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The History of Nuclear Energy

What was the timeline of scientific discovery around nuclear energy.

Trevor English

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Nuclear energy has had an interesting history, mostly due to the fact that its core technology is inherently dangerous. Although it is still a relatively new energy source in the grand scheme of things, its origins actually date back to the late 1800s. 

Let’s explore the history of nuclear energy in a little more depth to follow its progress.

The beginnings of nuclear energy

The story of nuclear energy really begins in 1895, when  Wilhelm Roentgen   discovered x-rays . 

While experimenting with a cathode ray tube, Roentgen noticed that photographic plates sitting nearby lit up when the device was on, even when it was covered in black paper, drawing him to conclude that the cathode tube was emitting an invisible ray, something that hadn’t been observed before. 

What Roentgen noticed was actually x-rays propagating from the tube. 

The following year, in France, a man named Becquerel discovered that uranium salts  could produce penetrating radiation on their own, without any need for excitation by an external energy source. 

This observation led Becquerel to the realization that the uranium must be producing x-rays. 

Marie and Pierre Curie also studied the phenomenon, leading them to isolate two new elements, Polonium and Radium. Their investigation led them, in 1898, to coin a new word, radioactivity.

While scientist Ernest Rutherford was studying radioactivity in England, he discovered two new types of radiation, which differed from x-rays, and which he called alpha and beta radiation. 

One of the most pivotal discoveries for the future of nuclear energy was also made by Rutherford. In 1909, he discovered that the majority of the mass of an atom was contained in their nucleus.

Rutherford is today considered the father of nuclear physics. He went on to discover gamma radiation, and even theorized the existence of neutrons in 1920, despite having absolutely no evidence of their existence. Neutrons would eventually be discovered in 1932. 

These foundational discoveries formed the basis for what would grow into the industry of nuclear energy production.

The splitting of atoms

In 1938, German scientists Otto Hann and Fritz Strassman shot neutrons at uranium atoms and discovered that a significant amount of energy was being released. With the help of Lise Meitner and Otto Frisch, they were able to explain that what they had observed was the splitting of the atom through fission. 

By 1939, physicists Leo Szilard and Enrico Fermi theorized that fission reactions could be used to create an explosion through a massive chain reaction.

Szilard and a few other scientists, including Albert Einstein , wrote to President Roosevelt in 1939 to warn him about the possibility of creating nuclear weapons. The President authorized an advisory committee to begin developing atomic bombs for the US. 

By 1942, Fermi, working as part of the committee, was able to create the first man-made fission chain reaction in Chicago. It was at this point that the Manhattan project swung into full development. 

The team pursued the development of two types of bombs, one using uranium as a core, and one plutonium. The project was highly secretive, and entire covert cities were built to support the project. One facility, in Oak Ridge, Tennessee, used nuclear reactions to create plutonium to be used for producing enriched uranium. Another facility in Washington used nuclear reactions to produce plutonium. 

RELATED: NEW STUDY OUTLINES COMPREHENSIVE PLAN FOR DECARBONIZATION IN NUCLEAR ENERGY SECTOR

The now-famous secret site in Los Alamos, New Mexico , was used by hundreds of scientists for the research and construction of nuclear weapons. 

The end of WWII, in 1945, saw the first use of nuclear weapons on people. This was also the moment when the majority of the world’s population, realized just how destructive this technology could be. 

Reactors being used as power sources

It was 1951 before the first nuclear reactor which produced electricity was completed. Called Experimental Breeder Reactor 1, it was based in Idaho and was cooled using liquid-metal. 

In 1954, the first nuclear-powered submarine, the USS Nautilus, was completed, allowing the submarine to stay submerged for significant portions of time without refueling. 

In the same year, the Soviets completed their first nuclear power plant. the Obninsk Nuclear Power Plant, the first grid-connected nuclear reactor.  The Shippingport Atomic Power Station, in Pennsylvania, came online in 1957 and was the world’s first full-scale atomic electric power plant devoted exclusively to peacetime use.

