Nevada's Historic BREN Atomic Test Tower Demolished

[Image and YouTube video from the NNSA. Thanks to James Stover (tweeting at @JamesStoverAPR) for the story!]

Yesterday, in the Nevada desert, demolition crews from New York and Maryland felled a legendary piece of America's atomic history.

At 1,527 feet tall, the former Nevada Test Site's BREN tower was the "tallest free-standing structure west of the Mississippi River," and also the "tallest structure of its kind ever demolished," according to the National Nuclear Safety Administration. Originally built in 1962 in Yucca Flats, from fifty-one 30-foot sections of steel and two and a half miles of steel cable, the tower was moved to its latest location in Jackass Flats in 1966 after the Nuclear Test Ban Treaty banned open-air nuclear testing.

From CNN: The tower stood taller than the Empire State Building (1,454 feet) and the Eiffel Tower (1,063 feet). It was also taller than the iconic Stratosphere (1,148 feet) on the Las Vegas strip...[T]he BREN Tower took its name from the nuclear radiation experiment for which it was built: Bare Reactor Experiment - Nevada. BREN Tower was designed to provide a way for scientists to accurately estimate radiation doses received by survivors of the atomic bombs detonated over the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki during World War II. The tower stood 1,527 feet tall because that was the height at which "Little Boy," the first atomic bomb used in warfare, was detonated over Hiroshima on August 6, 1945.

At one time, a mock Japanese village was built near the tower's base to give researchers better modeling of the effects of a nuclear explosion on inhabited areas. Officials from the NNSA said the tower, which stopped being used in 1999, was too costly to maintain and restore, and posed a hazard to passing aircraft.

• A vertiginous view down (and from) the BREN tower during a re-lamping operation
• NNSA Blog: "BREN Tower comes tumbling down as world record is set"
• DOE's collection of historical photos from the NNSA Nevada Field Office
• "The Japanese Village at the Nevada Test Site: A Relic of Nuclear War," by William Gray Johnson, Nancy G. Goldenberg, and Susan R. Edwards (National Park Service's Cultural Resource Management site)
• Demolition video from KNTV ABC-13 Las Vegas
• Video from the Las Vegas Review-Journal

Illinois: "Nuclear America"?

With half the state's electricity generated at nuclear power plants, Illinois qualifies as "highly dependent" on this form of energy; and with 11 currently operating commercial reactors, it's tied in first place with Pennsylvania for the "Most Nuclear Plants." Not on the list? The now-decommissioned Zion 1 and 2 Nuclear Plant near Gurnee, IL, or the decommissioned Dresden 1 plant in Morris. from the NRC's Decommissioned Plants Section:

Zion Units 1 and 2 were permanently shut down on February 13, 1998. The fuel was transferred to the spent fuel pool, and the owner submitted the certification of fuel transfer on March 9, 1998. A public meeting was held on June 1, 1998, to inform the public of the shutdown plans. The owner has converted the turbine-generators into synchronous condensers and have isolated the spent fuel pool within a fuel building "nuclear island." The plant has been placed in SAFSTOR, where it will remain until about 2013 when the decommissioning trust fund will be sufficient to conduct DECON activities. The owner will retain the spent fuel until it is accepted by the Department of Energy. The owner submitted the post-shutdown decommissioning activities report (PSDAR), site-specific cost estimate, and fuel management plan on February 14, 2000. A public meeting to discuss the PSDAR was held on April 26, 2000.

Zion may be out of service, but the Village of Gurnee maintains a webpage detailing the emergency evacuation procedure in event of an accident at the plant.