Knolls Atomic Power Laboratory - Today

Today

KAPL operates two sites in the Schenectady, New York area: the Knolls site in Niskayuna and the Kenneth A. Kesselring site in West Milton. Niskayuna is the primary site for the KAPL, focusing on the design and development of naval propulsion plants and reactor cores. The West Milton site operates land-based prototypes of shipboard reactor plants. This site is also used to train officers and enlisted personnel for the U.S. Navy's fleet of nuclear powered vessels. KAPL employs more than 2,600 people at these sites and others, mostly shipyards in the states of California, Connecticut, Hawaii, Maine, Virginia, and Washington.

In 2006 KAPL achieved full remediation of the S1C Prototype Reactor site located in Windsor, Connecticut. The S1C site remedial action was declared to be complete by the Connecticut Department of Environmental Protection in October 2006. KAPL had taken over operation of the S1C Prototype in the 1960s after expiration of the Navy's original contract with Combustion Engineering.

KAPL, as well as Bettis Atomic Power Laboratory, is currently managed and operated by Bechtel Marine Propulsion Corporation, a wholly owned subsidiary of Bechtel National Incorporated. The previous operating contractor of KAPL was Lockheed Martin. KAPL's original contractor was General Electric. KAPL was one of the first laboratories to conduct research on obtaining usable power from nuclear reactors.

KAPL has one computer listed on the TOP500 list of supercomputers in the world.