Reed College Nuclear Reactor

Reed College has its own nuclear reactor. Does that worry you? It’s operated by students, the only one in the world solely operated by undergrads. Worried yet? They recruit operators from the freshman class! And some of them are not physicists, in fact, one I talked to was a religion major! Running a reactor? What’s more, the reactor was designed by Edward Teller! No worries about that? It’s a miracle that it hasn’t been NIMBY-​bombed out of existence.
Reed had an alumnus who thought the school needed a reactor in the 1960’s, so he gave them one. It’s been quietly making neutrons, alphas, betas and gammas since.
Even though anyone who studies basic science knows how they work, seeing a reactor in person shows how ridiculously simple they are. And a small research reactor is unimaginably simple. The reactor is a cylindrical frame with holes to hold fuel elements, experiments and control rods about the size of a washing machine tub. It sits at the bottom of a swimming pool filled with water. The pool has it’s own ironic life saving ring, do not fall into the pool! It’s in a room that looks like the filter room of a water plant. Behind a glass window is the control room, the size of a good sized bathroom. There is only one adjustment: control rods up; control rods down.
Chemistry runs our world. But that is all electron chemistry. That includes chemical reactions, metabolism in our body, cooking, almost all of our energy sources, just about everything. The sun and stars run on nuclear chemistry. Nuclear power systems run on nuclear chemistry. Radiation therapy. Nuclear chemistry is what the alchemists were trying to do — transmutation. So if you want to study nuclear chemistry, get the right tool, you need a larger sized particle accelerator, capable of proton or small molecule beams, or a reactor.
You can do some very cool experiments with nuclear chemistry. One experiment was devised by high schoolers: collecting fingernail clippings from their parents, they were able to determine which clippings came from the ring finger by minute traces of gold from their wedding bands. That’s witchcraft for sure, I mean science!
Now that you are really worried, you shouldn’t. The students running it study nuclear chemistry and safety and are tested by the government to become certified reactor operators. Reed has trained the most women reactor operators in the world. There is a whole series of safety protocols and monitors to test for radioactive contamination on visitors and in the rooms in the reactor building. It’s impossible for a reactor of this size and design to «melt down». The government has placed whole new layers of controls on research reactors. The building is secure, and as a result, it’s open to the general public only about once a year. Though I know plenty of Reedies, I found out about the reactor and the tour through a Unilocal event! No photography is allowed.
But if you do visit, one of the things they like to do is to turn out the lights and let you look into the core at full power. Cherenkov radiation produces a blue glow around the core in the water. The review photo shows it. Wizards at work.
The reactor is available for outside experiments and special arrangements can be made for school groups to learn about the reactor and nuclear chemistry. Science teachers take notes on that! If you need your radiation detectors calibrated, it can be done at the facility $ 50 — cheap! And you never know when somebody might discover something super awesome here!
There are about 250 research reactors in the world. 27 at US colleges. One at OSU and one is at Reed. And they must be doing something right, only MIT and Caltech produce more undergrads who go on to get physical science PhD’s than Reed. The power of the atom, harnessed by smart Reed students!