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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.
W. M. Stacey, V. L. Beavers, W. A. Casino, J. R. Cheatham, Z. W. Friis, R. D. Green, W. R. Hamilton, K. W. Haufler, J. D. Hutchinson, W. J. Lackey, R. A. Lorio, J. W. Maddox, J. Mandrekas, A. A. Manzoor, C. A. Noelke, C. de Oliveira, M. Park, D. W. Tedder, M. R. Terry, E. A. Hoffman
Nuclear Technology | Volume 150 | Number 2 | May 2005 | Pages 162-188
Technical Paper | Radioactive Waste Management and Disposal | doi.org/10.13182/NT05-A3614
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
A design is presented for a subcritical, He-cooled fast reactor, driven by a tokamak D-T fusion neutron source, for the transmutation of spent nuclear fuel (SNF). The reactor is fueled with coated transuranic (TRU) particles and is intended for the deep-burn (>90%) transmutation of the TRUs in SNF without reprocessing of the coated fuel particles. The reactor design is based on the materials, fuel, and separations technologies under near-term development in the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Nuclear Energy Program and on the plasma physics and fusion technologies under near-term development in the DOE Fusion Energy Sciences Program, with the objective of intermediate-term (~2040) deployment. The physical and performance characteristics and research and development requirements of such a reactor are described.
