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The Military Power

US Air Force Announces Plans for a Micro Nuclear Reactor in Alaska (thedrive.com) 103

Posted by EditorDavid from the cold-fission dept.
This week the U.S. Air Force announced that it's chosen Alaska's Eielson Air Force Base as the site for its first "micro" nuclear reactor test program.

The Drive reports: The U.S. military, as a whole, together with the Department of Energy has been increasingly looking into micro-reactor designs as possible ways to meet ever-growing electricity demands, including for units on the battlefield, as well as to help cut costs and improve general operational efficiency by reducing reliance on fossil fuels. The base is situated deep within the interior of Alaska near the city of Fairbanks and is around 110 miles south of the Arctic Circle [and 26 miles from Fairbanks].

It is not clear exactly what the specifications might be for the reactor that is now set to be constructed at Eielson... The Air Force did say that the project in question had been initiated in response to language in the annual defense policy bill, or National Defense Authorization Act for the 2019 Fiscal Year and that the goal is for the micro-reactor to be fully operational by the end of 2027. This would seem to indicate that this reactor is the one that the Office of the Secretary of Defense's Strategic Capabilities Office is leading the development of as part of an effort known as Project Pele. The goal of that project, which started in 2019 and that you can read more about here, is to demonstrate a small reactor capable of producing between one and five megawatts of power...

In March, the Pentagon awarded contracts for prototype Project Pele reactors to X-Energy and BWX Technologies. These deals cover the continued maturation of the respective designs over the next two years, with the expectation being that a winning design will be selected afterward. The hope is that work on an actual microreactor will begin by the end of the 2022 Fiscal Year...

It is worth pointing out that 19,780 acres associated with Eielson are already designated by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) as a so-called "Superfund site," due to existing toxic chemical contamination related to "closed and active unlined landfills, shallow trenches where weathered tank sludge was buried, a drum storage area, and other disposal and spill areas."
Waste from the micro-reactor "will be subject to the same rigorous storage and control requirements of the commercial nuclear industry," explains an Air Force FAQ. (Though more specifically, it says that "Used fuel will be stored on-site using NRC-licensed storage casks pending a decision on the ultimate disposition of commercial spent fuel.") The FAQ also notes the reactor will not be connected to the commercial grid.

The Drive points out that currently the Air Force has just been using a fleet of diesel locomotives that bring the base trainloads of coals.
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US Air Force Announces Plans for a Micro Nuclear Reactor in Alaska More

US Air Force Announces Plans for a Micro Nuclear Reactor in Alaska

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  • Small plants have been developed by the navy. And I am for putting them on ships. The Air Force has none.

    A larger percentage of population are near the ocean, supplying them with ship mounted power, means that inland places can use existing infrastructure and power plants.

    Also, we can sail ships away. Land based military nuke plants are not something I will trust. How do we get truth?

    • Can use == Reliant Upon (Score:5, Insightful)

      by SuperKendall ( 25149 ) on Sunday October 24, 2021 @04:29PM (#61922947)

      means that inland places can use existing infrastructure and power plants.

      If you are the military it's dumb to be reliant on ANYONE for your operational needs.

      Especially civilian power grids which are incredibly easy to disrupt.

      Far superior to have local power generation, even better when it's something like nuclear that doens't need thing like daily or weekly oil drops the way generators do.

      Solar requires too much of a footprint and doesn't produce enough power to really make a dent in what you would need... nuclear power plant is vastly more compact for the amount of power produced.

      Being a micro nuclear reactor there will be very little material on site at any one time, and modern reactors do not fail in ways that would leak radiation anyway,.

      Nuclear is the future, it's the only way to achieve CO2 emissions. Even the Green Party of Finland has realized this, time to get with the party pal.

