in high school was a retired naval nuclear engineer/tech/something. He blamed Jane Fonda (the actress) for a huge portion of the anti-nuclear activism that basically entrenched the power of oil companies and cartels. It's funny/sad how badly the save-the-forest and anti-nuke activism of the 1970s is coming back to bite us so hard now, with wildfires and global warming. Makes me wonder which activist movements today will turn out to have been net negative in another 40-50 years.
- Retric 5y agoIt’s cold hard economic issues that held back nuclear power rather than any environmental concerns. The US is actually close to the ideal nuclear mix from a cost basis. At best operating at full capacity with moderate subsides it’s roughly competitive with coal operating 24/7, but the grid has wildly fluctuating demand and nuclear’s price per kWh is roughly 3x as expensive at 30% power output as at 100%. France was able to export a lot of nuclear power while importing significant electricity to meet demand and they still had capacity factors fall below 70%. The most surprising issue with nuclear is actually fuel costs. Yes, it’s cheap to mine and enrichment isn’t that expensive, but refueling ends up being quite expensive in part because it’s slow. 3+ weeks of downtime every 1.5-2 years is effectively a 1.5+% fuel cost even if everything else was free. Dropping that to 1 week on it’s own wouldn’t really change the economics much but there are many such issues.
- nitrogen 5y agoEconomic issues were caused in part by political opposition. An extreme degree of reviews and legal objections can't help the economics. And research into new designs that might improve on economics and safety isn't going to be as profitable or as common if there is always going to be a virtually insurmountable hurdle of objections on spurious environmental grounds, so the economic pressure that has caused coal plants to become more efficient can't be applied. Plus, that coal vs nuclear economic calculation doesn't account for the costs of warming, nor for the intended electrification that abundant nuclear power was supposed to enable. It all has its roots in disproportionate opposition and silly old movies that portrayed nuclear plants as potentially exploding with ten megaton blasts.
- hanniabu 5y agoConsidering the military is the worst pollution offender, I'm wary of how they'd handle nuclear waste.
- slownews45 5y agoDon't they operate some of the largest fleet of nuclear powered vessels currently operating? Maybe share some of the issues they've had with those (obviously using very old tech). Sub / Aircraft carriers etc. The mission endurance on a carrier is amazing on the power plant side. 260,000 shaft horsepower for 20 years between refueling. I'd be curious how much oil would need to be burned instead of this (bunker fuels tend to be HIGHLY polluting).
- AndrewKemendo 5y agoThe US Nuclear Navy Force has logged over 5,400 reactor years of accident-free operations since 1955
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- cratermoon 5y agoHow many reactor-years of accident-plagued operations have they had? USS Thresher and USS Scorpion both sank with all hands lost.
- Teknoman117 5y agoBoth instances are still zero accidents from a nuclear perspective. Both sites have been visited every few years since they were located to check on the reactors. The design on both is working as intended, and no radioactive material has been detected to be leaking from either wreck. US naval nuclear reactors are (supposedly) designed such that they shouldn't lose containment if the vessel either sinks from an accident or is destroyed by enemy activity.
- cm2187 5y agoI am not sure we can draw definitive conclusions from a bad experience in the 60s anyway, in the very early days of nuclear energy. Think of what aviation looked like 20 years after the flight of the Wright brothers. You would never board a plane today by that standard.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- throwaway0a5e 5y agoIf you're not above walking right up to the line that separates misleading from lying the state of bleeding edge tech back in said tech's early days is a perfectly fine source to draw definitive conclusions from. You see this kind of dishonest behavior across a wide array of subjects.
- whythre 5y agoYou see plenty of misleading/false claims about bleeding edge tech now, no need to look back to the pioneering days.
- crmd 5y agoAgree this is a persuasion piece not straight journalism, but in the author’s defense, the article was originally published under a CC license, and he could have no idea it was posted on this website.
- uncoder0 5y agoThere really isn't such a thing as straight journalism anymore. Most articles I've read are 'persuasion' pieces. It is rather sad.
- gnull 5y agoHas it ever been different?
- the-dude 5y agoI think so. At least here in NL, the journalist class decided somewhere in 70s or early 80s, they had an obligation to do 'good' instead of only doing inpartial reporting. Of course, their defintion of 'good' might differ from mine or yours.
