Hits: 5

GREENLAND: The lost bet of Camp Century

By Ben Cramer

Ben Cramer

In the service of NATO - To confirm the strategic value of the Danish colony in the early days of the Cold War, the US military presence was reinforced in 1951 as part of NATO. But the 1951 Greenland Defense Treaty made no mention of ballistic missiles, portable nuclear reactors, or H-bombs... obviously.

In 1993, declassified U.S. Air Force documents revealed that, for most of the 1960s, Strategic Air Command (SAC) bombers carrying nuclear weapons regularly flew over Greenland. However, this territory of more than 2 million km² is subject to Denmark's ban on the presence of nuclear weapons on its territory, according to a protocol established in 1957. This led to negotiations between Washington and Copenhagen on shared responsibilities, which were analyzed by experts including Hans Christensen 
https://fas.org/expert/hans-kristensen/

 

This military presence is and was detrimental to the Inuit people. For example, in order to give the green light to the expansion of Thule Air Base, Copenhagen did not bother to consult the local population, represented by the Hunters' Council. Instead, in May 1953, the Danish government ordered the transfer/deportation of the indigenous people of Thule (the Inughuits), a small Inuit community living off traditional hunting and fishing. Its 187 representatives were forced to leave their ancestral lands and go into exile in Qaanaaq, 150 kilometers to the north. They did not receive compensation until 1999.

Camp Century without ‘Atoms for Peace’

In June 1959, 204 km south of the Thule airbase, construction began on Camp Century, 1,290 kilometers from the North Pole. Taking advantage of the polar day, 150 to 200 men from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) worked around the clock. Officially, the aim was to support a community of scientists dedicated to climate research. And yet...

Camp Century represents the first stage of the top-secret “Iceworm” project. Behind this facade, the pioneering base's purpose is to study the functionality of a ballistic missile launch pad under the ice cap to vitrify the USSR. Although the facility, including its ‘pocket’ nuclear reactor, was revealed in the pages of ‘The Saturday Evening Post’ magazine in 1960, the existence of this project, including its nuclear component, was not made public until 1997 by the Danish Institute for International Affairs, a research institute under the Danish Ministry of Foreign Affairs. 
https://www.diis.dk/

At the time, The Pentagon plans to build a military complex covering approximately 135,000 km² (an area larger than Greece) that could accommodate up to 11,000 soldiers. The plan is to store 600 Minuteman ballistic missiles with nuclear warheads and rotate them between 2,100 silos hidden under the Arctic ice in order to confuse Soviet intelligence, preferably with the aim of being undetectable! However, no missiles were ultimately deployed at the base.

The end of an illusion and Camp Century on borrowed time

Digging the subglacial base using giant snowploughs or “snow blowers” brought in from the Swiss Alps is no easy task. A total of 21 tunnels are dug, all perpendicular to a 335-metre-long “main street”. The 55-hectare ‘Ice Palace’ includes residential quarters, a library, work and leisure areas, a theatre and a church. Wastewater is discharged into pits, in the hope that it will freeze in the cryosphere and disappear forever from the eyes and noses of humanity.

he site is powered by diesel generators. But something better is needed. A 2-megawatt pressurised water reactor is therefore transported from Thule in parts across the ice cap and assembled on site at Camp Century. With 20 kg of uranium-235 enriched to 93%, the PM-2A (Portable Medium Power) modular nuclear reactor is capable of powering the camp for two years and, at the same time, replacing the generator sets' annual consumption of 1.5 million litres of fuel oil. In October 1960, the PM-2A, designed by the American Locomotive Company (ALCO), began producing electricity. A “pocket” nuclear reactor: a world first!

But this small modular reactor, the ancestor of SMRs, designed and built in the mid-20th century, poses a health and environmental threat for centuries to come, as noted by Paul Bierman, professor of environmental science at the University of Vermont and author of When the Ice Is Gone: What a Greenland Ice Core Reveals About Earth's Tumultuous History and Perilous Future. (What a Greenland ice core reveals about Earth's tumultuous history and perilous future).