The 1960s and 70s brought the development and construction of many more commercial nuclear reactors for electricity generation, many of which worked off of slightly modified designers from previous reactors.

These nuclear power plants were touted as relatively cheap and emission-free sources of electricity. Nuclear power was seen by many at this time as holding the promise of being the power source of the future. 

In 1974, France made a big push for the development of nuclear energy, eventually generating as much as 75% of its power through nuclear reactors. During the same time period, around 20% of the energy generation in the United States came from nuclear energy, produced by 104 plants across the country. 

However, in 1979, the future of nuclear power was thrown into question with the accident at Three Mile Island. This partial meltdown of a reactor in Pennsylvania began the shift in public opinion on the safety of nuclear reactors.

When the Chernobyl disaster occurred in 1986, releasing a vast cloud of radiation that affected much of northern Europe, and as far as the east coast of the United States, global opinion began to shift away from nuclear power. Although, these disasters did lead to the creation of safer reactor designs.

RELATED: NUCLEAR MELTDOWN AND HOW IT CAN BE PREVENTED

One interesting nuclear energy history fact is that in 1994, Russia and the US agreed to downgrade their nuclear warheads into nuclear fuel. Around 10% of US nuclear electricity today is produced using dismantled nuclear weapons.

The nuclear energy sector in the post-Chernobyl era of the late 90s and 2000s was marked by a high degree of safety in plant operations and no US deaths. The general opinion of nuclear power began to shift back into the positive as the industry demonstrated continued safety.

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However, the Fukushima disaster, in 2011, in which an earthquake and tsunami led to a partial meltdown and the release of a large amount of radiation from a Japanese reactor, served as a reminder that nuclear power is not completely safe.

Around 14 percent of global energy is still produced through nuclear power plants today, and some estimate that nuclear energy may have saved 1.8 million lives over the course of its history, by offsetting air pollution from the use of fossil fuels. 

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• Published: 11 June 2020

A brief history of nuclear fusion

• Matteo Barbarino 1  

Nature Physics volume  16 ,  pages 890–893 ( 2020 ) Cite this article

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• Magnetically confined plasmas
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An Author Correction to this article was published on 18 June 2020

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Since the 1950s, international cooperation has been the driving force behind fusion research. Here, we discuss how the International Atomic Energy Agency has shaped the field and the events that have produced fusion’s global signature partnership.

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The fusion process has been studied in order to understand nuclear matter and forces, to learn more about the nuclear physics of stellar objects, and to develop thermonuclear weapons. During the late 1940s and early ’50s, research programs in the United States , United Kingdom, and the Soviet Union began to yield a better understanding of nuclear fusion, and investigators embarked on ways of exploiting the process for practical energy production. Fusion reactor research focused primarily on using magnetic fields and electromagnetic forces to contain the extremely hot plasmas needed for thermonuclear fusion.

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Researchers soon found, however, that it is exceedingly difficult to contain plasmas at fusion reaction temperatures because the hot gases tend to expand and escape from the enclosing magnetic structure. Plasma physics theory in the 1950s was incapable of describing the behaviour of the plasmas in many of the early magnetic confinement systems.

The undeniable potential benefits of practical fusion energy led to an increasing call for international cooperation. American, British, and Soviet fusion programs were strictly classified until 1958, when most of their research programs were made public at the Second Geneva Conference on the Peaceful Uses of Atomic Energy, sponsored by the United Nations . Since that time, fusion research has been characterized by international collaboration. In addition, scientists have also continued to study and measure fusion reactions between the lighter elements so as to arrive at a more accurate determination of reaction rates. The formulas developed by nuclear physicists for predicting the rate of fusion energy generation have been adopted by astrophysicists to derive new information about the structure and evolution of stars.