- adolph 5y agoThe muckrakers were reform-minded journalists in the Progressive Era in the United States (1890s–1920s) who exposed established institutions and leaders as corrupt. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muckraker https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muckraker
- the-dude 5y agoWhat is the saying, and from whom? To paraphrase, only things people don't want you to write is journalism, the rest is propaganda.
- tmp_anon_22 5y agoHey the US Military has a great reputation safely discarding its waste! (talking about the burnpits)
- andyxor 5y agothe most successful "portable" nuclear reactors are those on nuclear submarines, they have been in continuous operation for more than 60 years with very few incidents "American naval reactors starting with the S1W and iterations of designs have operated without incidents since USS Nautilus (SSN-571) launch in 1954" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_submarine https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_submarine
- nabla9 5y agoIn the 70s USN subs had 4 accidents. There was three spills irradiated water and one contamination accident. Russians have even more reactor years in submarines and icebreakers, and cargo ships. They have even floating nuclear power station. They have had two major reactor accidents (we know about). Military reactors are expensive to operate even when they are quit safe. You need highly trained people 24/7.
- inter_netuser 5y agoI'd assume civilian reactors wouldn't have constraints nuclear submarine usage imposes, and perhaps could be engineered to be safe? Seems strange to bet against ingenuity.
- nabla9 5y agoIt seems to me that military reactors have better safety record than commercial despite accidents. I just listed the accidents. The safety becomes with cost and performance limit. It's hard to see how smaller nuclear reactors are significantly better than gas turbines in commercial use. The cost comes down with the size.
- fortuna86 5y ago> they have been in continuous operation for more than 60 years with very few incidents The Soviet Union had many accidents, their MO is to pretend it never happened.
- FridayoLeary 5y agoWe should have more nuclear powerplants. I think 75 years ago it was assumed that by now everybody and their cat would have enormously powerful and cheap nuclear generators for their house, flying car etc. It's a pity the technology has stagnated and only Iron Man can afford it.
- yuy910616 5y agoI've heard there is a book about this why we don't have such a thing - the book largely blames it on the green movement I think... Where is my flying car I believe is the title. Earlier this year I saw a book review from the star slater codex substack. Didn't read it tho
- JohnJamesRambo 5y agoI mean it kind of seems ridiculous to think we could have radioactive material fissioning at our house or in our car. My neighbor barely takes out their trash. If that is thanks to the Green Movement, then let me thank the Green Movement.
- TeMPOraL 5y agoYour neighbor may have problems handling their trash, but they for sure have countless dangerous chemicals around their house, and yet they live safely. I'm not even talking about the obvious (household cleaning agents) - their fridge and AC unit likely have pretty nasty substances circulating inside. The trick is, as always, to make a sealed system and scare people into not messing with it.
- pope_meat 5y agoUntil it's time to dispose of the old fridge, and then your idiot neighbor just opens it up and releases it in to the air, because proper disposal requires a fee he doesn't want to pay, and then breaks down the fridge to tiny pieces to throw in the regular trash. This has happened, a lot.
- Buttons840 5y agoThis reminds me of SL-1, an experimental reactor that was meant to be used in the arctic circle. Part of the operation of the reactor required manually lifting a control rod a few inches out of the reactor. However, possibly just to see what would happen or as a suicide attempt, they removed the rod too far and the reactor immediately exploded and killed 3 operators. At least, those are some intriguing theories about why the control rod was removed too far, but in fairness we really don't know what they were thinking and it may have simply been a mistake. Although a properly trained operator mistakenly lifting a heavy control rod too far begs more explanation. Whatever the case, it is an intriguing story. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SL-1 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SL-1 https://www.amazon.com/Atomic-Accidents-Meltdowns-Disasters-Mountains/dp/1605986801 https://www.amazon.com/Atomic-Accidents-Meltdowns-Disasters-...
- TeMPOraL 5y agoBetween this and some other stories from early nuclear age, it makes me feel as if that system was designed by software engineers. If it's known that the control rod is supposed to be between 0 and X inches out, and going past Y inches (Y > X) will likely cause a fatal failure, one would expect someone to machine a piece of metal that makes in impossible to move the rod further out than Y inches. I read those accounts of people manipulating nuclear reactors by hand, and can't stop but think: this is dumb, even for 1950s era technology.
