The Plastic Atomic Future - Bad Ideas From Smart People

In 1994 or so,  I was at the General Electric Aircraft Engine plant in Ohio with a collection of British aerospace companies. Tucked away in a corner of the factory was a makeshift museum. One of the models on display was very different. It was a mock-up for the nuclear powered aircraft project. Two years later, at the Idaho Falls nuclear test range,  I stood next to a test rig holding the remains of the airborne reactor created for that same project and later I stood outside the hanger built for the super plane.

The nuclear powered aircraft project and killed  by the Eisenhower administration.  Flying nuclear reactors were only a good idea as long as they never flew over the continental U.S. or crashed.

What other nuclear  marvels did we consider building and what other scary ideas did we actually bring to reality.

There are, of course, nuclear powered submarines and aircraft carriers. One of the questionable ideas was the Ford Nucleon,  an atomic powered car. Another atomic powered form of transportation with long history of crashing.

Then there was project X-12.  In 1954 a plan was developed by Professor Lyle B. Borst and his colleagues at the University of Utah to build a nuclear-powered train. Babcock and Wilcox, one of the country’s premier nuclear reactor designer/builders, helped to develop the concept in secret. Project X-12 would have created a steam engine using a small nuclear reactor. Rather than the typical control rods, a more efficient liquid uranium oxide dissolved in sulphuric acid mix would be used. Fortunately this project also never got beyond prototype stage.

The winner of the bad use of non-weaponized nuclear energy are the atomic powered lighthouses built by the USSR during that country's heyday.  Although the application makes some sense,  a string of self sustaining, autonomous lighthouses on isolated Arctic shipping lanes, the problem was the USSR.

When the Soviet Union collapsed many of its far-flung assets were looted; jets, vehicles, art and small nuclear reactors in unguarded lighthouses. The looters knew that the reactors contained valuable metals but were ignorant or didn't believe there was actual danger. The damaged and breached reactors contaminated everything in the immediate vicinity.  To this day these sites are still hazardous.