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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.
Te-Chuan Wang, Shih-Jen Wang, Jyh-Tong Teng
Nuclear Technology | Volume 152 | Number 3 | December 2005 | Pages 253-265
Technical Paper | Fission Reactors | doi.org/10.13182/NT05-A3674
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
The Chinshan nuclear power plant (NPP) is a Mark-I boiling water reactor (BWR) NPP located in northern Taiwan. The Chinshan NPP severe accident management guidelines (SAMGs) were developed based on the BWR Owners Group Emergency Procedure Guidelines/Severe Accident Guidelines and were developed at the end of 2003. The MAAP4 code has been used as a tool to validate the SAMG strategies. The development process and characteristics of the Chinshan SAMGs are described. The T5UtXC sequence, the highest core damage frequency in the probabilistic risk assessment insight of the Chinshan NPP, is cited as a reference case for SAMG validation. Not all safety injection systems are operated in the T5UtXC sequence. The severe accident progression is simulated, and the entry condition of the SAMGs is described. Then, the T5UtXC sequence is simulated with reactor pressure vessel (RPV) depressurization. Mitigation actions based on the Chinshan NPP SAMGs are then applied to demonstrate the effectiveness of the SAMGs. Sensitivity studies on RPV depressurization with the reactor water level and minimum RPV injection flow rate are also investigated in this study. Based on MAAP4 calculation and the default values of the parameters calculating the severe accident phenomena, the result shows that RPV depressurization before the reactor water level reaches one-fourth of the core water level can prevent the core from damage in the T5UtXC sequence. The flow rate of two control rod drive pumps is enough to maintain the reactor water level above the top of active fuel and cool down the core in the T5UtXC sequence without operator action.
