What is the summary of the Nuclear tourist?

Tourism is New Hampshire’s second-largest industry–if you combine the state’s smart manufacturing and high technology sectors (SMHT). It’s also a clear point of intersection between government and industry, with the state maintaining a number of parks, campgrounds, and historical sites, and nearby businesses in turn catering to visitors’ needs. Given this close relationship, the state provides funding to market New Hampshire to potential tourists. Some of the heaviest marketing efforts are concentrated in Boston, Philadelphia and New York City. Canadian tourists, especially Quebeçois, also make up a sizable number of New Hampshire’s visitors. From the business perspective, “tourism” is a broad term. It encompasses hotels, resorts, restaurants, retail, and arts and entertainment, among other things. So while statewide reports may indicate overall restaurant or retail sales are up or down, the story might be very different in New Hampshire’s main tourism communities. For these places, weather, gas prices, currency exchange rates, and whether they draw visitors for outdoor activities, site-seeing, or shopping could all be factors.Summary provided by StateImpact NH

You can read George Johnson's full article and see more photos from his trip at this link: The Nuclear Tourist and also in the October print issue of National Geographic.

On April 26th, 1986, shortly after 1am, Reactor Four at the Chernobyl nuclear power complex experienced a sudden, and catastrophic, power surge. The accident set off a series of explosions, a fire, and released massive amounts of radioactive material into the environment.  Within months of the meltdown, twenty eight workers died from radiation and more than 350,000 people were relocated. Over the ensuing years, related deaths have been harder to pin down, with estimates ranging from 4,000 to over 200,000. 28 years later, it is a tourist destination. George Johnson recently visited Chernobyl, and its surrounding villages, he spoke with Virginia about his trip. You can listen to the segment below.

The following is an excerpt from The Nuclear Tourist from the October issue of National Geographic magazine:

"At first they came to scavenge, later for the thrill. They drink from the Pripyat River and swim in Pripyat bay, daring the radiation and the guards to get them. A stalker I met later in Kiev said he’d been to Chernobyl a hundred times. “I imagined the zone to be a vast, burnt-out place—empty, horrible,” he told me. Instead he found forests and rivers, all this contaminated beauty.

Our tour group walked along the edge of a bone-dry public swimming pool, its high dive and racing clock still intact, and across the rotting floor of a gymnasium. Building after building, all decomposing. We visited the ruins of the Palace of Culture, imagining it alive with music and laughter, and the small amusement park with its big yellow Ferris wheel. Walking up 16 flights of steps—more glass crunching underfoot—we reached the top of one of the highest apartment buildings. The metal handrails had been stripped away for salvage. Jimmied doors opened onto gaping elevator shafts. I kept thinking how unlikely a tour like this would be in the United States. It was refreshing really. We were not even wearing hard hats.

From the rooftop we looked out at what had once been grand, landscaped avenues and parks—all overgrown now. Pripyat, once hailed as a model Soviet city, a worker’s paradise, is slowly being reabsorbed by the earth. "

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While television audiences watch the nightly news of the unfolding nuclear tragedy in Japan, others are experiencing the aftermath of nuclear disaster firsthand. They are traveling to the Chernobyl Exclusion zone – as tourists.

Until now, few groups have had the chance to visit Chernobyl and its contaminated surroundings. But on the eve of the 25th anniversary of the world worst nuclear accident to date, the Ukrainian government legalized such tours and hopes for one million visitors to the zone in 2012. The first tours are already underway.

Visitors’ paperwork gets inspected at the Dityatki checkpoint before moving on to the Monument to the Firefighters in Chernobyl, erected to honor those killed by the nuclear disaster. Two plant workers died immediately in the blast and another 28 workers and firemen soon succumbed to radiation poisoning, and thousands more have died of cancer. Geiger counters sound an eerie concert when tours continue to the failed reactor where radiation is still so high that guides ask visitors to stay on the paved paths “as radiation is substantially higher on the grassy ground”.

The most arresting attraction, however, is the ghost town of Pripyat less than 3km from the failed reactor. In 1970 it was constructed for the plant’s personal. Once a beautiful town, its 50,000 inhabitants were evacuated 36 hours after the accident. Visitors get to wander through the debris-strewn corridors and empty classrooms of one of its biggest schools. Hundreds of discarded gas masks litter the floor of the canteen. In a kindergarten children’s cots are littered with shreds of mattresses and pillows and in a gymnasium floors rot and paint peels.

But during the 25 years following the accident, scavengers have removed many items that were of any use. And now tourism is leaving its own mark: Pripyat less and less bears witness to the hasty departure of the former residents. Instead, there are many signs of the visitors’ need to simplify the message, – most noticeably the doll, neatly arranged next to a gas mask has become the standard motif.

Map of Nuclear tourism

Nuclear tourism is travel to places connected with nuclear research and technology, places where there have been atomic explosions, or places related to peaceful or wartime use of nuclear energy. They include:

• Sites of nuclear explosions (bombed cities, weapon test sites, sites related to peaceful use of nuclear explosions)
• Sites of nuclear accidents and accidents of nuclear weapon carrying aircraft
• Atomic museums
• Otherwise remarkable sites of projects in nuclear technology

Get ready[edit]

“	I know not with what weapons World War III will be fought, but World War IV will be fought with sticks and stones.	”
—Albert Einstein

Dose rate meter is a basic tool of a nuclear tourist

Although in many of the nuclear tourism sites only background radiation can be detected, in some other visitors are confronted with higher levels. These include mainly sites related to nuclear accidents and weapons testing. When visiting places with increased radiation, it is reasonable to be equipped with a radiation monitor in order to have control over radiation exposure. The most common devices in a reasonable price range usually contain a Geiger-Müller counter. They are suitable for detection of gamma, x-ray, alpha and beta radiation, typically expressed as counts per second. In other devices the registered gamma radiation is converted in units of dose rate or absorbed dose. These basic counters can not provide information about individual isotopes, natural or man-made, but simply sum up all registered radiation.

