Ex-nuclear plant gathers dust

STRICKLER


More than 30 years ago, men inside the dome purposefully set off some daring chain reactions. They brought the core of a reactor to the brink of overheating and then cooled it down again, to test whether they could place a bridle on nuclear power when the plant was running full-tilt.

Satisfied with their tests, the consortium of power companies that built the Southwest Experimental Fast Oxide Reactor, or SEFOR, vacated the plant in 1972, three years after it was built. The University of Arkansas took it over in 1975.

The reactor has been dormant ever since, a decaying remnant of the Nuclear Age.

Arkansas Democrat-Gazette