Idaho Public Television to examine 'Idaho's Nuclear Navy'

Thu Nov 30th, 2023

POST REGISTER Nov 27, 2023 Updated Nov 27, 2023

Some lucky ticketholders will attend the premier of Idaho Public Television's "Idaho Experience: Idaho's Nuclear Navy" at 7 p.m. Thursday at the Colonial Theater, 450 A St. The in-person premier is being hosted by the Naval Nuclear Propulsion Program with support from the Idaho State Historic Preservation Office and the city of Idaho Falls, an Idaho Falls Arts Council event listing said. All tickets for the show have been claimed but those interested in attending can call the Colonial Theater box office at 208-522-0471 to be put on a waiting list. As of Monday morning there still were wheelchair positions available only to attendees using wheelchairs. The trailer for the retrospective, which will air at 6 p.m. Dec. 3 on Idaho Public Television, features comments from Congressman Mike Simpson and U.S. Sen. Mike Crapo, both of Idaho Falls. This year marks the Naval Reactors program's 75th anniversary — Aug. 4 marked the actual birthday — which launched as a joint Department of Navy and Department of Energy organization responsible for all aspects of the Navy’s nuclear propulsion. The history of Idaho's Nuclear Navy at the Department of Energy's desert site west of Idaho Falls dates to the program's inception. Construction on the nuclear propulsion plant prototype S1W at the Naval Reactors Facility began in 1950. The S1W served as the prototype for the first nuclear-powered submarine, the USS Nautilus (SSN 571), according to the Naval Nuclear Propulsion Program. The USS Nautilus first went to sea in 1955. The Naval Reactors Facility continues to provide a leading research role for the nuclear Navy. Over decades the Navy has safely shipped 919 spent fuel containers to the facility where the fuel is examined to ensure it has operated as planned, Adm. James F. "Frank" Caldwell, director of the Naval Nuclear Propulsion Program, said in a video from an Aug. 22 tour of the site. That testing has "set the foundation for longer reactor core lifetimes," Caldwell added, noting that Columbia-class submarines will operate for 40 years without refueling. The Columbia-class nuclear-powered ballistic missile submarines are the largest and most complex submarines in the Navy's history, according to a U.S. Government Accountability Office report. The first Columbia-class boat is expected to be delivered in October 2027, an Aug. 16 report to Congress from the Congressional Research Service said. While eastern Idaho, hundreds of miles from the nearest Navy home port, may seem like an unlikely spot for a naval facility, the work done at the Naval Reactors Facility site in testing technology and training nuclear operators has had a "profound and enduring" impact on the Navy, Caldwell said. But first it had to overcome much uncertainty. A January 1959 article in "The Atlantic" explained that because only so many unknowns could be solved solely in theory "prior to the operation of a complete atomic power system, it was decided early that a full-scale land-based model should be built at the National Reactor Testing station in Idaho." The concept pushed by Adm. Hyman G. Rickover — a nuclear submarine that didn't require air for combustion of fuel and could stay submerged for long periods — sounded "(to) many in high places" like "a trip to the moon," The Atlantic reported. It was quite a gamble. As The Atlantic reported, "in late 1952, there remained many unanswered questions, and there was not always assurance that satisfactory solutions would ever be found." Even Rickover said at the time, “If the Nautilus makes two knots on nuclear propulsion she will be a success.” But Rickover's gamble paid off beyond his wildest expectations. "Over the last 75 years, Naval Reactors has operated 273 reactors plants, taken 562 reactor cores critical including 33 different designs, and steamed more than 171 million miles with over 7,500 reactor years of safe operations," a Naval Sea Systems Command news release said. Three prototypes built at the Naval Reactors Facility, including S1W, A1W, and S5G, operated between 1953 to 1995, according to information provided for Thursday's premier. The prototypes were used "both to test new naval nuclear propulsion plant technology and to train nearly 40,000 Navy Sailors, officers and civilian nuclear operators" at the facility. Today, nearly three-quarters of a century since construction on the S1W prototype began, the DOE's Office of Environmental Management is leading crews at the Naval Reactors Facility in the process of decommissioning and demolishing the prototype, according to Jill Hruby, administrator of the National Nuclear Security Administration.