It sounds like one of those urban legends or perhaps a tall tale that college upperclassmen utter to gullible freshmen, but it is indeed true: Columbia University has its own nuclear reactor. Though it has never been used and is now permanently mothballed, the reactor is located in the Engineering Terrace building on the university’s Morningside Heights campus.
To 21st century minds, this might seem absurd, but schools acquiring their own nuclear reactors is not as unbelievable considering time and context. During the early 1960s a number of universities and research facilities wanted reactors for various educational and research purposes. Moreover, these were not the kind of nuclear reactors used in power plants, rather 250 KW reactors which were a fraction of the size.
It was a time when nuclear technology was being carefully exploited to see just what benefits there were to be had in everything from energy efficiency to medical research. With the Cold War brewing, nuclear science was an important discipline for both the United States and Soviet Union.
In 1960, Columbia University was awarded a quarter-of-a-million-dollar grant from the National Science Foundation to install a nuclear reactor. The university was already a pioneer of nuclear technology. In 1939, Columbia scientists proved nuclear fission was possible with uranium and could make an explosion. Furthermore, initial research for The Manhattan Project which led to the creation of the atomic bomb was done inside a particle accelerator on campus.
As for the nuclear reactor, when it was finished in 1967 it cost one million dollars. It was all for naught, it was never even tested or loaded with any kind of radioactive material.
The year 1968 was a turbulent time for Columbia University. The campus saw numerous demonstrations against the school for their involvement with the U.S. Government in the Vietnam War. So with feelings and emotions already running high, the increasing fear and anxiety about nuclear power and students already petitioning against the reactor, the university delayed their application from the Atomic Energy Commission for a operating license.
They reapplied in 1969 and were issued one in 1971. But in 1972, protestors filed a petition in the U.S. Court of Appeals to review the decision which had been denied. It went to the Supreme Court which upheld Columbia’s right to the license. However by this time it was 1974 and the university was reevaluating its entire Nuclear Science and Engineering program, so the project was put on indefinite hold due partly because of budget and management concerns. Then in 1979 just months after the Three Mile Island nuclear reactor accident in Pennsylvania, the university permanently withdrew their request for a license. Then university president Dr. William J. McGill even declared the reactor would never be activated while he was in charge. That pretty much sealed the reactor's fate.
Today, it still sits where it was built, looking like not much more than a giant three tiered concrete block. Some of the original remnants are still there like the ceiling crane and and a few gauges here and there. As for the inside, some of the parts are still intact, but unusable due to rust and time. Just like any other piece of manufactured equipment or appliance, the reactor has a nameplate reading, “TRIGA MARK II.”
Fuel rods would have been inserted from the floor above, but it has been sealed up. However, one can still walk over the steel grating where the rods would have sat in an open pool of water; common for this kind of reactor, because water is excellent at keeping the core cool and safe.
As for why the reactor is still here? Practicality or lack of it. Dr. Michael Mauel, Professor of Applied Physics at Columbia University says, “Removing the epoxy-lined cement walls is just too much work and expense. So we work around it.”
So with space at a premium like everywhere else in New York City, Mauel and his students are using the abandoned reactor hall for physics experiments and storage. Surrounding the reactor are a hodgepodge of scientific equipment too specialized and unique to throw out, so parts wait patiently for their next use. Somewhat fittingly on top of the actual reactor is an experimental plasma vessel for creating space weather experiments and advancing how strong magnetic force fields confine ionized matter heated to 100 million degrees for fusion energy. Professor Mauel says, “That’s really the next step for nuclear power.” These particular experiments allow students and scientists to create and control gases heated to temperatures higher than found in the sun and better understand the environment found in outer-space.
As the reactor sits idle, first because of politics, now changing research needs, it is nothing more than a bench used for experiments for the next era of research. As George Hamawy, retired radiation safety officer at Columbia University wrote in the Radiation Safety Journal in May 2002, “It serves as a reminder of another era when scientific dreams were placed on hold because of the social and financial realities of the time.”