      • So i did the unthinkable; I read TFA as well as the writeup on Project Pele. Some things to point out: some bases are reliant on shipments of Coal to the tune of 800 tons per day. So even in that example of generating their own power they still are tethered to a supply chain. Solar is not viable, not only for the reasons you mention, but they are pretty reflective from the air. Its not really a good way to camouflage a forward outpost.

        They mention a fuel called TRISO, which is uranium based. They do not

        • At a 5MW scale they can use commercial drycoolers if they really want to for heat rejection. They would likely only need to run fans on them in the middle of the summer.

          • And in the winter they'll be using the "waste" steam to heat the base.

            Solar doesn't make much sense in Alaska because the biggest power demands are in the winter, when, well, there's no sun for most of the day.

            Oddly, it's pretty easy to eliminate summer power demand by them though - it's cool enough that the solar panels work more efficiently than their rating(which assumes higher temperatures), but you're getting sunlight for like 20 hours a day, and there's no need to power AC for most buildings with them

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by PPH ( 736903 )

        If you are the military it's dumb to be reliant on ANYONE for your operational needs.

        Unless the object is to slip some funds to a buddy in the private sector.

        What is Blackwater ... I mean Xe .... er, Academi.

    • Siting experimental reactors on military bases means they are not subject to delays from the flat-earth lobby. Unlike the commercial mini-reactor that Toshiba Corp. was unable to give away to an Alaskan village years ago, this is something that we can Just Fucking Build.

    • This plant is a fraction of the size of the ones we used even on subs. However, the last time this was attempted was by the army in the 50s. The plant was named SL-1. You can read the incident report. The army did not have nearly the level of training and attention to detail the navy has/had. They air force is a bit kore selective. When I was in the Navy, it was said the army would let someone join with a 19/100 on their ASVAB.

      • The last time, I saw an army recruiting video (and that was a real US one): the interviewer asked "Why do you want to join the army?"
        The volunteer/recruit answered: "I just want to kill people".

        "You are at the right place, lad".

      • When I was in the Navy, it was said the army would let someone join with a 19/100 on their ASVAB.

        When were you in the Navy? 1972? The scores to get in any military branch was never that low since the Vietnam War, and when the scores were set that low it ended up being quite a disaster for everyone involved.
        https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]

        You realize that is a percentile, don't you? To score above 19 on the ASVAB means they score in the top 80% of the general population. If we were to convert that to an IQ score that would be somewhere around an IQ of 90. An IQ of 90 isn't a genius but it is someo

        • You realize that is a percentile, don't you? To score above 19 on the ASVAB means they score in the top 80% of the general population.

          No, that would be an 79*. Scoring a 19 on the ASVAB means you scored better than 19% of those who take the test. IE bottom 20%. The test maxes out at 99, or "you did better than 99% of takers".

          https://www.officialasvab.com/... [officialasvab.com]

          https://www.military.com/join-... [military.com]

          Air Force minimum is 36, Army is 31.

          As a note, "Nuclear Weapons" requires a M60, IE your "mechanical Comprehension" has to be better than 60% of test takers, and that's a minimum requirement(most will be higher). This seems to be the closest analog

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by cusco ( 717999 )

            If they have actual military enlisted people running it

            Not a chance in hell of that.

            • I'd have to ask how you can be so assured? The military has enlisted do all the basic maintenance, including quite critical things.

              I should clarify though - I'm not talking about enlisted "running" the program, I'm talking about them fulfilling similar roles as enlisted nuke operators in the Navy. IE day to day monitoring, basic maintenance, etc...

              • Re: (Score:2)

                by cusco ( 717999 )

                This is a new program, in the "new" (post-Rumsfeld) US military contractors do everything that soldiers could do cheaper and better because the Libertardians say it's "more efficient". They can't permanently post contractors on nuclear subs, but above ground they certainly will.

        • Re: I am for nukes, but for the air force? (Score:4, Funny)

          by e3m4n ( 947977 ) on Monday October 25, 2021 @07:35AM (#61924299)
          It wasnt too long after that. I took the asvab in 1988 and scored a 97. A 19 could have been old info. Branches liked to bash each other. For example did you know you had to be 6ft tall to be in the Coast Guard? That way when your boat sank you could walk back to shore.