Work on the other major approach to fusion energy, inertial confinement fusion (ICF), was begun in the early 1960s. The initial idea was proposed in 1961, only a year after the reported invention of the laser , in a then-classified proposal to employ large pulses of laser energy (which no one then quite knew how to achieve) to implode and shock-heat matter to temperatures at which nuclear fusion would proceed vigorously. Aspects of inertial confinement fusion were declassified in the 1970s and, especially, in the early 1990s to reveal important aspects of the design of the targets containing fusion fuels. Very painstaking and sophisticated work to design and develop short-pulse, high-power lasers and suitable millimetre-sized targets continues, and significant progress has been made.

Although practical fusion reactors have not been built yet, the necessary conditions of plasma temperature and heat insulation have been largely achieved, suggesting that fusion energy for electric-power production is now a serious possibility. Commercial fusion reactors promise an inexhaustible source of electricity for countries worldwide. From a practical viewpoint, however, the initiation of nuclear fusion in a hot plasma is but the first step in a whole sequence of steps required to convert fusion energy to electricity. In the end, successful fusion power systems must be capable of producing electricity safely and in a cost-effective manner, with a minimum of radioactive waste and environmental impact. The quest for practical fusion energy remains one of the great scientific and engineering challenges of humankind.

What is The Brief History of Nuclear Energy

• November 7, 2023

Have you ever wondered how nuclear energy came to be and its profound impact on our world? Join us on a journey through the captivating history of nuclear energy, from its initial discoveries to the creation of the first power plants. You’ll delve into the groundbreaking work of key figures like Rontgen, the Curies, and Rutherford, and explore the pivotal moment of atomic fission explained by Meitner and Frisch. Discover the challenges, milestones, and international implications that have shaped the history of nuclear energy and continue to shape our world today.

Early Discoveries and Advances in Nuclear Physics

You discovered the early breakthroughs in nuclear physics that laid the foundation for the development of nuclear energy. The history of nuclear energy is intertwined with the discovery of nuclear physics and the understanding of atomic fission. In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, scientists made significant strides in understanding the nature of radiation and the behavior of atomic particles.

Key discoveries included the identification of uranium as a radioactive element, the isolation of polonium and radium, the discovery of the neutron, and the splitting of uranium atoms through fission.

These early discoveries paved the way for the harnessing of nuclear fission and the development of nuclear power . Scientists like Otto Hahn and Fritz Strassmann demonstrated that fission released additional neutrons, which could lead to chain reactions . Niels Bohr proposed that fission was more likely in uranium-235 and with slow-moving neutrons, leading to the need for uranium enrichment. The control of nuclear reactions through neutron absorption was also demonstrated.

The first nuclear power plant to produce electricity was the Experimental Breeder Reactor (EBR-1) in the United States. This marked a significant milestone in the commercialization of nuclear energy. As nuclear power expanded , challenges arose, such as accidents at Three Mile Island and Chernobyl, which highlighted the importance of safety measures.

Discovery and Understanding of Atomic Fission

The discovery and understanding of atomic fission revolutionized the field of nuclear physics and paved the way for the development of nuclear energy. Atomic fission, the process of splitting the nucleus of an atom, was first demonstrated by Otto Hahn and Fritz Strassmann in 1938. This groundbreaking discovery marked a turning point in nuclear history, as it revealed the immense amount of energy that could be released through this process .

Further understanding of atomic fission was provided by Lise Meitner and Otto Frisch, who explained the mechanism of fission through neutron capture. This understanding was confirmed by Albert Einstein’s paper on mass-energy equivalence, which solidified the scientific basis for harnessing nuclear energy .

The discovery of atomic fission had profound implications, leading to the development of nuclear power plants. It was recognized that fission reactions could release additional neutrons, creating a chain reaction that could be controlled and harnessed for the generation of electricity.

The first nuclear reactor to produce electricity was the Experimental Breeder Reactor (EBR-1) in the United States. This marked a significant milestone in the history of nuclear energy, as it demonstrated the practical application of atomic fission for power generation.

Since then, nuclear energy has played a crucial role in meeting the world’s growing demand for electricity. It has provided a reliable and efficient source of power, while also raising important questions about safety, waste management, and the potential for nuclear weapons proliferation. Nonetheless, the discovery and understanding of atomic fission laid the foundation for the development of nuclear power plants, shaping the course of energy production for decades to come.