In order to be able to use the radiation monitor it is essential to get familiar with the units and ranges of the measured values to evaluate the information obtained from the counter. Additionally, one has to be aware of a strong variation of natural background radiation, which depends mainly on local geology.

Sites of nuclear explosions[edit]

Bombed cities[edit]

Atomic Bomb Dome in Hiroshima

34.395132.4551 Hiroshima, Japan, was a target of the first nuclear attack ever on 6 August 1945. Nowadays the event with 90,000–166,000 civilian victims is commemorated at the Atomic Bomb Memorial Museum and in Peace Memorial Park, including the iconic A-Bomb Dome and Children's Peace Monument covered by colorful paper cranes for bomb victim, Sadako Sasaki. Ground Zero is slightly outside of the park not far from the Atomic Bomb Dome.

Another nuclear bomb was dropped three days later on the industrial town of 32.773129.8642 Nagasaki, Japan, with more than 100,000 victims. Visitors can learn about the tragic piece of history in the Nagasaki Atomic Bomb Museum or the Nagasaki National Peace Memorial Hall for the Atomic Bomb Victims, both near ground zero.

The aircraft that dropped nuclear weapons on Japanese civilians are in US museums. Enola Gay (the plane which bombed Hiroshima) is displayed at the Udvar-Hazy Center (part of Smithsonian's National Air and Space Museum) in Chantilly, Virginia ; Bockscar (which bombed Nagasaki) is on display at the U.S. Air Force Museum near Dayton, Ohio.

See the Pacific War article for the events leading up to the bombs.

Weapon test sites[edit]

Tourists at ground zero, Trinity site, April 2009.

Eight countries have carried out confirmed nuclear weapon tests to determine the capability of their weapons, mostly in their own respective territories. The United States conducted the first and the most numerous tests, mostly in Nevada. Others carrying out tests included Russia (then the Soviet Union), the UK, India, France, and China. Pakistan, followed by North Korea, conducted the last nuclear weapon tests. Sites where weapon tests were conducted can be visited in these countries for adventure.

• 33.6773-106.47543 Trinity site. the site of the world's first nuclear explosion on 16 July 1945, which started the Atomic age. The site, which was declared a National Historic Landmark district, is open for tours once a year (first Saturday in April). The ground zero, where the plutonium bomb was detonated from a tower, is marked with a plain stone monument. Careful visitors can spot glassy green pieces in the dirt. It is "Trinitite", sand fused by the enormous heat of the explosion into a crusty surface. Most of Trinitite was cleared away in the years after the test with a small piece of original surface preserved in a shelter. The small fractions of Trinitite left at the site do not pose any health hazard to the visitor from the external exposure point of view, but you are not allowed to take away any Trinitite from the inner fenced area. During the Trinity site open house days, you can view Schmidt/McDonald ranch house, where the plutonium core to the bomb was assembled shortly before the test.

• Atolls 11.6981165.27316 Bikini and 11.552565162.3472417 Enewetak are former US test sites at Marshall Islands. They are in the middle of the Pacific, far away from any mainland, so they are difficult to visit. Bikini Atoll is open for tourism from late April to November and welcomes divers participating in organized tours. These tours that start at Kwajalein Atoll are only available to experienced divers and the main attraction is the U.S. fleet sunk by the nuclear tests at Bikini. In the 1970s the U.S. Army performed a clean-up of contamination at Enewetak. As a result, radioactive materials from Enewetak and other contaminated atolls were dumped into the Cactus test crater at a tiny island Runit within the Enewetak Atoll and covered by a concrete structure, known as Cactus dome.

• -30.166667131.6166678 Maralinga atomic test site, . During 1956 and 1957, the British military, in cooperation with the Australian Government, tested 7 atomic bombs at Maralinga in the South Australian outback. The test range remains restricted land, but can be visited through Maralinga Tours, which is run by local Indigenous Australians. The site is very remote, and Maralinga Tours' website recommends that visitors use a four-wheel drive vehicle due to the condition of the approach roads. The company also requires that visitors arrive the day before their tour. Price varies - see the company's website.

• -20.466667115.5166679 Montebello Islands (Monte Bello Islands) (off the Pilbara coast in Western Australia, 135 km W of Karratha). A former British nuclear test site. It is possible to take nuclear safari tour. Another option for experienced sailors is chartering a boat and discovering the place by own means. Remains of the testing activities in the 1950s (e.g. bunkers) can be found at some islands (Trimouille Island), as well as elevated radiation. Therefore the authorities recommend to limit your stay to 1 hour per day in these zones. The area is a part of Montebello Islands Marine Park, where special conditions for protecting marine life apply.

• 24.0652785.05638910 Béryl Incident (about 150 km north of Tamanrasset, Algeria). France, the fourth country to produce a nuclear weapon conducted some of their early tests in Sahara as much of Western Africa still was a French colony into the 1960s. On 1 May 1962 an underground test at In Eker in today's Algeria went wrong and observers including soldiers and government officials were exposed to radiation. If you happen to drive north-south across the Sahara along the road from Algiers to Tamanrasset, you will pass right next to the area.
• 40.16666790.58333311 Lop Nur. Lop nur is a remote area in Xinjiang province, China where Chinese nuclear tests were conducted. The first Chinese atomic bomb test codenamed "596" and all subsequent tests were completed at this site. There is a museum built on the former Malan (马兰) base for nuclear and red tourism.

