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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.
Yasushi Okano, Akira Yamaguchi
Nuclear Technology | Volume 144 | Number 3 | December 2003 | Pages 388-399
Technical Paper | Miscellaneous | doi.org/10.13182/NT03-A3453
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Sodium fire safety analysis requires fundamental combustion properties, e.g., heat of combustion, flame temperature, and composition. We developed the GENESYS code for a theoretical investigation of sodium combustion flame.Our principle conclusions on sodium combustion under atmospheric air conditions are (a) the maximum theoretical flame temperature is 1950 K, and it is not affected by the presence of moisture; the uppermost limiting factor is the chemical instability of the condensed sodium-oxide products under high temperature; (b) the main combustion product is liquid Na2O in dry air condition and liquid Na2O with gaseous NaOH in moist air; and (c) the chemical equilibrium prediction of the residual gaseous reactants in the flame is indispensable for sodium combustion modeling.