Here's a fun and almost forgotten fact. In the early 1960s, the US government built a prototype nuclear reactor that was cooled with liquid metal sodium but had graphite moderators to slow the neutrons down. This reactor could start up with very low enriched uranium (as opposed to sodium cooled fast-neutron reactors which need quite high enrichments to start up) and make superheated steam at the exact same conditions as a coal plant.
Well the local utility just SW of Lincoln Nebraska needed the power one way or the other, and didn't know if the new type of reactor was going to work or not. So they decided to build an equivalent power coal plant on the other side of the turbo-generator building! The idea was that when the nuclear reactor was in an outage, the coal plant could spin the turbine. Two plants, one turbine-generator! Wild.
So anyway the nuclear plant did have a few troubles. The vendor, Atomics International, had them figured out and was planning to fix, but the utility declined it's option to purchase the plant in the end. Today, a grassy outline of a nuclear reactor can be seen right next to the still-operating coal plant down in Hallam, NE.
Honestly it was an awesome reactor concept and I want to see it brought back. I visited this site a few months ago and got a little tour. Very fun.
https://whatisnuclear.com/reactor_history.html#the-hallam-so...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hallam_Nuclear_Power_Facility
Google maps view of the outline: https://www.google.com/maps/place/Hallam,+NE+68368/@40.55864...
Well the local utility just SW of Lincoln Nebraska needed the power one way or the other, and didn't know if the new type of reactor was going to work or not. So they decided to build an equivalent power coal plant on the other side of the turbo-generator building! The idea was that when the nuclear reactor was in an outage, the coal plant could spin the turbine. Two plants, one turbine-generator! Wild.
So anyway the nuclear plant did have a few troubles. The vendor, Atomics International, had them figured out and was planning to fix, but the utility declined it's option to purchase the plant in the end. Today, a grassy outline of a nuclear reactor can be seen right next to the still-operating coal plant down in Hallam, NE.
Honestly it was an awesome reactor concept and I want to see it brought back. I visited this site a few months ago and got a little tour. Very fun.
https://whatisnuclear.com/reactor_history.html#the-hallam-so...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hallam_Nuclear_Power_Facility
Google maps view of the outline: https://www.google.com/maps/place/Hallam,+NE+68368/@40.55864...