Skip to main content

No Need to Fret About UT-Austin's TRIGA Reactor, No Matter What Drudge Might Point To

A Mark II TRIGA reactor at KSU.
A lot of folks around the country are dealing with jangled nerves after the campuses at UT-Austin and North Dakota State were evacuated in the wake of vague threats of terrorist attack. Thankfully, the threats appear to have been a hoax.

When news breaks, the number one guy on the Web who wants to influence where the clicks go is Matt Drudge, chief cook and bottle washer at the Drudge Report. If you pop over to Drudge right now, you'll see all the screaming headlines, with just one in particular catching my eye:

Nuke Reactor Evacuated in Austin...

The first thing to keep in mind is that the reactor in Austin is on campus at UT, and it's a TRIGA Mark II Research Reactor that was constructed by General Atomics. The reactor was designed to be, in the words of Frederic de Hoffman, "safe even in the hands of a young student." The TRIGA Mark II generally operates between just 0.1 to 16 MWTh. By way of comparison, the average commercial nuclear reactor clocks in at about 1,000 MWe.

Some of our readers might recall how ABC News attempted to generate a cloud of FUD over the potential for terrorists to penetrate the security around research reactors, reasoning that the nuclear fuel could be removed to construct a dirty bomb, even though there isn't anywhere near enough fuel in the reactor to make that happen.

In other words, there's nothing to see here, though I'm sure Mr. Drudge's advertisers are happy that you stopped by.

UPDATE: I just got a short note from NEI Nuclear Notes reader, Art Wharton:

UT had its first TRIGA Mark I reactor in the basement of Taylor Hall(commissioned in the 60's), on main campus. It was decommissioned when the TRIGA Mark II reactor was built up on the JJ Pickle Research Campus ~ 10-15 miles north of main campus. Critical in 1992, it is the newest of all University reactors in the USA, including digital controls and a nice flat-screen display of the rod positions, proudly displaying a Longhorn logo background.

Hook 'em horns.

Comments

jim said…
Again, the nuclear community sorely needs a joint-venture "911" media correction FUD-busting response team to jump and set such nuclear-related reports by Drudge or ABC or whoever straight. Greenpeace seems to have no problem picking up the Bat-phone to major networks to feature on beached polar bears, and the far more cerebral and professional nuclear community should be no less adept at PR and biased media damage control.

James Greenidge
Queens NY

Popular posts from this blog

Fluor Invests in NuScale

You know, it’s kind of sad that no one is willing to invest in nuclear energy anymore. Wait, what? NuScale Power celebrated the news of its company-saving $30 million investment from Fluor Corp. Thursday morning with a press conference in Washington, D.C. Fluor is a design, engineering and construction company involved with some 20 plants in the 70s and 80s, but it has not held interest in a nuclear energy company until now. Fluor, which has deep roots in the nuclear industry, is betting big on small-scale nuclear energy with its NuScale investment. "It's become a serious contender in the last decade or so," John Hopkins, [Fluor’s group president in charge of new ventures], said. And that brings us to NuScale, which had run into some dark days – maybe not as dark as, say, Solyndra, but dire enough : Earlier this year, the Securities Exchange Commission filed an action against NuScale's lead investor, The Michael Kenwood Group. The firm "misap

An Ohio School Board Is Working to Save Nuclear Plants

Ohio faces a decision soon about its two nuclear reactors, Davis-Besse and Perry, and on Wednesday, neighbors of one of those plants issued a cry for help. The reactors’ problem is that the price of electricity they sell on the high-voltage grid is depressed, mostly because of a surplus of natural gas. And the reactors do not get any revenue for the other benefits they provide. Some of those benefits are regional – emissions-free electricity, reliability with months of fuel on-site, and diversity in case of problems or price spikes with gas or coal, state and federal payroll taxes, and national economic stimulus as the plants buy fuel, supplies and services. Some of the benefits are highly localized, including employment and property taxes. One locality is already feeling the pinch: Oak Harbor on Lake Erie, home to Davis-Besse. The town has a middle school in a building that is 106 years old, and an elementary school from the 1950s, and on May 2 was scheduled to have a referendu

Wednesday Update

From NEI’s Japan micro-site: NRC, Industry Concur on Many Post-Fukushima Actions Industry/Regulatory/Political Issues • There is a “great deal of alignment” between the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission and the industry on initial steps to take at America’s nuclear energy facilities in response to the nuclear accident in Japan, Charles Pardee, the chief operating officer of Exelon Generation Co., said at an agency briefing today. The briefing gave stakeholders an opportunity to discuss staff recommendations for near-term actions the agency may take at U.S. facilities. PowerPoint slides from the meeting are on the NRC website. • The International Atomic Energy Agency board has approved a plan that calls for inspectors to evaluate reactor safety at nuclear energy facilities every three years. Governments may opt out of having their country’s facilities inspected. Also approved were plans to maintain a rapid response team of experts ready to assist facility operators recoverin