Harnessing Nuclear Fission

To harness the power of atomic fission, scientists and engineers devised innovative methods to control and utilize the energy released from splitting the nucleus of an atom. This marked a significant milestone in the development of nuclear energy, leading to the exploration of its potential for electricity generation. Here are four key aspects of harnessing nuclear fission:

Nuclear Energy Invention

The invention of nuclear energy can be attributed to the work of Otto Hahn and Fritz Strassmann, who demonstrated atomic fission in 1938. This discovery paved the way for further research and understanding of nuclear reactions.

Nuclear Background

The background of nuclear energy dates back to early discoveries in nuclear physics, such as the identification of alpha and beta radiation by Ernest Rutherford and the discovery of neutrons by James Chadwick. These foundational findings laid the groundwork for the harnessing of nuclear fission .

When was Nuclear Energy First Used

The first use of nuclear energy for electricity generation occurred in 1951 when an experimental liquid-metal cooled reactor in Idaho produced the first nuclear-generated electricity. This marked a significant milestone in the practical application of nuclear energy.

US First Nuclear Power Plant

The first commercial nuclear power plant in the United States was the Shippingport reactor, which began operation in 1957. This plant utilized a design similar to that of the nuclear-powered submarines developed by the US Navy. It demonstrated the feasibility and potential of nuclear energy for large-scale electricity production.

The harnessing of nuclear fission revolutionized the field of energy production and opened up new possibilities for electricity generation. The development of nuclear power plants and the continued advancements in nuclear technology have further solidified the role of nuclear energy in meeting the world’s growing demand for electricity.

Russian Contributions to Nuclear Physics

Russian scientists have made significant contributions to nuclear physics throughout history, continuing their research even during World War II. When it comes to the invention of nuclear power, several key figures played important roles. Igor Kurchatov, often referred to as the “father of the Soviet atomic bomb,” led the Soviet Union’s nuclear program during World War II and was instrumental in the development of the first nuclear reactor in the USSR.

It was under his leadership that the Soviet Union successfully tested its first atomic bomb in 1949. Another notable figure is Georgy Flerov, who made significant contributions to the discovery of superheavy elements and nuclear reactions. Flerov was a key figure in the synthesis of elements 104 (rutherfordium) and 105 (dubnium), and his work laid the foundation for further advancements in nuclear physics. These Russian scientists played a crucial role in the development of nuclear energy and their contributions continue to shape the field to this day.

Development of Nuclear Energy and Weapons

Explore the pivotal role of nuclear energy and weapons in shaping the course of history. Nuclear energy and weapons have had a profound impact on scientific advancement, warfare, and the generation of electricity. Here are four key developments that have defined the development of nuclear energy and weapons:

The Manhattan Project

The United States spearheaded the development of atomic weapons during World War II through the Manhattan Project. This project led to the successful testing of the first atomic bomb in New Mexico in 1945, forever changing the nature of warfare.

The Soviet Bomb

After receiving intelligence reports suggesting atomic bomb development in other countries, Stalin initiated a research program that resulted in the Soviet Union successfully developing its own atomic bomb. This development intensified the arms race between the United States and the Soviet Union during the Cold War.

Early Development of Nuclear Energy

The first nuclear reactor to produce electricity was the Experimental Breeder Reactor (EBR-1) in the United States. This breakthrough paved the way for the commercialization of nuclear energy and the construction of nuclear power plants around the world.

Commercialization of Nuclear Energy

Westinghouse designed the first fully commercial pressurized water reactor (PWR), known as Yankee Rowe, which started operating in 1960. This marked a significant milestone in the expansion of nuclear power as a reliable source of electricity.

These developments have not only shaped the course of history but have also raised important ethical and safety concerns surrounding the use of nuclear energy and weapons. The ongoing debate surrounding nuclear power and disarmament underscores the complexity and lasting impact of these advancements.