Peaceful use of nuclear explosions[edit]

In the USA, 27 peaceful nuclear explosions were conducted within Operation Plowshare to test the use of nuclear explosions for various civilian purposes, such as excavating channels or harbors and stimulating natural gas production from sediment layers. Most of the shots were performed at the Nevada test site; however, some of the test sites in Colorado and New Mexico are accessible for the public.

• 36.6779-107.20812 Gusbuggy test site (25 miles SW of Dulce, New Mexico, USA). A small monument with a plaque containing a brief description of the event at the surface round zero. The site is in Carson National Forest and open to public access.

• 39.405278-108.36813 Rulison test site (15 mi SW of Rifle and 9 miles from Hw. 70, Parachute, Colorado, USA, along a gravel road, Garfield County Route 338). A small monument with a plaque containing a brief description of the event at the surface ground zero.

• 39.793-107.94852814 Rio Blanco test site (50 mi NW of Rifle, USA, the last couple of miles via unpaved Rio Blanco County Route 29, but still easily accessible for non-4x4 vehicles). This was the final test in the Plowshare program, with three devices being detonated underground in order to stimulate natural gas production in 1973. While the prodution increased slightly, the gas was too radioactive to be used. A small monument was erected at the surface ground zero.

Sites of nuclear accidents[edit]

Some might find it unethical or at least controversial for tourists to visit sites where many people suffered following an accident, especially if local guides are repeatedly exposed to radiation when leading tour groups through exclusion zones too "hot" for residents to return.

Conversely, some welcome tourism as an alternative means to support local economies.

Accidents in nuclear power plants or nuclear materials production sites[edit]

New sarcophagus construction in Chernobyl

• 51.3900930.1046815 Pripyat, Chornobyl Oblast, Ukraine. The Chernobyl disaster of 26 April 1986 is an event classified at level 7 (the highest) on the International Nuclear Event Scale. Pripyat and Chornobyl are now radioactive ghost towns, which can be visited as part of organized tours. Although the original decaying Chernobyl sarcophagus was constructed with lots of concrete by heroic workers, a 32,000-tonne stainless steel arch now covers the ramshackle original.

View west of the Sellafield facility, with the Irish Sea in the background

• 54.4205-3.497516 Sellafield, United Kingdom, has been the site of a number of accidents, including the 1957 fire of the original Windscale former nuclear reactor. During those accidents some radioactive waste ended up in the Irish Sea, near Whitehaven. Also, during the reactor fire radioactivity was released through the chimney. However the major portion was contained by the high-capacity filters mounted on the chimney (known as "Cockcroft's Folly" after the Nobel prize winning physicist Sir John Cockcroft, who insisted on having them mounted at great expense, although they hadn't been included in the original design. Their shape contributed to the iconic silhouette of the nuclear complex. However, in 2014 the second of two chimneys was decommissioned and is no longer part of the Sellafield skyline.)

The nuclear site has been hosting a number of nuclear reprocessing operations. There used to be a visitors' centre, but it is no longer open. When spending time on nearby beaches (for example the one in Seascale), you might be lucky enough to spot the Sellafield environmental monitoring workers beachcombing for "hot particles" using a special all-terrain vehicle.

• 40.15269-76.71740917 Three Mile Island, near Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, USA, was the worst commercial nuclear power plant accident in the USA on 28 March 1979. During the reactor core meltdown, radioactivity, mainly in the form of radioiodine and noble gases, was released to the surrounding environment. There is no visitors' center commemorating the event, only a historic marker (at the given coordinates in Middletown) with a fine view across the Susquehanna river towards the power station.

A marked radioactive hotspot in Fukushima

• 37.4214141.032518 Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant in Japan was seriously damaged by a tsunami following a magnitude 9 earthquake on March 11, 2011. Large areas of Fukushima prefecture coast are being decontaminated, while some 80,000 inhabitants had to be resettled. Tours are offered to the visitors to get first-hand impressions from areas affected by the great Tohoku earthquake, tsunami, and nuclear accident. The participants can experience how local people and businesses are coping with the recovery from the disasters.

Accidents of nuclear weapon carrying aircraft[edit]

During the Cold War there were several accidents involving thermonuclear weapons, and some of them led to local environment contamination. These are a few of them.

• In 35.493041-77.85926219 Faro near Goldsboro (North Carolina), USA, a B-52 crash dropped a hydrogen bomb which failed to detonate in 1961. The event is commemorated by a historical road marker in the town of Eureka, 3 miles (4.8 km) north of the crash site.
• A 34.205556-79.65527820 crater about 23 m wide and 11 m deep was left after another accident, in which a B-47 "Stratojet" crew mistakenly released a Mark 6 bomb while flying over Mars Bluff, South Carolina, USA, on March 11, 1958 afternoon. The bomb went off by a conventional explosion at the property of local family Gregg and injured several family members. The crater can be visited from SC Highway 76 (East Palmetto Street) via a marked trail. There is an informational board and mock up of the bomb's size at the site. Nearby 34.19563-79.7663221 museum in Florence has the story to tell including some historical artifacts connected to the event.
• In 1966 after an unsuccessful inflight refueling operation an US bomber B-52 carrying four hydrogen bombs crashed in 37.247-1.79722 Palomares between Almería and Cartagena, Spain. Now, after cleanup operations, the area is used extensively for agricultural production. Two of the "hot areas" are closed to the public by a fence.
• Another accident occurred in 1968, when B-52 "Stratofortress" with four hydrogen bombs on board crashed onto the sea ice near the 76.527778-69.28194423 Thule Air Base, Greenland. The nearest civilian settlement is Qaanaaq, 100 km to the north.

