As the nation laid to rest former President Jimmy Carter, they remembered him for a slew of his accomplishments in office but one nuclear moment from before his presidency is sure to shock you… no pun intended.
Back when Carter was an officer in the U.S. Naval Academy, he was part of the development of the nation’s first nuclear-powered submarines, per The New York Times. Prior to that, he got an up-close glimpse of a nuclear energy source up in Canada. As the story goes, back in 1952, there was a mechanical failure on the core of the NRX reactor held at the Chalk River Laboratories on the Ottawa River.
The device was said to have a capacity of 30 megawatts. However, the report says on Dec. 12, 1952, workers shut down the reactor to inspect its cooling system when a mistake by one worker and a supervisor led to confusion as to whether the control rods were correctly placed to safety. No...they were not placed correctly.
That plus more miscommunication, as well as some button-mashing that accelerated the issue, led the reactor to power surge up to 100 megawatts, per The Times. Though the power came back down completely, the heat of the surge melted a substantial amount of the machine and caused an explosion that led the entire work area to be filled with dangerous, radioactive material and water - one million gallons, to be specific.
That’s when then-28-year-old Carter led 12 other Navy soldiers in putting together a system to funnel cool river water to the reactor, per The Times. He also joined 150 members of the U.S. military to help clean up the site. One of the worst accidents in Canada’s history was defused by Carter’s leadership.
Carter lived to be 100 years old before being laid to rest Thursday after battling illness in hospice care since 2023.