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KODAK ACKNOWLEDGES OPERATING SECRET NUKE REACTOR IN NEW YORK FOR 30 YEARS
PanARMENIAN.Net
May 16, 2012 - 19:48 AMT
PanARMENIAN.Net - Kodak the company that gave us the Instamatic
cameras has acknowledged that for 30 years it operated a small nuclear
reactor in a basement on its corporate campus in Rochester, New York,
unbeknown to almost everyone save a few scientists and engineers,
Belfast Telegraph reported.
The firm, which began operating the device, called a californium
neutron flux multiplier (CFX), in 1974, insists there was nothing
unsafe about it.
None the less, it came pre-loaded with nearly 1.5kg of uranium
enriched up to a level of 93.4 per cent, which is just about right
for an atomic warhead.
The size of a fridge, the device was kept in a basement behind
2ft-thick concrete walls and was operated remotely. While Kodak
apparently did not deliberately seek to keep its existence a secret
- it claims it was mentioned at least twice in published company
research - it did not exactly advertise it either. Seemingly neither
the authorities in Rochester nor state-wide knew it was there.
"It's such an odd situation because private companies just don't
have this material," Miles Pomper, a senior research associate at
the Centre for Nonproliferation Studies in Washington DC, told the
Democrat and Chronicle, the Rochester newspaper which carried the
first report about the reactor.
The company finally "decommissioned" its in-house reactor under
federal government supervision in 2007 and the uranium was sent to
a safe site in California. For more than three decades it had been
used by a tiny cadre of staff to help test chemicals for impurities
and perform neutron radiography, a form of imaging.
Experts say that Kodak, which filed for bankruptcy this year, had
one of only two CFX reactors ever made. The other belonged to the U.S.
Department of Energy. However, the government has issued special
licences to a small number of private companies over the decades to
operate other kinds of mini-reactors, including Dow Chemical and GE.
Kodak insists it did away with its unusual piece of kit because it
had found cheaper and easier ways to perform the same tasks. It had
nothing to do with security concerns, the company insisted.
PanARMENIAN.Net
May 16, 2012 - 19:48 AMT
PanARMENIAN.Net - Kodak the company that gave us the Instamatic
cameras has acknowledged that for 30 years it operated a small nuclear
reactor in a basement on its corporate campus in Rochester, New York,
unbeknown to almost everyone save a few scientists and engineers,
Belfast Telegraph reported.
The firm, which began operating the device, called a californium
neutron flux multiplier (CFX), in 1974, insists there was nothing
unsafe about it.
None the less, it came pre-loaded with nearly 1.5kg of uranium
enriched up to a level of 93.4 per cent, which is just about right
for an atomic warhead.
The size of a fridge, the device was kept in a basement behind
2ft-thick concrete walls and was operated remotely. While Kodak
apparently did not deliberately seek to keep its existence a secret
- it claims it was mentioned at least twice in published company
research - it did not exactly advertise it either. Seemingly neither
the authorities in Rochester nor state-wide knew it was there.
"It's such an odd situation because private companies just don't
have this material," Miles Pomper, a senior research associate at
the Centre for Nonproliferation Studies in Washington DC, told the
Democrat and Chronicle, the Rochester newspaper which carried the
first report about the reactor.
The company finally "decommissioned" its in-house reactor under
federal government supervision in 2007 and the uranium was sent to
a safe site in California. For more than three decades it had been
used by a tiny cadre of staff to help test chemicals for impurities
and perform neutron radiography, a form of imaging.
Experts say that Kodak, which filed for bankruptcy this year, had
one of only two CFX reactors ever made. The other belonged to the U.S.
Department of Energy. However, the government has issued special
licences to a small number of private companies over the decades to
operate other kinds of mini-reactors, including Dow Chemical and GE.
Kodak insists it did away with its unusual piece of kit because it
had found cheaper and easier ways to perform the same tasks. It had
nothing to do with security concerns, the company insisted.