14 DAY TRIAL // You'd think that a bankrupt maker of photo and video cameras and film wouldn't have too many secrets, and definitely nothing darker than cut financial corners and maybe a quiet deal or two, but you'd be wrong.
Kodak used to possess its very own nuclear reactor. That's right, that once great company whose downfall we've been following closely had its very own nuclear reactor.
We probably should have written about this before, but it was mostly kept quiet, even after the existence of the reactor was leaked.
Apparently, Kodak had a bunker with two-foot concrete walls in Rochester, New York. Inside it was a reactor filled with 3.5 lbs (1.58 kilograms) of enriched uranium.
No one has any idea how on earth Kodak acquired the material or why, or how it had stayed a secret for so many years before its existence was disclosed by an ex-employee not too long ago.
There was no official announcement, state officials had no idea about the little secret and we have to admit, we can't see any reason someone would suddenly think a slide film manufacturer, of all things, had something like this in its closet.
After the decommissioning in 2006, the facility was mentioned only in a few research papers and public documents on federal websites.
Nevertheless, the existence of the information was pretty much restricted, even after the removal of the uranium in 2007 (in protective containers and with armed escort). Security concerns following the events of 9/11 are given as the cause behind that.
Kodak maintains that no employees have ever been in contact with the Californium Neutron Flux multiplier (CFX), even as it was fed tests through a pneumatic system ever since it was bought in 1974.
Over three decades passed between then and 2006, a very long time to play with weapons-grade uranium. Kodak only checked materials for impurities and in neutron radiography testing (for SCIENCE!), but still.