About the Reactor | Hacker News Reader

About the Reactor

reactor.reed.edu

38 pointsHooke20 comments

I went to Reed as an undergraduate in the recent past and spent 2 academic years (freshman and sophomore) attending the training courses to earn both a Reactor Operator and Senior Reactor Operator licenses. Each level took about one and a half semester and consisted of weekly lectures and labs. The remaining half semester is spent on prepping for the federal licensing exam. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission fly out 2 examiners at the end of each academic year to administer these exams (around 3 hours of written exam and 2 hours of “walk through” exam where they walk with you around the facility and ask you anything and everything about the reactor and its supporting systems). As an undergraduate, your license automatically expires when you graduate unless you become an associate director of the reactor (I personally know one person who was good enough to qualify for this exception). It was a unique experience and I learned a lot about nuclear physics in the process.

That’s super cool. Did you know about this program in high school when you applied? I wish I knew more about unique college programs like this before I chose

I was aware of the reactor when I applied but it wasn’t the primary motivating factor. I’m sure many schools have unique programs like this and it’s just a matter of taking advantage of them wherever you attend.

Do they have open days when you can see cherenkov light on ignition?

Do they permit non-nationals into the facility?

I have a sad story about an Iranian civil engineer who was super embarrassingly conducted away from the conference at a US university when she arrived because her nationality (not her residency: she lived in Australia) forbade her being within 25km of the campus and the conference organisers were meant to have known. All due to nuclear engineering facilities and ITAR restrictions.

I don't think they run public tours, but they do have tours for local schools and community organizations I believe. It's pretty easy to get a tour as a Reed student, and yes, you can see the Cherenkov radiation.

Source: I'm a Reed alum. One of my regrets is not getting a job working the reactor while I was there.

Edit: Re: Foreign nationals - I don't see why not? I don't recall them asking anyone, and honestly, ejecting someone because of their nationality would be something that Reedies would absolutely protest. The reactor is on campus, and foreign nationals are definitely welcome on campus.

It's a pretty small reactor that is mostly useful for chemistry and physics experiments, and is staffed mostly by undergrads - I don't think it's a huge national security concern.

Here's the tour request form: https://reactor.reed.edu/tour-request.php

The foreign nationals thing may be the ITAR regs from my story. Your average foreign person? not a big deal. Chinese, Syrian, Iranian, (North) Korean, Now Russian: very big deal. It is a very blunt instrument applied because they haven't got a better one.

While it appears they do not, there are definitely some other TRIGA reactors that seem to have very permissive tour policies, e.g., Penn State's (https://www.rsec.psu.edu/tour-request-form.aspx)

It's definitely with a visit if you can, a TRIGA pulse (where they pneumatically eject a control rod and then the reactor temporarily increases very dramatically in power causing a lot of Cherenkov radiation) is very cool to see. Usually they turn the lights off, so you stand in semi-darkness waiting until you hear a loud "BANG!" and then the room is illuminated by the brilliant blue glow. Great fun and perfectly safe!

Amazing! Thanks

> Great fun and perfectly safe!

Sounds like a Homer Simpson quote...

The Simpsons were slander and libel.

They certainly used to have open days or field trips for schools/similar. I went on one. The Cherenkov was beautiful. They let at least one non US LPR in at that time.

Non-proliferation is a fine idea, but is there anything you could learn touring there that's not all over the internet and text books already? TRIGA was designed in 1956.

Probably don't want people around or identifying the next generation of American nuclear engineers either

UC Berkeley used to have a research reactor that was located where the computer science department is now. My friend said that they used to joke about having a romantic date lit by cerenkov radiation.

They cleaned the area up and now there is a sign that says Berkeley is a nuclear free zone.

Just just down the street is where plutonium was first synthesized and purified, which was another mess to clean up.

Tom Scott did a video on this, "The Nuclear Reactor Run By Students":

* https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pLBcp3nJlFQ

He was very lucky to get to go out on the platform at Arecibo before it collapsed to the crater below. You can find actual video (not in his) of the cables failing.

Oregon State University also has a TRIGA reactor, in Corvallis, Oregon. Looks like it is rated for 4x power of Reed's.

https://radiationcenter.oregonstate.edu/oregon-state-triga-r...

TRIGA was developed by Freeman Dyson as one of the first inherently safe reactors, proof against meltdown in case of e.g. failure of pumps.

TRIGA reactors will remain useful long after all use of nukes to generate electrical power has faded away.

UMass Lowell has a 1 MW UMLRR nuclear reactor: https://www.uml.edu/Research/Energy/research/nuclear-energy....

Reminds me of this little reactor in downtown Schenectady NY https://www.rpi.edu/dept/ne/public_html/RCF.html

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