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Page added on July 31, 2013
Nuclear Energy Plant Designed, Constructed, Tested in Less Than Two Years
Under current rules and assumptions, anyone who claims that they can design and build a power-producing nuclear reactor in less than 10-15 years is considered to be naive or hopelessly unrealistic. However, there is no reason to believe that everyone with the technical capacity for completing the task will follow the same rules. Even in the United States, there was a time in which nuclear technology development moved much more quickly.
One of my favorite documented examples is the US Army’s reactor project designated as PM-2A, which was assigned the task of providing electricity and heat to a remote base in Greenland. The design contract was awarded on January 23, 1959. The power plant started supplying heat and electricity to the base, Camp Century, on November 12, 1960, only 22 months later. Here are extracts from an Army-produced status report video that describes several stages of the project, including site preparation, delivering, assembling and starting up the reactor power plant.
If the game is rigged to be a no-win situation, the most productive response is to change the rules. For some odd reason, far too many people consider that course of action to be cheating. I think it is simply a creative way out of an externally imposed box with no exit. Star Trek fans that remember the Kobayashi Maru test understand what I mean.
10 Comments on "Nuclear Energy Plant Designed, Constructed, Tested in Less Than Two Years"
BillT on Wed, 31st Jul 2013 11:39 am
A remote place on Greenland is not a populated area with millions of people nearby. This guy is just another bad joke. Nuclear is dying.
Beery on Wed, 31st Jul 2013 12:37 pm
Yes, and nuclear power is just the sort of thing we want to change the rules for and hurry along, because seriously, what could ever go wrong? Am I right?
Now I’m wondering if there are parts of Greenland that glow.
mike on Wed, 31st Jul 2013 1:05 pm
Nuclear advocates should have to personally deal with the waste created. In other words you want nuclear then you have the waste buried in your back garden and if the plant goes into meltdown you are first on the list to sacrifice your life for the rest of the planet. Lets see how many nuclear advocates we have then.
BillT on Wed, 31st Jul 2013 1:33 pm
Beery, maybe the ice is melting too slowly in the Arctic and they want to hurry it along? I hope you do not own any beach front property. ^_^
BillT on Wed, 31st Jul 2013 1:35 pm
Mike, I agree. Let every major stockholder keep a few dozen spent fuel rods in their swimming pool. And send one to each member of Congress for Xmas this year. We have about 200,000 tons of them to give away.
Norm on Wed, 31st Jul 2013 2:24 pm
Build the reactor in just two years. Melt down in just 3 years. Complete cycle of 5 years. Repeat!
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rollin on Wed, 31st Jul 2013 3:55 pm
Nothing unusual, I am sure that nuclear submarine and ship power plants did not take 10 to 15 years to build.
To build a highly inefficient nuclear reactor that leaves us with huge waste problems Is horrendously erroneous. To build them even faster merely compounds the error.
Ert on Wed, 31st Jul 2013 4:13 pm
This reactor and one that will produce 1GW of electrical energy – and probably 2,5GW of thermal is another story.
You have to get rid of 1,5GW thermal, introduce a little bit more safety as 50 years ago – we currently know much more about what can go wrong.
Look at Fukushima: The reactor designs are faulty – they knew it but they kept them running, as the laws of financing by debt requires it. And the biggest open question – even of today: Where to go with the waste?
Keith_McClary on Thu, 1st Aug 2013 5:43 am
So, what’s happening with this reactor now, it must be getting to the end of its lifetime? Who pays to decommission it?
Keith_McClary on Thu, 1st Aug 2013 5:46 am
Nuke advocate named “Rod”.
:^)