SL-1 The Accident: Phases I and II

U.S. Atomic Energy Commission
Idaho Operations Office

SL-1 The Accident: Phases I and II
A13886VNB1

Describes this nuclear accident from the point of view of the Atomic Energy Commission.

Category:

News & Politics

Tags:

• FedFlix
• NTIS
• Public.Resource.Org

[fourthpillar]

I love the sliderule calculations of a fried reactor :)

[1964455]

Today you can drive right by this site and where this reactor was located and later buried is just a small bump in the ground.

[atomicauto1]

...lodged in the ceiling. Also dead. WUT?!?!?

[Kohdok]

The "Sl-1 Accident, A First Responders Account" is a great follow-up to this.

[Kohdok]

@euclon After SL-1, the "One stuck rod" rule was put into place to make sure that prompt criticality couldn't happen the same way again.

The ML-1 was the portable reactor. It used liquid nitrogen rather than water, but suffered corrosion problems and was discontinued. This combined with SL-1 pretty much halted the Army nuclear reactor program.

Still, we paid attention to SL-1. Three Mile island proved this by not exploding or releasing severe amounts of radiation.

[euclon]

@Specterx97 Navy? This was an Army boondoggle; a so called "portable station reactor". Your comment leads me to believe that you think prompt criticality is not possible? Seems to me an ejected very high worth rod(s) (>Beff) from an already critical Rx should do the trick. Google "SL-1 Prompt Critical"

[euclon]

@Specterx97 "The Stationary Low-Power Reactor Number One (SL-1), was a United States Army experimental nuclear power reactor. Maintenance procedures commenced, which required the main central control rod to be withdrawn a few inches; at 9:01 p.m. this rod was withdrawn almost to the top of the core, causing SL-1 to go prompt critical. In four milliseconds, the heat generated by the resulting enormous power surge caused water surrounding the core to begin to explosively vaporize." So says AEC.

[Danbo342]

This is kind of funny that the film was done in the same manner of the 1960's standard safety films. It even sounds like the same guy accompanied with the same "Leave it to Beaver" style music, haha. It just doesn't seem to do the subject justice.

[2ndAsstJizzMopper]

0:43 "Bride... of the ATOM"

[Koshy2]

@greenvanholzer Why not put a coal plant in Time Square?

[sloth0jr]

@greenvanholzer Commercial nuclear power has a spectacular safety record - less deaths per terawatt generated even than solar power. It's safe not because it is inherently so - but rather because it isn't. It's dangerous enough when things go wrong that we overbuild commercial reactors to a huge extent. Because we can operate nuclear reactors safely does not mean that it's a given, and in any dynamic system, prudent cautions just make good sense. No worthwhile human endeavor is without risk.

[renascencewoman]

@bubblybabs ditto