[edit]

“	We knew the world would not be the same. A few people laughed... A few people cried... Most people were silent. I remembered the line from the Hindu scripture the Bhagavad Gita; Vishnu is trying to persuade the prince that he should do his duty, and to impress him takes on his multi-armed form, and says, Now I am become death, the destroyer of worlds. I suppose we all thought that, one way or another.	”
—Robert Oppenheimer recalling the Trinity bomb

"Manhattan Project", named for the Manhattan Engineering District of the US Army Corps of Engineers, is a cover name for a war-time US military effort to develop an atomic weapon. Geographically, the project was spread over about 30 sites across the United States (and Canada). The best known are the secret laboratory in Los Alamos and factories to supply the fissile materials by enriching uranium and producing plutonium in reactors in Oak Ridge, Tennessee, and Hanford site near Richland, Washington. These three sites are also formally recognized as Manhattan Project National Historical Park.

• 41.792222-87.60083324 Chicago Pile-1 site, South Ellis Avenue, Chicago, Illinois, USA. A monument at a site of the first fission reactor constructed by team of Enrico Fermi (originally under the stands of Stagg Field, the university's abandoned football stadium) was successfully tested.

• 41.702364-87.91330625 Site A/ 41.707268-87.91330626 Plot M Disposal Site, Illinois, USA (Red Gate Woods). Radioactive waste disposal sites at former grounds of Argonne National Laboratory. At site A Chicago Pile-1 reactor along with other radioactive waste was buried. Monuments commemorate the event.

• 46.63-119.6527Hanford Site near Richland, Washington, USA (Halfway between Othello and Sunnyside). Location of the B Reactor (U.S. National Historic Landmark since 2008) which produced some of the plutonium for the Trinity test and the Fat Man bomb. The tours to the B Reactor building connected to a bus tour through the Hanford site (Apr-Sep) must be booked in advance.

• 41.790342-87.60102528 George Herbert Jones Laboratory, Chicago, Illinois, USA, 5747 S Ellis Ave, Chicago. This is a laboratory at the University of Chicago, where trace quantity of plutonium, the first artificial element, was isolated and characterized in 1942. Room 405 was named a National Historic Landmark in 1967. In the 1980s Department of Energy remediated the lab from World War II-era radioactive waste. The building is private property, but open during the daytime and it is possible to enter the lobby of the laboratory and view a collection of the specialized equipment used to perform the measurements.

Atomic museums[edit]

Experimental HTRE reactors for nuclear aircraft, EBR-1 site, Idaho

• 55.08531936.57404429 Memorial complex of Obninsk Nuclear Power Plant, Obninsk, Kaluga Oblast, Russia, ☏ +7 48439 95111, +7 48439 98043. The first nuclear power plant in the world.
• 36.0106-84.257330American Museum of Science and Energy, Oak Ridge, Tennessee, USA, 300 South Tulane Ave, Oak Ridge, ☏ +1 865 576-3200, . M-Sa 9AM-5PM, Su 1-5 PM. History of the Manhattan Project and the role of Oak Ridge plant within the project. There are bomb casings on display. $5 adults, $3 children.

A three-hour-long guided bus tour departs from the museum on some working days in summer season (March to November, for detailed schedule check the AMSE webpage). The tour takes visitors to the U.S. Department of Energy facilities: Y-12 (Uranium enrichment plant) Visitor Center or Oak Ridge National Laboratory Graphite Reactor, also known as 35.92805-84.31759231 X-10 Graphite Reactor. It was the second nuclear reactor after Enrico Fermi's Chicago pile, now the world’s oldest nuclear reactor preserved as national historic landmark. X-10 was the first nuclear reactor to produce Plutonium 239 within the Manhattan Project. Only U.S. citizens can join the tour. National Atomic Testing Museum, Las Vegas

• 36.1144-115.1486332 National Atomic Testing Museum, 755 E Flamingo Road, Las Vegas, USA, ☏ +1 702 794-5151. M-Sa 10AM-5PM, Su noon-5PM. Artifacts, pictures, maps and video footage presenting nuclear weapons testing and development in the southwestern US. If you're interested in science and history it's definitely worth visiting, and it's also a great break if you've become tired of the Strip. Videography requires special permission. Museum $14, museum and Area 51 exhibit $20.

• 35.881559-106.29803333Bradbury Science Museum, Los Alamos, USA, 1350 Central Avenue, Los Alamos, New Mexico, ☏ +1 505 667-4444, . Tu-Sa 10AM–5PM, Su M 1–5PM. The museum is devoted to the history and the current research in the Los Alamos National Laboratory. Great part of the exposition covers the history of the Manhattan Project. Free.

• 35.883617-106.30183434 Los Alamos Historical Museum, 1050 Bathtub Row, Los Alamos, New Mexico, USA (just north of Fuller Lodge), ☏ +1 505 662-4493, . Summer: M-F 9:30AM-4:30PM, Sa Su 11AM-4PM; winter: M-F 10AM-4PM, Sa Su 11AM-4PM. History of life in the Secret City during the Manhattan Project. (In 2016, a Temporary Museum Site is open at 475 20th Street as the museum is under renovation and expansion.). Free.
• 35.066-106.533935National Museum of Nuclear Science & History in Albuquerque, USA (National Atomic Museum), 601 Eubank at Southern Blvd Albuquerque, New Mexico, ☏ +1 505 245-2137. Daily 9AM-5PM, closed on vacation days. The museum serves as America's resource for nuclear history and science. The Museum exhibits and educational programs convey the diversity of individuals and events that shaped the historical and technical context of the nuclear age. $8.