During the early development of nuclear energy, you will delve into the advancements and breakthroughs that paved the way for harnessing the power of atomic reactions. Uranium, discovered in 1789 by Martin Klaproth, played a crucial role in the understanding of nuclear physics. Wilhelm Rontgen’s discovery of ionizing radiation in 1895 and Henri Becquerel’s observation of pitchblende’s impact on photographic plates further expanded our knowledge.

The isolation of polonium and radium from pitchblende by Pierre and Marie Curie, along with Samuel Prescott’s demonstration of radiation’s ability to destroy bacteria in food, contributed to the understanding of radioactivity . Ernest Rutherford’s discovery of different elements created by radioactivity and Frederick Soddy’s identification of naturally-radioactive elements with different isotopes added to the growing body of knowledge.

The discovery of the neutron by James Chadwick and the production of nuclear transformations by bombarding atoms with protons by Cockcroft and Walton were significant milestones. The breakthrough of atomic fission by Otto Hahn and Fritz Strassmann, and its explanation by Lise Meitner and Otto Frisch, marked a turning point in the development of nuclear energy. The subsequent understanding of critical mass by Francis Perrin and the control of nuclear reactions through neutron absorption by Perrin’s group further propelled the field forward. The early development of nuclear energy culminated in the construction of the Experimental Breeder reactor (EBR-1) in the USA, which became the first nuclear reactor to produce electricity.

To understand the commercialization of nuclear energy, you need to delve into the advancements and breakthroughs that paved the way for harnessing the power of atomic reactions. Here are four key factors that contributed to the commercialization of nuclear energy:

Discovery of atomic fission

In 1938, Otto Hahn and Fritz Strassmann demonstrated that atomic fission had occurred, leading to the understanding that splitting the nucleus of an atom could release a tremendous amount of energy. This discovery laid the foundation for the development of nuclear power.

Enrichment of uranium-235

Bohr’s proposal in the 1930s that fission would be more likely in uranium-235 and with slow-moving neutrons led to the need for enriching uranium-235. This process involves increasing the concentration of uranium-235 in natural uranium, making it suitable for use as fuel in nuclear reactors.

Controlled nuclear reactions

Scientists such as Francis Perrin demonstrated the control of nuclear reactions through neutron absorption, which allowed for the regulation and moderation of the energy released during fission. This control was essential for the safe and efficient operation of nuclear power plant s.

Development of commercial reactors:

The first fully commercial pressurized water reactor (PWR), called Yankee Rowe, was designed by Westinghouse and started up in 1960. This marked a significant milestone in the commercialization of nuclear energy, as it demonstrated the feasibility and viability of nuclear power as a source of electricity.

These advancements and breakthroughs paved the way for the commercialization of nuclear energy, leading to the construction of numerous nuclear power plants worldwide and the establishment of nuclear energy as a significant contributor to the global energy mix.

Expansion and Standardization of Nuclear Power

In the 1960s and 1970s, nuclear power expanded rapidly as countries around the world standardized the construction of nuclear power plants . This period marked a significant shift towards the widespread adoption of nuclear energy as a source of electricity generation. The standardization of nuclear power plant designs allowed for efficient construction processes , reducing costs and increasing the speed of deployment.

During this time, many countries recognized the potential of nuclear power as a reliable and clean source of energy . The United States, for example, built multiple nuclear reactors, with 104 reactors in total, accounting for approximately 20% of its electricity production. France also made a major push for nuclear energy, resulting in 75% of its electricity coming from nuclear reactors.

However, the expansion of nuclear power was not without its challenges. Labor shortages and construction delays increased the cost of building nuclear reactors, slowing down their growth. Furthermore, accidents such as the Three Mile Island incident in 1979 and the Chernobyl disaster in 1986 raised concerns about the safety of nuclear energy.

Despite these challenges, the standardization and expansion of nuclear power in the 1960s and 1970s laid the foundation for the modern nuclear energy industry. Today, nuclear power continues to be an important source of electricity in many countries, providing a reliable and low-carbon alternative to fossil fuels.

