NASA’s Plum Brook Reactor

Podcast: The Innovation Attorney Podcast · The Innovation Attorney

Opublikowano: 2026-10-10

NASA’s Plum Brook Reactor Facility in Ohio cost about $15 million to build and roughly $230 million to decommission before the Nuclear Regulatory Commission terminated its licenses in 2012. Two causes explain the gap. The nuclear aircraft and nuclear rocket programs that justified the reactor ended by 1973, and the plant then idled for nearly 25 years under a possess but do not operate license. The cleanup work that remained sat in buried piping, activated steel, and hot cells that the records described poorly. Plum Brook shows what the exit costs when the customer leaves, and why the exit be...