We think of Antarctica as a place to protect. It's "pristine", "remote" and "untouched". (Although a recent discovery reveals it's less isolated from the world than previously thought.)
But it wasn't always this way. Between 1961 and 1972 McMurdo Station was home to Antarctica's first and only portable nuclear reactor, known as PM-3A, or "Nukey Poo." The little-known story of Nukey Poo offers a useful lens through which to examine two ways of valuing the far south: as a place to develop, or a place to protect.
[...] "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.
https://phys.org/news/2018-07-antarctica-nuclear-nukey-poo.html
-- submitted from IRC
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 24 2018, @03:58AM (2 children)
The PM-2A reactor at Camp Century in Greenland was also termed a "portable" reactor. However, it was shipped in in pieces. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Army_Nuclear_Power_Program#List_of_plants [wikipedia.org]
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 24 2018, @04:04AM
story about Camp Century: https://soylentnews.org/article.pl?sid=16/08/08/081225 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by All Your Lawn Are Belong To Us on Tuesday July 24 2018, @06:19PM
And as the AC article points out, the Anarctic station however playfully named was officially "PM-3A" and part of the Army Nuclear Power Program. That it was Anarctica is notable but it wasn't the first in a hostile cold climate.
This sig for rent.
(Score: 2) by theluggage on Tuesday July 24 2018, @11:54AM
I think we're missing the real news for nerds here - please tell us more about the 1961 ARPANET prototype that was obviously used to hold the naming competition!
(Score: 2) by DavePolaschek on Tuesday July 24 2018, @02:05PM (6 children)
I remember being told how nuclear power (I grew up a couple miles from a nuclear plant) was going to save us all and be too cheap to meter.
Five-year-old me had a pretty darned bright future.
(Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Tuesday July 24 2018, @05:48PM (3 children)
It still can work, it just needs to be 1) passive-safe and 2) use a fission chain you can't make bombs out of. In other words, thorium.
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 2) by HiThere on Tuesday July 24 2018, @06:05PM (1 child)
It needs one further component: A way to safely dispose of the spent fuel. Just like the Thorium reactors, ways theoretically exist, but they've never been proven.
Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.
(Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Tuesday July 24 2018, @07:07PM
IIRC thorium waste stays "hot" for a few centuries, but not tens of thousands of years. Standard uranium-reactor waste disposal procedures should be more than enough.
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 24 2018, @11:48PM
This one was fueled by U-235 at 93% enrichment.
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 24 2018, @08:19PM
They weren't planning for bitcoin miners back then!
(Score: 2) by qzm on Wednesday July 25 2018, @02:06AM
You forgot the other critical component.
A state with support of people who dont recoil in horror at anything 'nuclear' because they cannot get their heads out of the cold war terror-mongering of duck and cover.
You know, people who can apply a little critical thinking, understand the positives and negatives involved, perhaps even understand relative measures of natural and
'media frenzy' radiation figures - that sort of thing.
In other words, at present, no country in the west.
China of course will eventually win in this, and many other areas, mostly because they dont have the 'democracy problem' (yes, that is as sarcastic in several ways as it sounds) which
frees them to make informed, not populist decisions.
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-09-21/nuclear-scientists-head-to-china-to-test-experimental-reactors [bloomberg.com]
https://www.nextbigfuture.com/2017/12/china-spending-us3-3-billion-on-molten-salt-nuclear-reactors-for-faster-aircraft-carriers-and-in-flying-drones.html [nextbigfuture.com]
https://neutronbytes.com/2018/01/07/recent-developments-in-advanced-reactors-in-china-russia/ [neutronbytes.com]
But dont worry, the US will lead in SO many other areas... after all, look at all the great work going on in the universities right now in the areas of.... well.... best not said really.