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Sept. 30, 1954: The World’s First Nuclear-Powered Submarine, U.S.S. Nautilus, Enters Navy Service

Years earlier, a physicist named ross gunn had recognized the potential of nuclear energy to power submarines..

In the spring of 1939, Enrico Fermi met with representatives from the U.S. Navy and Army to share big news: The uranium atom had been split, opening the potential of nuclear energy for explosives and power generation.

The meeting didn’t spark an immediate bomb effort, as Enrico Fermi and his colleague Leo Szilard had hoped. It would take several months for the gears of what would become the Manhattan Project to start turning, spurred by a letter President Franklin D. Roosevelt received from Szilard and Albert Einstein in October of that year. But the meeting did spark immediate action in another direction: nuclear-powered propulsion.

For years, the U.S. Navy had been pursuing alternative energy sources for ships, particularly its submarines. Limited by their power source, the vessels could stay underwater for just 12-48 hours. Even before the meeting with Fermi, Ross Gunn, the prolific and versatile physicist in charge of the Mechanics and Electricity Division at the Naval Research Lab (NRL), had realized that theoretically, nuclear energy could revolutionize their capacity.

Gunn “was not particularly interested in the development of an atomic bomb, but he was pointedly aware of the distinct advantages of controlled nuclear power to the U. S. Navy,” wrote Carl Holmquist and Russell Greenbaum in a 1960 article for the U.S. Naval Institute’s Proceedings .

To Gunn, Fermi’s meeting signaled it was time to start experimenting.

At the time, submarines relied on electric batteries for underwater propulsion, but the batteries were charged by diesel-powered generators that required frequent resurfacing, fuel, and oxygen. The Navy had considered other propulsion sources, such as fuel cells, but oxygen remained the limiting factor. Gunn envisioned an entirely new power source — a uranium core that would heat water to run a steam power plant onboard.

Shortly after Fermi’s meeting, Gunn’s division secured funding to begin research. Step one was to enrich uranium, so the team explored ways to separate uranium isotopes. Work progressed slowly at first but picked up speed when Gunn began working with Philip Abelson, a physicist at the Carnegie Institution of Washington who had recently pioneered a method of liquid thermal diffusion to separate the isotopes.

Abelson had designed a tall, thin column from three concentric pipes. The innermost pipe held steam, the middle pipe dissolved uranium hexafluoride, and the outermost pipe cooling water. The temperature gradient experienced by the middle pipe caused the lighter uranium-235 isotopes to diffuse toward the hot inner pipe and travel upward, while the heavier uranium-238 isotopes traveled downward, said Abelson in an interview with the Atomic Heritage Foundation. “All one has to do is fill this thing and put steam in and cooling water and go away for three days, and one has some separation.”

The Bureau of Standards and NRL helped Abelson test the method on successively bigger scales — the greater the temperature gradient and taller the column, the better the output. After supporting the work for several months, Gunn hired Abelson in 1941. “For a time, the facility at the Naval Research Laboratory was the world's most successful separator of uranium isotopes,” Abelson wrote in the National Academies Biographical Memoirs . By 1944, they had a 300-column plant at the Philadelphia Naval Shipyard.

In the meantime, the U.S. Army’s Manhattan Project worked feverishly on other types of uranium enrichment but did not share any information, even with the Navy. Still, most of the shipyard’s enriched uranium went to the Manhattan Project. Submarine research stalled.

“The NRL’s efforts to develop a nuclear-powered submarine were blocked by the Manhattan Project’s monopoly on nuclear research,” wrote University of Pennsylvania archivist Joseph-James Ahern in an International Journal of Naval History paper. He reports Gunn as having recalled, “We had the hose turned on us!”

On seeing Abelson’s favorable results, the Manhattan Project built a copycat liquid thermal diffusion plant with 2,142 columns, each 15 meters tall, at Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL). The so-called S-50 plant played a critical role in history. A trio of plants enriched uranium in series for the first atomic bomb, which was dropped on Hiroshima, Japan, on Aug. 6, 1945; the first feeder plant was S-50.