• 43.51132-113.006436 Experimental Breeder Reactor I, Arco, Idaho, USA - the first nuclear reactor to produce electrical power, first breeder reactor, and first reactor to use plutonium as fuel

• 33.24644-81.667937 Savannah River Site, South Carolina, USA (30 mi SE of Augusta (Georgia)), ☏ +1 803 952-8994 (tours). Production site of plutonium and tritium. A limited number of bus tours are offered, and must be reserved in advance. Free.
• 31.902663-110.99957638 Titan Missile Museum, 1580 W Duval Mine Rd, Sahuarita, Green Valley, Arizona, USA (30 minutes south of Tucson), ☏ +1 520-625-7736. Daily 8:45AM-5PM. Site south of Tucson preserves a Cold-War-era underground silo housing an unarmed Titan-II ICBM, the only remaining Titan Missile silo in the US. Part of a larger field of such silos, this was one of the places from which nuclear war on the Soviet Union would have been waged. Visitors can take a tour of the underground facilities where USAF crews spent decades living underground waiting for the launch order which never came. $9.50 (adults).

Research reactors[edit]

Nuclear installations at the EPFL - the core of the Crocus reactor

Several sites operate nuclear reactors for either nuclear reactor safety training or for nuclear science experiments using them as neutron sources. Neutron scattering is an effective ways to obtain information on the structure and the dynamics of condensed matter. These days accelerators like the Spallation Neutron Source based in Oakridge allow more intense neutron beams. Nevertheless several reactors are in on-going operations. Fundamental and solid state physics, chemistry, materials science, biology, medicine and environmental science pose scientific questions that are investigated with neutrons.

In contrast to nuclear fission, where unstable atoms decay into smaller atoms, there exists also an attempt of nuclear fusion, where energy would be gained by processes similarly to what happens in the core of stars by the fusion of two light elements in a heavier one. ITER is an international nuclear research and engineering project to build the first the world's largest experimental tokamak nuclear fusion reactor.

Operating reactors[edit]

• 46.526.56539 [dead link] CROCUS, École polytechnique fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL), Switzerland. A light-water, zero-power nuclear reactor for research and teaching at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne.
• 48.26611.67640 Forschungsreaktor München II (FRM II), Lichtenbergstraße 1, Garching bei München, Germany ( U6  to Garching-Forschungszentrum), ☏ +49 089 289 12147, . The reactor is an optimised neutron source. Almost 50% of experiments are performed using cold neutrons. The compact construction of the fuel element means that more than 70% of the neutrons leave the uranium zone and build up to a maximum thermal neutron flux density at a distance of 12cm from the surface of the fuel element. From where they are distributed to the experiments. Please register early in advance your visit either by email or phone. The visitor needs to be older than 16 years, not pregnant and no phones or cameras are allowed inside.

• 48.19700316.41299941 Institute of Atomic and Subatomic Physics (Atominstitut), Stadionallee 2, Vienna, Austria (Vienna/Inner East), ☏ +43 1 588 01 141391, . The 250 kW TRIGA Mark II reactor in the Viennese Prater started operation in 1962. The reactor is a training ground for International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) inspectors and neighbouring countries. The Atominstitut offers guided tours for groups upon previous registration. €4/person.
• 43.7049565.76919442 ITER (International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor or "the way" (Latin)), Route de Vinon-sur-Verdon, St. Paul-lez-Durance, France (CPA bus line 150 (Aix-en-Provence--St Paul lez Durance)), ☏ +33 4 42 17 66 25, . The ITER project aims to make the transition from experimental studies of plasma physics to an electricity-producing fusion power plants. ITER is designed to produce 500 megawatts of output power. Visitors are welcome year round on the first Friday of every month at the ITER site. General public visits include a stop at the Visitor's Centre for a presentation of the project followed by guided tour of the ITER platform where the ITER scientific facilities are under construction. Visit requests should be made at least four weeks in advance via on-line tool. Free of charge, groups larger than 8 must book a bus.

• 52.4113.12944444 Helmholtz-Zentrum Berlin, Germany. The 10 MW research reactor BER II delivers neutron beams for a wide range of scientific investigations. On open house day, interested visitors are allowed to take guided tours through the experimental halls around the research reactor. Scientists and reactor experts will be there on these days to answer questions about the facility and the safety measures.

• 47.5385548.22989945 Swiss Spallation Neutron Source (SINQ), Paul Scherrer Institut bldg. WHGA/147, Villigen PSI, Switzerland (about 10 km north of Brugg). SINQ is designed as a neutron source mainly for research with extracted beams of thermal and cold neutrons, but hosts also facilities for isotope production and neutron activation analysis.
• 33.640495-117.84429646 TRIGA Mark I (at the University of California, Irvine, in Irvine, California, USA). The original prototype for the TRIGA (Training Research Isotopes General Atomic) reactor, one of the safest reactor designs. 66 such reactors are or have been operational worldwide, mostly at universities for educational use. The reactor has been declared a nuclear historical landmark.
• 55.79611137.47861147 [dead link] F-1 (Kurchatov Institute, Moscow, Russia). The first functioning nuclear reactor in Europe (Dec 1946) is still running.