Is this radically innovative atomic technology reassuring? According to a report by Robin Hood, the precautions imposed on technicians responsible for inserting fuel rods into the reactor core are almost non-existent.

The end of an illusion and Camp Century on hold

We will have to face reality: maintaining the site is proving to be laborious, complicated, even absurd.The tunnel frames are warping and collapsing under the pressure of ice and surface snow. To prevent Camp Century from collapsing, military engineers must remove 40 tons of snow from the base every week and clear 120 tons from the surface every month. The rigid steel railways are at risk of warping under the effect of the movement of the ice, which could cause the missiles to tip over. The nuclear reactor, connected to a network of pipes, vents, and ducts that are themselves in motion, isalso at risk. The Iceworm program is therefore becoming increasingly untenable.Strategic differences within the military and technical problems (rapid deformation of the tunnels, difficulty in getting the missiles to function properly at -20°C) led Secretary of Defense McNamara to cancel the project in 1963. This fiasco was also the result of ignorance. As Neil Shea wrote on January 30, 2025: “The Iceworm project was doomed from the start because glaciers behave like living things. They slide, shrink, grow, and collapse, and it is impossible for anyone to stop them.” In response to the emergency, Camp Century was closed during the summer of 1963. During the summer of 1964, the reactor core was dismantled and repatriated to the United States. The camp was abandoned four years later. But that didn't mean everything was resolved...

The continuation of a series of disasters

Two years after Camp Century was closed, a strategic bomber carrying nuclear munitions crashed near Thule Air Base, renamed Pituffik Space Base in 2023. Despite crashing on the ice floe, the four H-bombs did not detonate. However, the plane exploded, causing the nuclear charges to rupture and scatter, contaminating the surrounding snow. A major clean-up operation was then launched. The Inuit were invited to help with the clean-up, even though they did not have adequate protective equipment. Many Inuit died as a result of their contamination. Cancer rates among this population reached record levels.

The environmental fallout from Camp Century

From 1967 onwards, Camp Century was abandoned. Completely. In the hope that snow and ice would bury the memory of the place.William Colgan, a climate and glacier specialist at York University in Toronto,explained to The Guardian newspaper in September 2016 that at the time, in the 1960s, the term “global warming” had not even been invented. But the climate is changing, and the question now is whether what is below will remain there. The legacy of this grandiose yet short-lived adventure is fraught with consequences.In accordance with the agreement between the United States and the Danish Atomic Energy Commission (responsible for supervising the dismantling), all solid waste is removed from Greenland, placed in concrete containers and submerged in designated sites in the Arctic Ocean or deposited in landfill sites in the United States. All waste?

The future of waste

According to a study conducted by academics from Canada, Switzerland, the United States, and Denmark, 200,000 liters of diesel fuel, 240,000 liters of wastewater, reactor cooling water, and 9,200 tons of solid waste from the dismantling of structures, tunnels, rails, and maintenance workshops have been left behind.

According to the authors of the study, chemical waste is the most concerning, particularly PCBs (polychlorinated biphenyls, known commercially as “pyralene”), which are particularly suitable for use in the Arctic. Thanks to their high thermal resistance and low flammability, these PCBs—which are endocrine disruptors, carcinogens, persistent, and bioaccumulative—are used in air bases and radar stations to prevent fires. In 2016, the bulk of solid waste from Camp Century is concentrated at a depth of 36 meters, and the bulk of liquid waste at around 65 meters. From 2090 onwards, due to global warming, the thickness of the ice cap will decrease. Sooner or later, the reappearance of waste (temporarily) sequestered in the ice will place an additional burden on the environment and on animal and human populations as a result of past negligence. The “toxic soup” will slowly make its way towards Melville Bay or "Melville Bay Wildlife Sanctuary", a sanctuary dedicated to protecting beluga whales, narwhals, seals, and polar bears.

