Some believe the July 1959 accident involving the Sodium Reactor Experiment (SRE) at the Santa Susana Field Laboratory (SSFL) was the worst nuclear accident in U.S. history. Others believe the accident was much more benign. In response to stakeholder requests for more information about what happened, the Department of Energy (DOE) hosted an informational workshop in August 2009 to explore the diverse expert and community perspectives on what occurred prior to, during, and immediately after the accident.
The workshop included presentations from three independent experts: Dr. Paul Pickard of Sandia National Laboratories, Dr. Thomas Cochran of the Natural Resources Defense Council, and Dr. Richard Denning of Ohio State University.
Over 185 workshop attendees had the opportunity to ask the experts questions and also provide their own perspectives on what occurred.
View the SRE workshop videos, materials and posters below.
Materials and resources
Posters
A library of over 80 documents, articles, text book descriptions, and symposia proceedings describing the design, operations, causes of the accident, activities taken to recover and restart the reactor, and decommissioning of the reactor facility.