After World War II, Gunn received an award from the Secretary of the Navy for his “outstanding contribution to the development of the atomic bomb.” He and Abelson returned to promoting research on nuclear-powered submarines as countries became increasingly adept at detecting diesel submarines. In 1946, at Gunn’s urging, the Navy sent personnel to learn about nuclear energy from Manhattan Project scientists, now under the Atomic Energy Commission.

That same year, Abelson returned to the Carnegie Institution and transitioned to biophysics. Soon after, Gunn left NRL for the United States Weather Bureau. In their wake, a new champion for nuclear-powered submarines emerged: Captain Hyman Rickover.

Rickover, an electrical engineer, was one of five people the Navy assigned to learn about nuclear energy. He quickly grasped the benefits of nuclear power and went on to head the new Nuclear Power Branch of the Navy’s Bureau of Ships and, simultaneously, the Division of Reactor Development for the Atomic Energy Commission. With the uranium quest resolved, he led the effort to design a safe and compact power plant for a submarine.

Under Rickover, a group of engineering duty officers worked with experts such as physicist Alvin Weinberg, administrator of ORNL, and Harold Etherington, director of the Naval Reactors Division at Argonne National Laboratory, and their civilian teams to experiment with reactor designs.

“There were several reactor concepts; the real challenge was to develop this technology and transform the theoretical into the practical,” says a commemorative article released by the Naval Nuclear Propulsion Program in 2023. “New materials had to be developed, components designed, and fabrication techniques worked out.”

The team designed a pressurized water reactor, a model for the most common types of nuclear reactors, even today. Water in a coolant loop is kept under high pressure and pumped near a core of slightly enriched uranium. The water heats up, but the high pressure keeps it from boiling. The heated water then travels into a steam generator where it vaporizes water in a secondary loop. The resulting steam turns a turbine generator and creates electricity.

In the early 1950s, Rickover contracted with the manufacturing company Westinghouse to build the reactor and the Electric Boat Division of General Dynamics to build SSN-571, the submarine it would power. The submarine underwent extensive safety testing before and after the Navy installed the reactor. In addition, Rickover personally interviewed and approved every Navy member of the nuclear reactors program — not just initially, but for decades.

U.S.S. Nautilus was launched on Jan. 21, 1954, and on Sept. 30, more than 1,200 people gathered for the submarine’s commissioning. The world’s first nuclear-powered submarine raised its U.S. flag, and the vessel officially entered Navy service. After a few months of additional testing and construction, Commander Eugene P. Wilkinson ordered the lines cast off Nautilus in January 1955, and it took to sea, signaling back, “Underway on nuclear power."

Nautilus and its crew “dominated virtually every NATO exercise they participated in,” wrote Tom Clancy in his book Submarine: A Guided Tour Inside a Nuclear Warship . It crushed speed and distance records, submerged for more than two weeks at a time, and avoided the best submarine detection systems. In 1958, it became the first vessel to cross under the North Pole. Nautilus was a prototype for the Navy’s revolutionary submarine fleet, and the reactor a prototype of the commercial reactors to come.

Nautilus remained in service for 25 years and traveled half a million miles before being decommissioned in 1980. It’s now a national historic landmark open to the public at the Submarine Force Museum in Groton, Connecticut.

Kendra Redmond

Kendra Redmond is a writer based in Bloomington, Minnesota.

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A Clean Energy Powerhouse: The Digital I&C Systems Modernizing Nuclear

The legacy of Experimental Breeder Reactor-I

"At 1:23 p.m. load dissipaters from the generator were connected—electricity flows from atomic energy.” These were the words Walter Zinn wrote in the log after the first four light bulbs were illuminated by nuclear energy. The year was 1951, and the EBR-­I was about to show the world what nuclear energy had to offer.

Project Rover: The original nuclear-powered rocket program

It’s Thursday, meaning it’s time to dig through the Nuclear News archives for another #ThrowbackThursday post. Today’s story goes back 60 years to the January 1963 issue of NN and the cover story “Review of Rover: A nuclear rocket” (p. 9), which reviews the first phase of the nuclear rocket program from Los Alamos National Laboratory.

