The New Power — The Story of the National Reactor Testing Station (1965 film)

By Nick Touran, Ph.D., P.E., 2023-07-04 , Reading time: 4 minutes

We’re excited to announce the recent digitization of this 1965 film summarizing the test reactors and other activities of the National Reactor Testing Station (NRTS), known today as the Idaho National Lab (INL). This is the second of four historical nuclear films in our latest batch of 4K digitizations from 16mm film at the National Archives.

1965 US Atomic Energy Commission video about the National Reactor Testing Station (NRTS), known today as the Idaho National Lab (INL). Digitized by us from the National Archives (NAID 88194)

Catalog description:

Thanks to Ross Koningstein for his help in making this happen.

Some stills from the film

Read more about NRTS/INL

Contents of the film by timestamp include:

  • 00:00 Intro and pioneering
  • 01:14 Intro to the NRTS
  • 03:18 Scarcity of fossil fuel
  • 04:38 Basics of nuclear reactors
  • 10:37 Different design options
  • 11:56 Central facilities and contractors
  • 11:56 Central facilities and contractors
  • 12:40 Destructive testing and BORAX-1
  • 13:50 BORAX-III and IV and V
  • 14:50 SPERT (I, II, III, IV)
  • 17:23 Influence on BWRs and PWRs
  • 18:05 Military reactor intro
  • 18:55 S1W Submarine prototype
  • 19:30 A1W Large Ship Reactor
  • 20:00 S5G Natural Circulation Reactor
  • 20:12 Gas Cooled Reactor Experiment (GCRE)
  • 20:53 Mobile Low Power Reactor (ML-1)
  • 21:51 Organic Moderated Reactor Experiment (OMRE)
  • 22:18 Materials Testing Reactor (MTR)
  • 25:46 Advanced Reactivity Measurement Facility (ARMF)
  • 26:25 Engineering Test Reactor (ETR)
  • 26:54 Advanced Test Reactor (ATR)
  • 29:03 Transient Reactor Test Facility (TREAT)
  • 30:25 Test Area North (TAN) and TSF shops
  • 31:40 Initial Engineering Test Facility (IET)
  • 32:06 Testing of SNAP-10 space reactor
  • 32:42 Safety Test Engineering Program (STEP)
  • 32:52 Loss of Fluid Test (LOFT)
  • 33:04 710 Research Reactor Experiment
  • 33:20 Experimental Beryllium Oxide Reactor (EBOR)
  • 33:44 Idaho Chemical Processing Plant (ICPP)
  • 35:28 Liquid waste disposal
  • 36:23 Waste Calcining Facility (WCF)
  • 37:42 Experimental Breeder Reactors (EBR-I and EBR-II)
  • 41:43 Thorium
  • 42:15 Summary of challenges
  • 42:46 Fuel Cycle Facility (FCF)
  • 43:50 Bridge to fusion

These are loaded into the youtube video as chapters for your convenience.

They apparently called it Prototype Prairie (2:05)

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