JASON was a nuclear reactor installed by the Ministry of Defence at the Royal Naval College in Greenwich, London.
It was an Argonaut series 10 kW pressurized water reactor (PWR) of the type used by the Royal Navy in its nuclear submarines, installed for experimental and training purposes.
JASON was operational from 1962 to 1996, and fully dismantled by 1999. 270 tonnes of radiocative waste was removed.
JASON was one of very few reactors operating within a major population centre – and undoubtedly the only one installed in a 17th century building. The Royal Naval College building was the former Greenwich Hospital, built between 1696 and 1712 by Christopher Wren, where the reactor was located within the King William Bulding. It is a Grade I listed building and Scheduled Ancient Monument. It is now used as a campus of the University of Greenwich and Trinity College of Music.
The existence of a nuclear reactor so close to central London was largely unknown to the general public, even at the time that "Maritime Greenwich" was named a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1997.
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