  • From somebody's bedroom, somebody, whose name we won't mention ever again.

    • You can see Rissia from there

      You can in fact see Russia from Alaska. How does it feel being more stupid than Palin?

      • The real question is how does it feel that the both of you are as stupid as Matt Damon for mistaking Palin for Fey.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by cusco ( 717999 )

        If you're on a high hill on the west side of Big Diomide Island you can see the tops of the hills on the east side of Little Diomide Island. That's a bit different than seeing it from the Manganoosa Valley where her house is.

        She didn't say it, anyway. It was in a SNL skit. It sounds stupid enough to be something she'd say though.

  • See Project Iceworm (Score:5, Informative)

    by nicolaiplum ( 169077 ) on Sunday October 24, 2021 @04:28PM (#61922941)

    The US has done this before. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]

    They made an entire military base under the Greenland ice, including a nuclear reactor to power it - Camp Century. They left quite a bit of waste, including PCBs, in the ice. They thought it would remain there indefinitely but now global warming may expose it within a few decades. The Greenland peoples are not very happy about that.

    The full US Army Corps of Engineers report on Camp Century is here: https://icedrill.org/library/c... [icedrill.org]

    Perhaps the US military will take a less cavalier attitude to waste in this new attempt to use small nuclear reactors.

    • "Perhaps the US military will take a less cavalier attitude to waste in this new attempt to use small nuclear reactors."

      Yes. That's definitely one of the lessons learned.

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by Anonymous Coward

      The toxic mess there didn't come from the reactor, so the parent post is glorified troll. Any "nuclear waste" is in the form of ceramic pellets in sealed tubes, and poses no environmental threat whatsoever. Any reader with a brain will read about Project Iceworm [wikipedia.org], and be inspired by the remarkable things that nuclear energy makes possible.

      • Your derp makes no sense. And your own link says radioactive waste was left at the site. And even after nuclear waste has ceased to be radioactive, it will remain toxic in perpetuity as a concentrated heavy metal.

  • "There are concerns, of course, associated with deploying mobile nuclear reactors to bases or the battlefield. Meltdowns, waste products, and other malfunctions are always a concern with nuclear energy technologies,"

    ...Standard issues, of course, but what has to be on everybody's mind is...

    "and if a reactor in a contested area is destroyed by adversary forces, for example, the risk of environmental contamination is high. That, in turn, could create a political disaster for the DOD and United States. Deploying any nuclear systems abroad also incurs the risk of proliferation if those technologies should fall into the wrong hands due to a forward-operating base or convoy being overrun by hostile forces."

    The artist's concept shows a fragile device, at least as compared to a diesel generator. No armor shown, but there exist strong encasements in use for various purposes, so I would expect something like that when in transit. When emplaced, a revetment/bunker would need to be built to provide protection. Again, a modification of current power protection methods would be in order.

    There's a slide in TFA from a 2019 Westinghouse Electric

    • Before everyone speculates, we should at least learn what is possible with TRISO fuel. The last time I had anything to do with nuclear power in the military, we were using dispersion fuels with hafnium fuel rods. For all we know these pellets never exceed 500 degrees.

  • Of course they will. It's inevitable. (Score:5, Insightful)

    by MacMann ( 7518492 ) on Sunday October 24, 2021 @06:28PM (#61923163)

    We will not explore space without nuclear power. Space is a militarily vital "high ground" that must be maintained. This means the military will be developing nuclear power plants. They will deploy them for testing in various locations. Once the details are worked out we can expect them to be part of routine military deployments. We saw this with nuclear submarines. Once the first one was proven to be superior to the alternatives in such profound ways that was the end of the diesel submarine. The oil fired aircraft carrier had not nearly the same impact when first produced, there was one oil fired aircraft carrier built after the first nuclear aircraft carrier.