- leoc 5y ago> it makes me feel as if that system was designed by software engineers SL-1 feels as if it was designed and operated by Kerbals. TFA actually does mention the reactor and the accident > SL-1, a stationary low-power nuclear reactor in Idaho, blew up during refueling, killing three men. but that barely hints at just how eye-widening the whole saga was: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qOt7xDKxmCM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qOt7xDKxmCM To be fair, it is apparently considered likely that the overextraction of the rod was a deliberate murder-suicide. But yes, it seems that there's a reason that the US Navy still has a nuclear power program and the Army doesn't ( https://www.historynet.com/going-nuclear-idaho-falls.htm https://www.historynet.com/going-nuclear-idaho-falls.htm seems good; I am not an expert).
- stadium 5y agoThe public data on the stationary SM-1A rated it as 20MW and was built around the same timeframe. It's in a remote, low population location. The base was decommissioned and the reactor is still there, soon to be decommissioned according to the link. https://www.nab.usace.army.mil/SM-1A/ https://www.nab.usace.army.mil/SM-1A/
- aqrre 5y agoI want one in my car... If they could make them a bit smaller.
- crmd 5y ago> Those in favor of mobile nuclear power for the battlefield claim it will provide nearly unlimited, low-carbon energy without the need for vulnerable supply convoys. Imagine the situation we would be in if the US military had been using nuclear power supplies at (formerly) our bases in Afghanistan. I’m a fan of nuclear power but battlefields are the last place I want to see it.
- tda 5y agoThis is what I think the most often overlooked problem inherent to nuclear power in any form: whenever you create a nuclear reactor, you are betting on future people to handle it correctly. And not only during it's operational life of say 20-30 years, but also during the ages or millennia afterwards. This is quite a risky bet, as no one can predict the future. And centuries without war and/or other catastrophic events have been quite rare.
- Aachen 5y ago> whenever you create a nuclear reactor, you are betting on future people to handle it correctly The youth these days really isn't so different from the youth thirty years ago
- jbarrs 5y agoReminds me of this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Long-time_nuclear_waste_warning_messages https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Long-time_nuclear_waste_warnin... Far less than 10,000 years ago, humans likely would've written similar messages on things of importance to deter thieves, and we just ignore them now as curses. How does one warn people of the future about genuinely hazardous, long-lasting materials without relying on language (which will certainly change on that time scale) and without the future generation dismissing it as bullshit curses?
- 542354234235 5y agoTo be fair, the things the Taliban seized were from the “Afghan government” that we had given them. I don’t think there would have been any mobile reactors left for the same reason there weren’t any stealth aircraft.
- cratermoon 5y agoThere's also this: Review of Manned Aircraft Nuclear Propulsion Program https://nuke.fas.org/space/anp-gao1963.pdf https://nuke.fas.org/space/anp-gao1963.pdf [pdf]
- Gravityloss 5y agoThat was entertaining reading, something for every manager to read! An excerpt from the summary: CHANGES IN EMPHASIS AND DIRECTION OF THE ANP PROGRAM The ANP program was characterized by frequent changes in emphasis and objectives, varying from a research and development program to an accelerated program to develop a weapon system for the Air Force. The ANP program was carried out in competition with other programs for national defense. As a result, the importance attached to the ANP program varied greatly throughout its history. Although it was outside our scope to examine into the reasonableness of or justification for the frequent changes in program objectives, we do not believe that a research and development effort of the complexity and magnitude of the ANP program can reach its goal in an effective and efficient manner unless a certain degree of stability in objectives is accorded to the program. (See pp. 31 to 35) LITTLE OR NO USE MADE OF CERTAIN FACILITIES BECAUSES OF PROGRAM REORIENTATIONS During our review we noted that various major facilities had been constructed at a total cost of about $17,147,000 but were never used, or used very little, for their intended purposes because of program reorientations. The two largest facilities were the Flight Engine Test facility that was constructed at the AEC Na- tional Reactor Testing Station, Idaho, at a cost of $8,061,000...
- cratermoon 5y agoYou can see two of the reactors built, sitting on flatbed railcars on display in Idaho at the EBR-1 facility https://inl.gov/experimental-breeder-reactor-i/ https://inl.gov/experimental-breeder-reactor-i/
- acidburnNSA 5y agoThis 31 minute documentary detailing the Camp Century project and reactor is truly fascinating if you're into this kind of thing. [1] [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=28NYczAuXl4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=28NYczAuXl4 There are lots of others like this.
