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Access anywhere, anytime: Nuclear power, Ice Camp, and Rickover’s enduring standard of excellence
Admiral William Houston
As U.S. Navy submarines surface through Arctic ice during Ice Camp 2026, they demonstrate more than operational proficiency in one of the harshest environments on Earth. They reaffirm a technological truth first proven in August 1958, when the USS Nautilus completed its submerged transit of the North Pole: nuclear power enables access anywhere, anytime.
The Arctic is unforgiving, with vast distances, extreme cold, shifting ice, and no logistical infrastructure. Conventional propulsion is constrained by fuel, air, and endurance. Nuclear propulsion removes those constraints. Only a nuclear-powered submarine can operate anywhere in the world’s oceans, including under the polar ice, undetected and at maximum capability for extended periods. Nuclear power provides sustained high speed and the endurance to reposition across the globe without refueling.
Y.-J. Huang, H. Paul Wang, S. H. Liu, M. C. Hsiao
Nuclear Technology | Volume 138 | Number 2 | May 2002 | Pages 206-210
Technical Note | Radioactive Waste Management and Disposal | doi.org/10.13182/NT02-A3288
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Spent low-level radioactive (LLRA) cation ion exchange resins (consisting of base copolymers of styrene and divinyl benzene and sulfonic acid) are difficult to treat effectively by conventional cement-solidification methods. Pyrolysis of the spent LLRA resin has been recognized to be very effective in reducing the volume and mass of the waste. Experimentally, we found by the thermogravimetric analysis (TGA) method that the activation energy for the pyrolysis of an LLRA resin was 319.2 kJ/mol. The reaction order and pre-exponential factor were 0.61 and 1.1 × 1020 s-1, respectively. Note that during the pyrolysis, ~50% of the SO42- species in the resin was decomposed to SO2 at 673 to 873 K. At high temperatures (>873 K), most of the aromatics of the resin were also thermally cracked.