    Has any nation abandoned nuclear powered submarines or aircraft carriers once they got them? The US Navy had nuclear powered surface ships besides aircraft carriers, but being experimental meant they were expensive to build and expensive to operate. It was far easier to kill them off. I expect another attempt soon to create the "nuclear navy" that was first envisioned a half century ago. This time though it will be far more difficult to go back.

    The USAF and US Army experimented with nuclear power before. They built prototypes that ended up being exceedingly dangerous and ended up killing people. The idea was abandoned for many reasons. One was the problem was really hard. The gains were not as profound as with submarines and aircraft carriers. Oil got cheap. By 1990 the Cold War was over. While pollution was a concern the issue of CO2 emissions wasn't near the issue then as now.

    What is the solution to providing power in a war zone when oil and coal are scarce? Putting up windmills and solar collectors is just creating a big fat target to bomb and shell. It's not exactly covert either, they are going to find you. For the military to do its job it needs nuclear power, and for more than just submarines and aircraft carriers. Going to space requires nuclear power. Before putting them in space we need to test them here on Earth. Once proven effective we will use them everywhere. Concerns on CO2 emissions will be one driving force for their use. Morons that don't want nuclear power with lower CO2 emissions will simply have to wise up on how there is no other option.

    This is the "atomic age" that was expected in the 1950s. It's just taking about 100 years longer than planned.

    • "Space" and "Earth" are two different things.

      Not sure if you grasp the differences.

      • Reactors for the Navy had to be tested on land before we'd use them in submarines. Reactors for space have to be tested on land before we put them in space stations. There is a difference you are not grasping. We need to know how these reactors will handled constant load from keeping lights on as well as pulsed loads from weapons fire. This will be much like the environment in space with a near constant load of keeping a habitat comfortable along with burst loads of engines or weapons firing. This is

    • Stop trying to make it happen. If nuclear power made any kind of sense, the US would have hundreds of small reactors already on it's thousand plus military bases around the world. And this is from the same government that thinks nothing of tossing $1.5 trillion in the Pentagon dumpster and setting fire to it each year.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

      The military sets up huge oil supply lines because nuclear power is unsuitable for small vehicles, boats and aircraft. While it would be nice to power the base off nuclear, given the cost they are unlikely to bother.

      These days bases tend to be fairly permanent affairs anyway, tied into the local grid. Because weapons are now very long range they don't need so many forward bases, they can sit well back.

      Nuclear makes sense for submarines and large ships. Possibly for space based systems, but up there solar ha

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by MobyDisk ( 75490 )

        The military sets up huge oil supply lines because nuclear power is unsuitable for small vehicles, boats and aircraft.

        I wonder if that will change. Batteries are getting better and there are proposals to create liquid-based fuels from nuclear + atmosphere + seawater. Those are intended to remove supply lines from aircraft carriers.

    • One of the problems was that designs back then required trained individuals using arm strength to raise and lower control rods, plus a poor understanding of reactor stability. Thats what pinned a guys remains to the ceiling so badly that it took several days to locate him. Itll probably be quite a bit better this time around. Nuclear isnt the solution to every energy problem, but I agree that we should be developing the next generation of reactors, including small ones.
  • In the 1950's a reactor was built for the Army, which killed 3 people. The maintenance routine used a C-clamp to hold the control rod. Something happened, which caused an explosion which lurched the entire reactor out of the ground by 9 feet. Watching the Agonne Low Power reactor videos, you can plainly see people struggling to tape and weld boron strips on the outside of the fuel assemblies, when the found that there was not enough control from the rods--yet when it went off they blamed the people maintain
  • I live just down the road in North Pole, Alaska and our local air quality is shite due to the inversion layer that sets up in the Tanana Valley. Eliminating Eielson's use of coal will be a huge win in that aspect. Only time will tell if they handle the spent fuel intelligently.

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