Collapse Reactor

A collapse reactor was a type of nuclear fission reactor being tested by Nevrin in the 1940s after the failures of the Fluid-Uranium Reactor. Their principle of operation was the control of the reaction via the hydraulic compression of a viscous fuel slurry to achieve criticality after collapsing into a tight spherical shape. This was held within a vaguely ball-shaped "core enclosure". The reactor ran on very highly enriched, weapons-grade plutonium. It was for a time trialled by the United States government to provide power for remote military bases.

History

US base accident

In 1965, a catastrophic accident occurred on a remote military base in Alaska testing the reactor technology when a F-105 Thunderchief crashed into the reactor building, causing a loss of containment and starting a massive fire. The severity of the damage was not immediately apparent, and an engineer who climbed a ladder on the side of the reactor building to ascertain it inadvertently looked directly into the exposed core and received a lethal dose of radiation. The base was ultimately forced to be evacuated, and was abandoned; later, the order was given to discontinue the use of Nevrin prototype reactor technology at all US military bases.

Plutonium theft

In 2009, a mothballed reactor testing facility in Lynchburg, Virginia was attacked by Iranian special forces who had gained knowledge about the highly enriched plutonium within the reactor and sought to obtain it in order to produce nuclear weapons. The team, however, had no training on how to handle nuclear material and no radiation protection equipment. They used explosives and a rocket launcher to break through the concrete containment shielding and then breached the steel containment vessel with a circular saw, which began to leak the extremely radioactive core slurry. All but one member of the team received lethal doses of radiation and died within three hours. The incident served to escalate tensions between the US and Iran, and the facility was later declared a Superfund site and reclaimed over the course of 15 years.