NEI Nuclear Notes

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 co...