Idaho State University Celebrates 50 Years Running Nuclear Reactor

The Aerojet General Nucleonics Reactor, known as the AGN - 201, located at Idaho State University is now in its 50th year of operation.

Adam Mallicoat, Reactor Supervisor, says that it was designed to be operated by young people, specifically for high school students.

"You would go and you would train on the reactor and learn how to operate while you were still in high school. You would graduate and you would go out and start working at a power plant, or a national lab," Mallicoat said.

The company that originally designed the reactor, Aerojet General Nucleonics, is out of business, and not producing any replacement parts. If a part breaks it can be upgraded, or rebuilt by a machinist.

The AGN 201 Nuclear Reactor is one of only five similar models left in the world.

Mallicoat says there are three in the United States, including the one at ISU, and two others located in Italy and South Korea.

Unlike the Advanced Test Reactor located at the Idaho National Laboratory which can produce 250 million watts of thermal power, enough to power a city, The AGN – 201 Reactor can only produce five watts of thermal power, enough to light one Christmas tree light bulb.

"It's basically a plastic reactor. It runs at such a low power that coolant isn't required," Mallicoat says.

Maxwell Daniels, Senior Reactor Operator, says other Nuclear Engineering programs are successful without a reactor, but having one at ISU has given students an extra edge. Being able to provide real-world experience has been valuable to those in the nuclear engineering program.

"Having the reactor here is probably the second biggest reason I could think for people to want to come to Idaho State University for Nuclear Engineering ... Also it would be a little tougher to be able to do these real world experiments," Daniels said.

Nuclear Reactors are typically renewed every 20 years, and the AGN - 201's license was renewed recently. If needed the reactor could run at full power 24/7 for 200 years without replacing the fuel. Daniels says that the reactor probably won't be going anywhere.

"I see this reactor sticking around for easily another hundred years. Continual upgrades by students, different faculty members performing different experiments. As time goes on and these new reactor designs that people are trying to submit and to build in the U.S. ... there is going to be a need for smaller reactors that you can perform research on," Daniels said.

Mallicoat says his favorite part of the job is educating people about the true functions of a nuclear reactor, and dispelling associated fears that people may have.