Diesel sounds much more practical: > “Nukey Poo” began producing power for the McMurdo station in 1962, and was refuelled for the first time in 1964. A decade

Diesel sounds much more practical: > “Nukey Poo” began producing power for the McMurdo station in 1962, and was refuelled for the first time in 1964. A decade later, the optimism around the plant had faded. The 25-man team required to run the plant was expensive, while concerns over possible chloride stress corrosion emerged after the discovery of wet insulation during a routine inspection. Both costs and environmental impacts conspired to close the plant in September 1972. > This precipitated a major clean up that saw 12,000 tonnes of contaminated rock removed and shipped back to the USA through nuclear-free New Zealand. The clean up pre-dated Antarctica’s modern environmental protection regime by two decades, and required the development of new standards for soil contamination levels. https://theconversation.com/remembering-antarcticas-nuclear-past-with-nukey-poo-99934 https://theconversation.com/remembering-antarcticas-nuclear-...