Pure Energy!

Now let’s go back in time a bit. Here’s an out of order post.  Remember our trip to Craters of the Moon National Park?  Our fun and our failures?  Well, after leaving Craters Of The Moon we saw billboards touting the world’s first nuclear power plant.  The very first one to use nuclear energy in a sustained manner to do work, i.e. light a string of light bulbs!

 

So we followed the signs and found the old building out in the middle of nowhere, Idaho.

It’s called: EBR-1.

 

It’s mostly a (free!) self guided tour through what reminds me a bit of a mad scientists lab.  The guys that worked here really were cutting edge and trying some pretty crazy science.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

After talking with the staff and sharing with them my expertise in Geology, Seismic data management, home automation and drone pilotry (piloting?)  they agreed to allow me to run the reactor while they took their lunch break.

 

 

Abort!  Abort!  System Failure!  Over heating!  Core Unstable!

“I didn’t do it!!!

Where’s the reboot icon?  CTRL-C!  CTRL-C!

Hold down Power and the Volume button for 10 seconds! No wait, what?!

If this were Linux I could halt -p now <ENTER> or ‘grep’ for system processes to kill -9 pid  <ENTER>”

 

Don’t worry.  I wasn’t really in control of a massive nuclear device with the potential to melt a hole through the earth’s crust to the Moho (even though I think my credentials outlined above would warrant such control).

 

 

Here’s an experimental  Heat Transfer Reactor on the right and some sort of train in the center.  I tried to attach the reactor to the towbar on my RV, but it didn’t have the right hardware.   I would like to have one of those in the front yard.

 

 

Doesn’t this remind you of your high school science class?   (Me either)

 

 

Here’s Tina using one of the manipulator arms to move tiny objects in a separate, sealed room just like the physicists did who had to work with highly radioactive material.

 

Another cool display was the 30 inch thick glass that the scientists worked behind.  The actual glass is still in place.  I believe it was 29 pieces of inch thick glass, each separated by mineral oil to create a very clear view through the glass into the danger room.  A trick we were shown is to hold your phone flash light up to the glass and you can see 29 little reflections of your light.  Too bad I didn’t get a picture of that.

 

 

It is said that EBR-1 had a near foolproof emergency shutdown system.  If Fukushima and Chernobyl would have used the EBR-1 system those disasters may have been avoided.  However, politics shutdown EBR-1 over 30 years ago and their technology with it.

 

 

 

If you are ever near Craters of the Moon National Park between Arco and Atomic City, Idaho, then stop by EBR-1.  It’s worth a one hour visit.