As a follow-up to our previous digitization announcement, I’m now pleased to post the following. Naval research laboratory reactor (1958) This film describes and shows the swimming pool type reactor used for basic research. It talks about the planning, shows some scenes from construction, describes the reactor, explains the various experimental facilities, and shows the hot cell and manipulators. This reactor used plate-type fuel enriched 90% in U-235 with 20 mil aluminum cladding. The reactor was suspended from a movable bridge and could be operated out in the pool, or placed in a niche surr ..read more

I couldn’t be happier to be announcing the addition of six(!) more digitized historical nuclear films to the world’s collection, thanks to the generosity of Last Energy. This is our biggest batch of digitizations yet! As before, these were all sourced from 16mm films in the US National Archives. We will continue shedding light on valuable and historic films. If you’re interested in participating, see contact info at bottom of page. Army Package Power Reactor (1957) Atomic Power and the United States (1957) Nuclear Energy Goes Rural (1963) Operating Experience, Indian Point (1964) Operating E ..read more

The American Nuclear Society (ANS) has partnered with us to bring 2 more historical films to your living room! See their announcement and writeup here.. The first is Roundup: Second is RADIOISOTOPES: SAFE SERVANTS OF INDUSTRY: Special thanks to Brett Rampal for the connection. See Also Our Old Videos page Tweet version of this page All our video digitization announcements: Historical AEC film about ZPPR scanned Digitization of historical films about Nebraska's pioneering Hallam Sodium Graphite Reactor. Just digitized: a 1962 film featuring the PM-1 radar-powering nuclear microreactor in ..read more

I got it! The PM-1 Final Summary Report was delivered to me yesterday after I filed a FOIA request to the military library that had it cataloged (at their recommendation). This is the pure-gold lessons-learned report from operating a 1 MWe military microreactor in WY for 4 years. It contains cost and performance information, summarizing which systems worked well and which ones did not. This is a follow-up to some searching I did after getting this summary film digitized. It’s highly readable. The summary says that it was a big pain to maintain b/c it was too compact. They wanted it designed ..read more

Puerto Rico and the US Atomic Energy Commission built and operated an extremely interesting nuclear reactor in the 1960s. It was intended to demonstrate an ability to not only boil water to steam in the nuclear core, but also to superheat the steam to higher temperature. Superheated dry steam would improve the efficiency of power plant and allow use of cheaper off-the-shelf turbine equipment, dramatically improving cost performance over non-superheat boiling water reactors. A variety of small technical problems arose that proved expensive to fix permanently, and so the project was eventually ..read more

We’re extraordinarily excited to announce the recent digitization of a 1964 film all about everyone’s favorite nuclear-powered cargo/passenger ship: The N.S. Savannah! 1964 US Atomic Energy Commission video entitled “The Nuclear Ship Savannah”, digitized by us from the National Archives (NAID 88199) Catalog description: This nontechnical, documentary film, for junior-high-school through college-level audiences, covers the historical background, and the design, construction, sea trials, and initial port calls of the N.S. Savannah, the world's first nuclear-powered merchant ship. The film begi ..read more

We’re super excited to announce the recent digitization of a 1961 film detailing a major repair of the Homogeneous Reactor Experiment-2 (HRE-2), a fluid-fueled aqueous homogeneous reactor at the Oak Ridge National Lab in Tennessee This reactor was an early predecessor to molten salt reactors. This is the third of four historical nuclear films in our latest batch of 4K digitizations from 16mm film at the National Archives. HRE-2 developed a hole that leaked fluid fuel from the core region into the heavy water blanket region. They adjusted procedures and operated in this condition for a while ..read more

We’re excited to announce the recent digitization of this 1965 film summarizing the test reactors and other activities of the National Reactor Testing Station (NRTS), known today as the Idaho National Lab (INL). This is the second of four historical nuclear films in our latest batch of 4K digitizations from 16mm film at the National Archives. 1965 US Atomic Energy Commission video about the National Reactor Testing Station (NRTS), known today as the Idaho National Lab (INL). Digitized by us from the National Archives (NAID 88194) Catalog description: This nontechnical film, for all audience ..read more

We’re extremely excited to announce the first of four historical nuclear films in our latest batch of 4K digitizations from 16mm film at the National Archives. It features the 1 MWe PM-1 military microreactor, a small modular reactor that the US Army manufactured and tested in a factory, disassembled into 16 modules, and air-lifted to the closest airfield by C-130, trucked to site, re-assembled, and then powered a remote Cold War radar station back in 1962. It had direct air cooling, meaning it did not need to be near any water supply. It was designed to be disassembled, moved, and re-assembl ..read more

This cube is aboard the N.S. Savannah: The wooden cube from N.S. Savannah (credit: RJ Fader) The caption reads: This cube represents the approximate volume of 163 lbs. of Enriched Uranium which has enabled the N. S. SAVANNAH to travel 454,625 miles. A fossil fueled ship would have consumed about 28,600,000 gallons (681,000 bbls.) of fuel to cover the same distance. This fuel would occupy approx 3,823,529.4 cubic feet as compared to 0.04 cubic feet of this cube. Funny math? I think the person who made this may have goofed up the math slightly. In particular, the mass density is way off ..read more