Heat generated in the reactor was transported by liquid sodium through the reactor facility piping system. The Sodium Reactor Experiment used sodium as a coolant. In July 1958, Atomics International produced a film describing the construction of the Sodium Reactor Experiment facility. Murrow’s television program See It Now featured the event as a special news report, broadcast on November 24, 1957. The Los Angeles Times published a front-page story when Moorpark was supplied with nuclear-generated electricity. Sodium Reactor Experiment – Refueling head Controlled nuclear fission began on April 25, 1957. A local utility company, Southern California Edison, installed and operated a 6.5 MW electric-power generating system. Design of the Sodium Reactor Experiment began in June 1954, and construction was underway in April 1955. The Sodium Reactor Experiment, designed by Atomics International, was one of the chosen reactors. In 1954, the United States Atomic Energy Commission announced plans to test the basic nuclear reactor designs then under study by building five experimental reactors in five years. The Rocketdyne division conducted liquid-propellant rocket engine testing and development at the site, while the Atomics International division focused on the development of commercial nuclear reactors and compact nuclear reactors for outer-space applications. When the Sodium Reactor Experiment was active, the Santa Susana Field Laboratory was operated by two business divisions of the North American Aviation company. The Sodium Reactor Experiment facility was situated in a northwestern administrative section (known as Area IV) on a mountaintop known as The Hill of the Santa Susana Field Laboratory, about 30 miles (48 km) northwest of downtown Los Angeles in Simi Valley. In August 2009, 50 years after the occurrence, the Department of Energy hosted a community workshop to discuss the 1959 incident. Members of the neighboring communities have expressed concerns about the possible impacts on their health and environment from the incident. Technical analyses of the 1959 incident have produced contrasting conclusions regarding the types and quantities of radioactive materials released. Removal of the deactivated reactor was completed in 1981. In February 1964, the Sodium Reactor Experiment was in operation for the last time. The reactor was repaired and restarted in September 1960. In July 1959, the reactor experienced a partial meltdown when 13 of the reactor's 43 fuel elements partially melted, and a controlled release of radioactive gas into the atmosphere occurred. On Jthe Sodium Reactor Experiment became the first nuclear reactor in California to produce electrical power for a commercial power grid by powering the nearby city of Moorpark. Today, residents of those towns are reluctant to return, even as the Japanese government works to assure the towns' safety.The Sodium Reactor Experiment was a pioneering nuclear power plant built by Atomics International at the Santa Susana Field Laboratory near Simi Valley, California. Today, areas like Tomioka are still ghost towns where few residents have returned. Huge explosions at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant sent plumes of radioactive debris into the atmosphere, which was carried to towns surrounding the plant The government evacuated more than 150,000 people. Wind then carried that debris, contaminating all the towns in its path. In March 2011, meltdowns at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant triggered huge explosions that sent plumes of radioactive debris into the atmosphere. "People can come back into some of the areas because they have been decontaminated. "At the moment, there are huge areas that are still ghost towns," correspondent Lesley Stahl told 60 Minutes Overtime at the time. In 2018, more than seven years after an earthquake and tsunami caused a meltdown at a nuclear power plant in Japan's Fukushima prefecture, 60 Minutes traveled to Japan, where surrounding towns were still frozen in time. Items hung untouched on clotheslines, bleached by the sun.
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