Decommissioned reactors[edit]

• 51.569708-1.3280948 PLUTO reactor (in Harwell, Oxfordshire, England). PLUTO was a materials testing reactor based on the DIDO design. It had an output of 26 MW and operated from 1957 to 1990.

• ZEEP (Zero Energy Experiment Pile) (in Deep River, Ontario, Canada). Built by the Chalk River Laboratories, ZEEP operated from 1945 to 1973 and was the first functioning nuclear reactor outside the United States. Dismantled in 1997, ZEEP is on display in Ottawa at the Canada Science and Technology Museum.

• 55.60456426.56054649 The Ignalina Nuclear Power Plant (IAE) (in Visaginas municipality, Lithuania). It had two reactors - the first one was in operation from 1983 and was decommissioned in 2004, the second from 1987 until 2009. INPP will be fully dismantled in 2038. INPP offero excursions to its controlled INPP zone, home to the plant’s reactor room, turbine room, and block control panel. These excursions have become popular following the broadcast of the HBO miniseries Chernobyl, much of which was filmed on the site of the first reactor at INPP.

Other[edit]

Nuclear power plant building sites never finished[edit]

Some nuclear power plants never had a nuclear fission reaction happening on their site, as they were not turned on.

• 14.629167120.31361150 [dead link] Bataan Nuclear Power Plant. The Philippines' only attempt to build a nuclear power plant, this USD2.3 billion plant was completed in 1984, at which point testing of systems began. In 1986, the authoritarian Marcos government behind the project was overthrown and, following the Chernobyl disaster later that year, the new government decided to mothball the plant. The Bataan Nuclear Power Plant was completed and has been maintained since then, but was never fuelled to operate. All uranium was removed by 1997. Due to the high cost of maintaining the plant, the Philippine government announced in 2011 that the plant would be turned into a tourist attraction. The tour admission fee of ₱200 includes use of the adjacent private beach of WestNuk Cove which also has some accommodation and recreation facilities. ₱150 (2012).

Kalkar amusement park

• 51.76316.3269451 Kalkar (Schneller Brüter), Griether Straße (Kalkar, Germany). Intended as a prototype fast breeder reactor, it is now an amusement park. One can climb on the outside of the big concrete cooling tower

• 48.354415.884752 Zwentendorf Nuclear Power Plant, Zwentendorf, Austria (small town in Lower Austria between Krems and Tulln next to the Danube river). The boiling-water reactor rated at 692 megawatts electric power output was completed, but never turned on because it was not approved in a public vote. There are tours showing the interior, when not reserved for training.

• 54.743318.090153 Żarnowiec, Poland. Żarnowiec Nuclear Power Plant was built as the first nuclear power plant in Poland with 4 Soviet design VVER-440 pressurized water reactors planned. The construction started in 1982, but after the Chernobyl nuclear disaster, the plant was not completed because of public opposition. At that time, the supporting infrastructure was almost complete, and the first reactor block was about 40% complete. The ruins of the plant are still standing.

• Ruins of the 45.391435.802354 Crimean Atomic Energy Station, Russia

• -41.106389-71.39555 Huemul Project (on Huemul Island, just outside San Carlos de Bariloche, Argentina). In the early 1950s, an Austrian scientist named Ronald Richter attempted to build the world's first fusion power plant on an island in a lake in the Andes, the undertaking being known as the Huemul Project. A couple of years and an equivalent of several hundred million US dollars later it came into light that Richter never had got any proof of his design actually functioning in the first place. As the patron of the project, President Juan Perón, was ousted in 1955, Richter was arrested for fraud. Today the ruins of the project can be visited on the island, and the city itself remains a center of Argentinian nuclear research.

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Germany, which had had some leading nuclear scientists before the war (some of whom fled the country after the Nazi takeover due to being Jewish, opposed to the regime or both), developed a much more modest and less advanced nuclear program than the Allies. It received less funding and was hampered by Nazi ideology which rejected some of Albert Einstein's findings as "Jewish Physics", but its speculated existence during the war was one of the driving factors for the Manhattan project.

• 48.36688.8040456Haigerloch, Germany (Atomkeller Museum). A site of a former research reactor during World War II called Atomkeller (Atomic cellar), which never went critical. The museum tells the story of the Uranverein (Uranium society), a German attempt to develop a nuclear weapon, and shows the Haigerloch nuclear reactor replica.
• 59.8711118.49138957 Vemork, Norway.: Heavy water production site and location of war-time heavy water sabotage. Heavy water is an important component in certain nuclear applications and was seen as critically necessary for the development of a nuclear bomb during World War II. Despite the German occupation of Norway, Norwegian underground fighters ultimately managed to keep the heavy water out of the hand of the Nazis, thereby delaying the nuclear program of Nazi Germany which failed.

Nuclear bunkers[edit]

Nuclear bunkers were meant to protect in the case of nuclear weapon explosions. During the cold war this threat was considered imminent, hence many key figures would need access to such bunkers. While nothing was likely to withstand a direct hit, bunkers were built far underground to survive a nuclear strike which landed as close as 1 mile (1.6 km) away.

Fallout shelters were intended to shelter populations in areas far from the targets of a nuclear strike; these communities were likely to be spared direct blast damage but still become dangerously radioactive in the initial days or weeks after an attack. Often, civil defence authorities would make provision for a posted fallout shelter in the basement of a library, post office, school or other large public building. In some countries building regulations even pushed for bunkers in the cellars of small domestic buildings.

