By: Rod Adams
Army Nuclear Power Plants
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Designation |
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| SM-1 | This stationary military reactor was the Army's prototype and training facility. It began operation in April 1957 at Fort Belvoir, VA, several months before the Shippingport reactor. SM-1 has the distinction of having been the first nuclear power plant to be hooked to an electrical grid. 2,000 kw. | ||
| SM-1A | Built at Fort Greely, Alaska. 2,000 kw plus 38,000 lb/hr steam heat. Initial criticality in 1962. | ||
| PM-2A | Assembled at Camp Century, Greenland. World's first portable plant. The first operating crew of one officer and 18 enlisted specialists built the plant in 77 days from the arrival of the first component. 2,000 kw plus 1 x 107 Btu/hr steam heat. Completed in February 1961. | ||
| PM-1 | Sundance, Wyoming. Owned by Air Force. Powered a radar station designed to detect missiles coming over the North Pole from the Soviet Union. 1250 kwe plus 7 x 106 Btu/hr heat. Completed in 1962. | ||
| PM-3A | McCurdo Sound, Antarctica. Owned by Navy. 1750 kwe plus 3 x 106 Btu/hr heat. Initial criticality March 1962. | ||
| MH-1A | Mounted on a modified Liberty ship named the Sturgis. Moored from 1968 to 1975 in the Panama Canal Zone. 10,000 kwe. First barge mounted nuclear plant to regularly supply power to a shore station. Also provided fresh water to the base. | ||
| SL-1 | Boiling water reactor at Idaho Reactor Testing Station. Site of the only fatal accident at a US nuclear power reactor on Jan 3 1961. Three operators died when one of them rapidly lifted a control rod by hand and caused a power excursion and steam explosion. Two of three operators on duty were Navy personnel. | ||
| ML-1 | First closed cycle gas turbine. Designed for 300 kw only achieved 140 kw. Operated for only a few hundred hours of testing. Shut down in 1963. | ||