- dredmorbius 5y agoThat's a really fantastic bit of propagandistic history. I realised from the first that the claimed mission was B.S., though in the end, science actually prevailed. A couple of earlier comments: 5 months ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26854882 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26854882 5 years ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12237745 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12237745 Oh, and TIL: "Alco Products, Inc.", who manufactured the nuclear reactor used at Camp Century, isn't ALCOA (as I'd suspected), but "American Locomotive Company". It was only in the nuclear power business for about 6 years, shipping its first reactors in 1957, and selling the operation in 1963. https://www.schenectadyhistory.org/railroads/alcocovers/ https://www.schenectadyhistory.org/railroads/alcocovers/ I'm also pretty sure the TIME Magazine cover shown at 30:13 is is GE's Ralph Cordiner: https://archive.org/details/1959-images/page/1/mode/1up https://archive.org/details/1959-images/page/1/mode/1up More on Camp Century: https://www.wired.com/story/the-top-secret-cold-war-project-that-pulled-climate-science-from-the-ice/ https://www.wired.com/story/the-top-secret-cold-war-project-...
- LeoPanthera 5y agoI have always thought it disappointing that safe RTGs are not a more common technology. Surely it is not beyond the wit of man to design one that could be buried in the ground outside, or under, your house, which could provide probably a lifetime of power.
- m4rtink 5y agoRTGs are generally pretty expensive due to the exotermic isotopes used. Also it needs cooling to get the needed thermal gradient for electricity production, so just burying it into ground would likely not work. The peltier thermocouples also degrade over time. And lastly, there were some nasty radiation incidents where ex Soviet RTGs were left unattended and random scavengers managed to open the casing, getting lethal doses of radiation in some cases. I guess this could be exasperated by the small and mobile size of RTGs.
- OneTimePetes 5y agoNuclear is not ideal, because its civilizational brittle. Meaning it relies on complex society remaining stable and producing all those artifacts to maintain and recreate it. Add to that a complex supply chain and its less then ideal for a uncertain future.
- Reubachi 5y agoI can't think of any fuel source that will satisfy virtually all energy use cases with so little risk as nuclear batterization, even when considering the potential ability to lose the knowledge of how to maintain them given a total societal collapse. What other types of fuel are Armageddon proof? Certainly not coal, CNG, whale blubber, solar, etc......Fire maybe? Even then, might as well consider that the end of civilization regardless.......
- jokoon 5y agoI'm not an nuclear engineer, but I bet it would be easier to deploy more nuclear energy with a many smaller reactor. Pro: smaller reactors would be faster to build, as conventional nuclear reactors are large and often use specific techs. They would be built in higher quantities than larger reactors and thus allow more nuclear power generation. Con: economies of scale might mean it generates less electricity overall.
- joncrane 5y agoFunny you mention economies of scale because the whole idea of building many, smaller, identical reactors is essentially leveraging economies of scale in manufacturing. One of the reasons nuclear power is so unpalatable to build is that each plant is a 100% bespoke, one-off build that is insanely expensive and takes decades to pay off through profits. If you could make one design, and create the tooling (and licensing/safety requirements), you could essentially build an endless number of them as long as you could guarantee the process is repeatable. It's basically DevOps for nuclear reactors.
- pfdietz 5y agoThis could help, but only if those little reactors were bunched up together so they can share operating infrastructure, including staff. NuScale plans to put a half dozen reactors in the same shared structure, for example.
- int0x2e 5y agoI would tend to think the opposite would be true - having many smaller reactors would currently require multiplying the number of controlled sites, each requiring security, redundant cooling and safety systems, emergency power, nuclear waste cooling pools and long term storage, etc. I agree each individual system may be safer if an incident were to happen, but supporting a large fleet of nuclear production sites would be a lot harder in my mind. And this is if we were to completely ignore the huge set of compliance requirements and forms you'd need to fill out and maintain...
- EamonnMR 5y agoGreat book on the subject: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/6286687-atomic-america https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/6286687-atomic-america
- bawana 5y agoThe safest places for nuclear reactors are those which are isolated from environmental hazards like weather, people, earthquakes, eruptions. Someplace like the moon or mars. That's why subs and boats have a relatively safe record-no casual interference and containment vessels (large navy boats) that we have a lot of experience building, maintaining and operating by skilled dedicated humans.
- mikewarot 5y agoI assume they'll never repeat the mistake of having only one control rod, at least. It would be nice if it were a thorium salt based design, so you don't have to worry about disasters anywhere near as much. (Though I understand that you still have to worry about things like many, many Becquerel of Iodine being built up over time)