• 50.54117.0811158 Dienststelle Marienthal (Government bunker), Ahrweiler near Bonn, Germany. Apr-Oct: W Sa Su 10:00-17:00, last guided tour 16:30 for individual visitors. Nuclear bunker built in the 1960s to house the West German federal government in case of nuclear war. Constructed inside two railway tunnels beneath 110m of slate rock. After the end of Cold War the bunker was dismantled and today only 203 m of the original bunker exists near Ahrweiler. This existing part was converted into the Government Bunker Documentation Site Museum. €8.
• 52.69419713.98362259 Atombunker Harnekop (Nuclear governmental shelter) (65 km NE from Berlin, Germany), ☏ +49 1719 440304, . Regular guided tours (in German) Mar-Oct: Sa,Su & public holidays 10:00, 12:00 & 14:00. One of the East German shabby relics of the Cold War located within 1 hour's drive from Berlin at an area of a former military barracks. The bunker in Harnekop was prepared for a possible war as the underground command post of the Ministry of National Defence of the GDR. You can join a guided tour in the bunker after an e-mail or phone registration.
• 47.50292119.04972460 F4 Object (Rákosi bunker), Budapest, Hungary. Several kilometres long, formerly secret nuclear shelter, 45-50 m below central Budapest. The number of entrances is unknown. It is owned by the state and controlled by the BKV (Budapest Transport Company).

• 43.634317.994961 D-0 ARK, Konjic, Bosnia and Herzegovina. 611m² bunker secretly built between 1953 and 1979 in Konjic, 50 km southwest from Sarajevo, to house Josip Tito and other members of the Yugoslav elite. Dug 300 m into a mountain, since 2011 houses D-0 ARK Underground Biennial of Contemporary Art
• 45.351-76.04862 Diefenbunker, 3911 Carp Rd, Carp, Ontario, Canada, ☏ +1 613 839-0007, toll-free: +1-800-409-1965. Atomic bomb shelter built in 1959-61 (during the cold war Diefenbaker era) at the now-closed Canada Forces Station Carp as an Emergency Government Headquarters to house Canadian leaders during a nuclear attack. Now open as Canada's Cold War Museum, the Diefenbunker appears in one scene in the 2002 film Sum of all Fears. Carp is in a rural area of West Carleton, west of Ottawa.
• 51.67180.25655663 Kelvedon Hatch Secret Nuclear Bunker, Kelvedon Hall Ln, Kelvedon Hatch, Brentwood, England. Decommissioned in 1992, this former British government 'emergency regional defence' site located below an inconspicuous bungalow now serves as a Cold War museum.
• 29.848611114.46388964 Underground Project 131 ("131"地下工程; "131" Dìxià gōngchéng), Gaoqiao Township (高桥镇) in Xianning in Hubei, China. A nuclear bunker and set of tunnels built in 1969 in order to provide shelter from a possible nuclear attack from the former USSR. Although now a museum, some visitors reported that non-Chinese nationals may not be allowed to visit; others just were asked to pay the double admission price.
• 37.7852-80.308265 The Bunker at the Greenbrier, USA, White Sulphur Springs, West Virginia, toll-free: +1-844-223-3173. This nuclear bunker was built as a top secret relocation facility for Congress carved in the mountainside at one of America`s oldest resorts. Tours are about 90 minutes in length and pre-registration is required. Adults $34, youth $17 plus tax.

Nuclear weapon sites[edit]

Minuteman Missile National Historic Site

• 43.833-101.966 Minuteman Missile National Historic Site, Interstate-90 exit 131, east of Wall (South Dakota), USA, ☏ +1 605 433-5552. Daily 08:00-16:30 (visitor centre), closed weekends in winter. 1960s Delta-01 Launch Control Facility, Launch Facility/ Missile Silo: Delta-09, visitor centre with information on Cold War history. This Minuteman ICBM site 75 miles east of Rapid City South Dakota could rain down nuclear devastation six thousand miles away in 30 minutes. Guided free tours of launch control are available from the visitor centre but numbers are limited so large groups will need to book a few weeks ahead.

• 48.18620430.66509567 [dead link] Strategic Missile Forces Museum, вул. Одеська, 121, Первомайськ, Миколаївська обл. (Pervomaisk, Mykolayiv Oblast, Ukraine), ☏ +380 5161 54896. Former missile base (46th Missile Nizhnedneprovsk Order of the October Revolution, Red Division). Samples of rocket engines, auxiliary vehicles, mock nuclear warhead. Missiles: SS-24 "Scalpel" silo-based and RS-20 missile (SS-18 "Satan"). Guided tours to Missile Forces Museum from Nikolaev Ukraine.

• 69.21416733.3768 . An incredible Soviet submarine graveyard can be seen here, with diesel and nuclear vessels literally dumped in the waters, some with intact nuclear reactors.

• 29.55644107.5078669 816 Nuclear Military Plant (816地下核工厂), Baitao Town, Fuling District, Chongqing, China (中国重庆涪陵区白涛镇) (catch a high-speed train from Chongqing North to Fuling North. From there, take bus no. 101 to Luojia Gardens (罗家花园) and then transfer to bus no. 208A or 208C to get to the destination). 09:00-17:30. An immense underground facility that was intended to be used for the production of nuclear weapons. Construction began in 1966 and was almost completed at the time the project was cancelled in 1984. Since no plutonium or other radioactive materials were processed here, it is safe for visitors. Unlike other nuclear sites in China, the 816 Nuclear Military Plant is open to both Chinese and foreign visitors. ¥60.
• 47.4976-98.127170 Ronald Reagan Minuteman Missile State Historic Site, Cooperstown, North Dakota. Consisting of two sites, Oscar-Zero (a former Missile Alert Facility) and November-33 (a former Launch Facility or missile silo) were only two of 165 Cold War era nuclear missile facilities operated by the 321st Strategic Missile Wing at Grand Forks Air Force Base, Grand Forks, North Dakota. Operating from 1966-1997, only Oscar-Zero and November-33 would be preserved as historic sites and in 2009 were formally opened for tours by the State Historical Society of North Dakota. Open year round with varying hours, visitors can tour a former nuclear missile control center buried 50 feet below ground and experience the living and work areas of America's Cold War missileers.

