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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.
Heemoon Kim, Kwangheon Park, Bong Goo Kim, Yong Sun Choo, Keon Sik Kim, Kun Woo Song, Kwon Pyo Hong, Young Hwan Kang, Kwangil Ho
Nuclear Technology | Volume 147 | Number 1 | July 2004 | Pages 149-156
Technical Paper | Thoria-Urania NERI | doi.org/10.13182/NT04-A3521
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
Postirradiation annealing tests were performed to obtain the 133Xe diffusion coefficients in uranium dioxide (UO2) and mixed thorium-uranium dioxide [(Th-U)O2] fuels. Specimens were a single-grained UO2, a polycrystalline UO2, and a polycrystalline (Th-U)O2. The (Th-U)O2 specimen was a mixture of 35% ThO2 and 65% UO2. Each 300-mg specimen was irradiated to a burnup of 0.1 MWd/t U. Postirradiation annealing tests were performed at 1400, 1500, and 1600°C, continuously. The xenon diffusion coefficients for the nearly stoichiometric single-grained UO2 agree well with the data of others. The xenon diffusion coefficients in the polycrystalline (Th-U)O2 are approximately one order lower than those in the polycrystalline UO2. The xenon diffusion coefficient in the (Th-U)O2 increases with the increasing oxygen potential of the ambient gas.