Hallam Nuclear Power Facility - the Sodium Graphite Reactor in Nebraska (1963)

[@big5808]

I work at this plant today. It's crazy to see the same equipment I operate daily in a 60 year old film. Now the reactor building is gone, all that's left is a lawn with the reactor underneath.

[@richardhenry5822]

One of the best videos on nuclear power plants that I have encountered,

[@davidbudka1298]

Looks like they have a nice shot of the Kramer Steam Plant at Bellevue. The two unit C.C. Sheldon Steam Plant is still operating in 2023. I also liked the lattice steel tower line that ran northwest from the 2nd and N street substation to NW 48th Street just south of the air park (now gone).

[@gaussmanv2]

Hey there little Jimmy, it seems like you'd like to learn about sodium cooled, graphite moderated nuclear reactor.

[@mattpierre891]

I often wonder who these films were actually made for. 🤔

[@NOBOX7]

Its Timmy

[@gingernutpreacher]

​@@NOBOX7no Jimmy

[@jlinkous05]

​@@mattpierre891To get kids, and their parents, wanting to make kids interested in being nuclear engineers. Back then, it was just as noble as being a doctor.

[@Awesomes007]

And how!

[@hankcester]

Amazing

[@lilblackduc7312]

Great educational film! Thank you...

[@hankcester]

Water. Cooled and moderated. Reactors Are the. Safest.

[@curtrapp5291]

That's your opinion. Your opinion is not fact. Water has a very low heat capacity compared to other coolants. Using water requires higher flow rates, which means higher volume pumps, which consume more power.

[@frodbolf]

Not very long lived... (from wikipedia) " The facility operated for 6,271 hours and generated 192,458,000 kW-hrs of electric power." It was completly decomissioned in 1969

[@johnevans9751]

Produced atomic generated power for about a year. It must be entombed and monitored through 2090.

[@damienhill6383]

The problems of trying to work with molten sodium I wonder ...

[@jlinkous05]

I mean, they did say this was an experimental plant.

[@slugface322]

​@@damienhill6383 Gen IV reactors are truly a wonder indeed.

[@markae0]

This KZbinr co-wrote the wikipedia article.

[@me-ev3kz]

More please:

[@slugface322]

how can you have any pudding if you don't eat your meat

[@NotBROLL]

Who were these old govt filmed made for? Who would’ve seen then in 1963? And do they still make these kinda films today?

[@michaelmcgovern8110]

Why make these films? To make us all believe that nuclear energy would be safe and the electricity it generated "too cheap to meter." Yes, that was the AEC/NRC bullshit to cover the truth that the gov't wanted a lot of plants built real fast so we could generate a LOT of waste to reprocess for bombs. But, oops, then they figured out how to build smaller bombs, so the need decreased. But the nuclear industry forged ahead anyway with untried, untested, poorly designed, cheaply built/maintained/operated, INCREDIBLY EXPENSIVE plants. Plants that routinely and almost without exception leaked, failed, or otherwise caused dangerous trouble. The first generation of nuke electric plant designs were SOOOO bad they didn't dare build them in the US, so they sold them offshore. Got to recoup SOME of that half-assed engineering investment, eh? This is why Fukashima blew up, go look it up. GE sold the bullshit GE Mark1 plant designs to TEPCO, who ran them half-assed and, for DECADES, didn't listen to the safety engineers. Wish I were making this up. The rest is history that the ratepayer is still paying for, and will CONTINUE TO PAY FOR through decommissioning (which nobody knows how long will take or how much it will cost). Electric ratepayers paying for nuke plant decommissioning is the modern century version of "paying on a dead mule". Look up WPPSS, aka "Whoops": You'll stop laughing. How do I know? I've been laughing myself sick at these liars since the Rasmussen report in 1975, and the nuclear power industry hasn't stopped lying since. Ask Karen Silkwood. Oh, wait: you can't (see also, rear-end damage on her car that hit a culvert head-on. Hmmm...maybe it spun supersonically during the collision.) Check out the bullshit CA Edison's subsidiary spews about why they had to decommission San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station (SONGS, love the pure-Orwell name) after they screwed up TWICE "fixing" THE SAME FAILURE DUE TO A KNOWN DESIGN ISSUE (for about several billion dollars in total) but had to shut it down less than two years after the second, 20-year-guaranteed fix. FFS. Who's paying to decommission the plant? Sure as Hell not that subsidiary: YOU ARE. Yes, we need nukes for the future, but how about safety engineering over speed and profit when the downside is ratepayers getting soaked for a big radioactive bang and/or widespread longterm poisoning?