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Nuclear waste is a big headache in all nuclear applications as it remains dangerous for timespans humans cannot generally oversee. There are various philosophies as to what to do with the waste, including putting it into abandoned salt mines as salt has high stability to waste heat (nuclear waste produces a lot of heat) and salt tends to naturally seal cavities. However, salt is vulnerable to water entering and there is the danger of that water connecting to groundwater, as has happened at several salt mines.

• 52.1288910.6708371 Asse II, . This site, a disused salt mine, was used as a nuclear repository for weakly radioactive material by West Germany - perhaps in part due to lying close to the former German-German border - but has subsequently had major problems with entering water. There is political consensus to remove the waste when safe, but there are still questions as to how this is to occur and when. You can get tours of parts of the site, including underground parts.
• 52.223911.102272 Morsleben radioactive waste repository, . The nuclear waste disposal site of East Germany (again, sited - perhaps by chance, perhaps not - close to the former border with West Germany) that remained in use after reunification
• 52.183610.402873 Konrad Mine, Germany, . A depository for weakly and moderately radioactive waste in a former iron ore mine.

Non-categorized[edit]

• 35.651139.826374Ship Lucky Dragon 5, Tokyo, Japan (Daigo Fukuryū Maru), Yumenoshima Park, 3-2 Yumenoshima, Koto Ward, Tokyo, ☏ +81 3 3521-8494. Tu-Su. The restored fishing boat Lucky Dragon the crew of which became unfortunate victims of nuclear fallout fallowing a thermonuclear test at Bikini Atoll is on display at Tokyo Metropolitan Daigo Fukuryū Maru Exhibition Hall. On 1 March 1954, 23 fishermen were hunting tuna near the Marshall Islands, when they witnessed the larger than predicted Castle Bravo nuclear test conducted by the US. Later on the fishermen were subjected to a strange white rain containing particles of radioactive fallout mixed with the coral reef debris. Unaware of the danger of the contamination on their bodies and the ship's surfaces, the fishermen headed back to Japan and over the following days developed symptoms of acute radiation syndrome. One crew member died later in hospital. Free.

• 53.5590310.0197575 A Memorial to the X-ray martyrs of the world in Hamburg, Germany (Ehrenmal der Radiologie) (Garden of St. Georg hospital). This monument is devoted to researchers, physicians, physicists, radiographers, laboratory technicians and nurses who died from injuries or illnesses caused by prolonged exposure to radiation used in medicine. On the list of about 360 names of radiologists from 23 countries perhaps the best known are Marie Sklodowska-Curie and her daughter Irène Joliot-Curie.

Stay safe[edit]

A radiation dosage chart courtesy of webcomic artist xkcd

One obvious concern in touring nuclear sites is radiation. In fact, good news is that most of the sites listed above are safe from this point of view. Where obvious danger exists, you should be usually stopped by fence and other security measures.

In case you happen to find yourself in a less safe situation or unknown suspicious area, you will hopefully be equipped with a radiation monitor and good knowledge of how to use it. It's important to know how to interpret the readings and/or convert the units. Although officially there is nothing like a safe level or radiation, there are some levels that can help to put the numbers into context. These are some examples:

• The typical yearly dose from purely natural background, consisting mainly of radon gas we breathe, building materials surrounding us, radionuclides in food we eat and from the cosmic radiation that keeps bombarding us. This value is 2.4 thousandths of Sievert (mSv) on average, with a large range between 1–13 mSv depending mainly on the geological background of the place you live.
• Additionally to natural sources, artificial radiation contributes to radiation exposure of some of us. The main contributor here is medical diagnosis and treatment using radiation or radionuclides. Here the exposition varies widely based on number and type of such measures. Globally, an average person receives 0.6 mSv/yr, while in countries with well developed medical systems the numbers are higher, for example 3.14 mSv in the USA, which relies heavily on testing like CT scans and X-rays. One bone scintigraphy scan with the use of medial isotope Tc-99m results in a one-time dose of about 5 mSv. A chest CT scan can give a dose of 5–10 mSv, which is much higher than a simple chest x-ray of 0.2 mSv.
• Members of flight crews receive some 1.5 mSv annual dose due to increased cosmic radiation in high altitudes.
• The limit for members of the public in the Fukushima exclusion zone was set as 20 mSv/yr.
• Occupational limits for radiation workers are usually at 50 mSv/yr.

The way to protect yourself against external radiation exposure (like radiation coming from soil polluted with radioactive fallout) is to limit the time spent in the polluted area and keep your distance from the source (hot spots).

During your exploration you certainly want to avoid internal contamination, that means ingesting radionuclides by eating or drinking contaminated food, or inhaling radioactive particles. Some easy protective measures are therefore avoiding eating and drinking and wearing a respirator. If there may be radioactive dust or water, you also want to avoid carrying that out from the area in your clothes or hair. Be sure to get clean before touching any food or anything that you will regard clean.

Another kind of more general risks can arise from exploration of abandoned or off-limits urban locations. These include injuries or possible legal consequences. For more details check the Urbex article.

See also[edit]

• Cold War Europe
• Industrial tourism
• Military tourism
• Science tourism
• Urbex