Discoveries thanks to ice core sampling

The scientific showcase of the project, whose true content was revealed by Danish officials in 1997, has nevertheless enabled the extraction of the first ice core sample, which is now being studied with increasing interest. These data provide a clearer picture of a future in which the quadrillions of liters of fresh water currently locked in the Greenland ice sheet could melt and be “released” into the ocean.

Between megalomania and ignorance

Despite all the planning, no one could have imagined that the scientific research conducted at Camp Century, with the aim of concealing the ultimate nuclear objectives (Iceworm), would be Camp Century's sole lasting legacy.

https://athena21.org 

Ben Cramer

Détenteur d’un diplôme de la Paix, Ben s’initie à la polémologie avant d’étudier la sociologie de la Défense à l’Ecole des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales, puis à Bradford, au Department of Peace Studies. On lui doit alors (1985) un rapport sur l’armée de milice suisse – réalisé pour le compte de la Fondation pour les Études de Défense Nationale. Tout en publiant dans ‘The Ecologist’ en passant par ‘Science & Vie’, il contribue à un ouvrage sur les bases américaines en Europe (‘The Sun Never Sets’). Il écrit sur l’esprit de défense avec l’ancien rédacteur en chef de la revue « Projet », couvre (à l’époque) la conférence sur le désarmement chimique pour l’hebdo ‘Témoignage Chrétien’ avec feu Paul-Marie de la Gorce, et publie aussi dans ‘Médecine & Guerre Nucléaire’, ou encore des belles feuilles dans ‘Utopie Critique’.

Après avoir animé la rubrique ´ »Veille Diplomatique » de ‘Courrier International’, il est nommé en 1992 responsable des questions de désarmement au sein de Greenpeace International, une ONG qu’il quitte en participant à la réalisation de ‘La face cachée de la Bretagne ‘, documentaire de 13′ sur la base d’Ile Longue, commercialisé par la société Impossible Production, présenté au Festival International des Films sur l’Environnement, Lille. Puis, il devient producteur de l’émission ‘Fréquence Terre ‘ entre 1996 et 2002, sur les ondes de Radio France International (RFI). C’est alors l’occasion de préparer des émissions (Paroles d’Acteurs) pour l’AFD, d’être sélectionné par le Peace and Human Security Media Festival, New York, en Septembre 2002 pour son entretien avec Ted Taylor dans l’émission “Voices » ; de contribuer à l’Atlas Mondial du développement Durable, d’A.M. Sacquet, édité par Autrement, ; avant d’être animateur pour SBS – Special Broadcasting Service, à Sydney.

Après avoir écrit le pamphlet « Le nucléaire dans tous ses États »,  – Les enjeux nucléaires de la mondialisation‘, aux éditions Alias (2002), il cherche à populariser le concept de « sécurité écologique » – comme conférencier, comme consultant auprès de Green Cross International sur la sécurisation des désarmements nucléaire et chimique, et comme reporter avec l’ouvrage sur le projet d’enfouissement des déchets de Bure ‘(La Descente aux enfers, co-auteur C. Saïsset, Esprit Frappeur, 2004). Il co-anime dès 2008 le premier débat au Parlement Européen sur le thème de ‘Sécurité Collective et Environnement’. Chargé de recherches au CIRPES, chercheur associé au GRIP (Bruxelles), il participe en 2008 à un groupe de réflexion sur la lutte contre la prolifération nucléaire, dans le cadre du Centre d’Etude et de Recherche de l’Enseignement Militaire, le CEREM. Sous l’égide du Bureau International de la Paix, à Genève, il publie en 2009 l’ouvrage Nuclear Weapons: at what cost ?, traduit (depuis) en finlandais, dans le cadre d’une campagne avec l’ONG ‘Frères des Hommes’ qui milite sur le front ‘Désarmer pour combattre la pauvreté’ avec Ekta Parishad en Inde. Il contribue à deux ouvrages du GIPRI, le dernier paraissant en été 2013. Depuis 2011, il enseigne la géopolitique du développement durable dans le cadre d’un master à la Faculté de Sciences Sociales et Economiques de l’ICP à Paris.

Le Blog de Ben Cramer : 

www.athena21.org

Principales publications