[@josephkanowitz6875]

ב''ה, mostly just siphon DoD's cold-weather gear funds for other purposes, with faith put in global warming.

[@slugface322]

That's right we watched these in school on those 16mm film projectors. We learned about the subject so we knew Hanoi Jane was a commie and didn't know sqaut about subatomic nuclear theory. didja know the fundamentally flawed reactors at Chernobyl ran for another twenty-four years after the 1986 accident? 😂 If the average person knew the facts they'd be clamoring for nukes.

[@davidwilkie9551]

The point of a 60 years of research in Nuclear Power Generation has been made, again, and again.

[@widescreennavel]

Such a simple thing to construct...just need 6 foot walls of high density concrete, and oh yeah, you might need to reinforce all the bridges getting your items delivered to the site. Sounds economical to me.

[@deus_vult_1099]

Why is this comment section so stupid

[@jblob5764]

@2:36 "waste storage building". Little stone block garage 😂

[@curtrapp5291]

This plant was very small, so not much waste was generated. The large plants today are many times larger, so waste buildings are of course much larger.

[@skrame01]

Sodium explodes if it contacts water.

[@SteveWright-oy8ky]

And spontaneously catches fire in open air, hence the helium purging.

[@markae0]

same with plutonium

[@rtqii]

@@markae0 Actually, they declassified glovebox video of plutonium flammability tests. I highly recommend searching it up. *Burning and Extinguishing Characteristics of Plutonium Metal Fires* on KZbin. Short story: unless it is powdered or shavings it is hard to ignite... But once it is ignited, it is extremely hard to extinguish.

[@breakingbolts8871]

love these old propoganda films.

[@whatisnuclear]

I love them too. As a nuclear engineer, I consider them technological showcase films. Super useful and interesting from a technological POV.

[@WorldPowerLabs]

​@@whatisnuclearI'm an electrical engineer, so I always enjoy seeing the control rooms full of instruments.

[@rogermorey]

@@whatisnuclear kinda missed the point, "PROPAGANDA" Oxford states " biased or misleading nature, used to promote or publicize a particular political cause or point of view."

[@whatisnuclear]

@@rogermorey It's hard to make a technical film describing a sodium graphite reactor too political.

[@rogermorey]

@@whatisnuclear The push for nuclear power in the days of Larry Householder is part of why this is on youtube now. If this was presented by a historian, it would look very different. Cheapest and safest for the consumer is definitively not nuclear. However nuclear is most profitable for the provider. That's supply side economics, this is indeed propaganda.

[@Ed-ty1kr]

Hmmm ... nuclear reactors built along side farms. Well that should make plausible deniability easy... everyone gets a dose, regardless of geographic proximity

[@rogermorey]

yep, the graphite rods rapidly cracked, absorbed sodium and failed. Years of decommissioning for a few months of just a bit electricity. Total rip off for rate payers of Nebraska.

[@whatisnuclear]

The leaking graphite cans were analyzed and Atomics International had a plan to fix them by outfitting them with snorkels. But the utility declined their option to buy the reactor. The Federal Atomic Energy Commission paid for the reactor and decommissioning through the Power Demonstration Reactor Program, not ratepayers.

[@rogermorey]

@@whatisnuclear so for Hallam it was the taxpayers? Fairly certain Scanna was the ratepayers. Wonder what was different.

[@lilblackduc7312]

@rogermorey ..That's "sour grapes", based on disinformation.👎🏿👎🏿

[@rogermorey]

@@lilblackduc7312 Sour Grapes is Woulda Coulda Shouda done due dilligence in understanding the chemistry and physics of the radiated rods in sodium. If they went from crack to break, they may have blocked reinsertion, rapidly leading to catastrophic meltdown. It was bad engineering in the first place.

[@SteveWright-oy8ky]

@@whatisnuclear Just all the U.S. Taxpayers covered the cost !