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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.
Werner Maschek, Andrei Rineiski, Michael Flad, Koji Morita, Pierre Coste
Nuclear Technology | Volume 141 | Number 2 | February 2003 | Pages 186-201
Technical Paper | Accelerators | doi.org/10.13182/NT03-A3360
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
So-called dedicated fuels will be utilized to obtain maximum transmutation and incineration rates of minor actinides (MAs) in accelerator-driven systems (ADSs). These fuels are characterized by a high-MA content and the lack of the classical fertile materials such as 238U or 232Th. Dedicated fuels still have to be developed; however, programs are under way for their fabrication, irradiation, and testing. In Europe, mainly the oxide route is investigated and developed. A dedicated core will contain multiple "critical" fuel masses, resulting in a certain recriticality potential under core degradation conditions. The use of dedicated fuels may also lead to strong deterioration of the safety parameters of the reactor core, such as, e.g., the void worth, Doppler or the kinetics quantities, neutron generation time, and eff. Critical reactors with this kind of fuel might encounter safety problems, especially under severe accident conditions. For ADSs, it is assumed that because of the subcriticality of the system, the poor safety features of such fuels could be coped with. Analyses reveal some safety problems for ADSs with dedicated fuels. Additional inherent and passive safety measures are proposed to achieve the required safety level. A safety strategy along the lines of a defense approach is presented where these measures can be integrated. The ultimate goal of these measures is to eliminate any mechanistic severe accident scenario and the potential for energetics.