Some quick digging online uncovers a lot of information about Project Rover, most notably, a short 20-minute film on the LANL YouTube page that reviews the project ( Historic 1960s Film Describes Project Rover ). The description of the video notes that the project was active from 1955 to 1973 and led to the design of multiple reactors suitable for testing, including Pewee 1, and that NASA has a modern nuclear thermal propulsion project based on the Pewee design. So it seems fitting to revisit Project Rover, given that there is today a lot of renewed interest in nuclear propulsion for space exploration .

The opening line from the January 1963 article seems to ring true today— “Provided the U. S. continues her space efforts, nuclear-powered rockets are inevitable”—although that probably didn’t seem likely to the nuclear community after the country’s attention shifted from the Space Race to the Vietnam War in the early 1970s when Project Rover was canceled. The introduction to the article lays out the argument for a nuclear-powered rocket and provides a review of the program since its launch in 1955.

The full article as it appeared in 1963 is reprinted below, but don’t forget, all ANS members have full access to the Nuclear News archives that has decades of great content about all topics on nuclear science and technology. Happy reading!

After 70 years, J. Robert Oppenheimer’s legacy is being rewritten

On December 16 the Department of Energy reversed a decision made nearly 70 years ago by leaders of its predecessor agency, the Atomic Energy Commission, to revoke the security clearance of J. Robert Oppenheimer, the scientist who led the first group of scientists and engineers at what would eventually become Los Alamos National Laboratory as they built the first atomic bomb. While it comes far too late for Oppenheimer, his family, and his colleagues to appreciate, the McCarthy-era campaign to discredit Oppenheimer is now itself officially discredited as “a flawed process that violated the Commission’s own regulations,” in the words of the DOE’s recent announcement.

Oppenheimer’s story has been told many times by biographers and chroniclers of the Manhattan Project; a new feature film is expected in July 2023. Today, we offer a #ThrowbackThursday post that examines the scant coverage of Oppenheimer’s life and work in the pages of Nuclear News to date and draws on other historical content—and the DOE’s recent move to correct the record—to fill a few of the gaps.

CP-1 at 80: The legacy of CP-1—and the scientist who created its neutron activity detector

Nuclear Newswire is back with the final #ThrowbackThursday post honoring the 80th anniversary of Chicago Pile-1 with offerings from past issues of Nuclear News . On November 17, we took a look at the lead-up to the first controlled nuclear chain reaction and on December 1, the events of December 2, 1942 , the day a self-sustaining nuclear fission reaction was created and controlled inside a pile of graphite and uranium assembled on a squash court at the University of Chicago’s Stagg Field.

Nuclear energy remains transformational, 80 years after Chicago Pile-1

At a moment of global crisis, in a windowless squash court below the football stadium bleachers at the University of Chicago, a group of scientists changed the world forever.

On December 2, 1942, a team of researchers led by Enrico Fermi, an Italian refugee, successfully achieved the world’s first human-­created, self-­sustaining nuclear chain reaction. Racing to beat Nazi Germany to the creation of an atomic weapon, the team of researchers, working as part of the Manhattan Project, split uranium atoms contained within a large graphite pile—Chicago Pile-­1, the first nuclear reactor ever built.

CP-1 at 80: The events of December 2, 1942

On the eve of the 80th anniversary of the first controlled nuclear chain reaction, Nuclear Newswire is back with the second of three prepared #ThrowbackThursday posts of CP-1 coverage from past issues of Nuclear News .

On November 17, we surveyed the events of 1942 leading up to the construction of Chicago Pile-1 , an assemblage of graphite bricks and uranium “pseudospheres” used to achieve and control a self-sustaining fission reaction on December 2, 1942, inside a squash court at the University of Chicago’s Stagg Field.

Today we’ll pick up where we left off, as construction of CP-1 began on November 16, 1942.

The male business of nuclear diplomacy

Maria Rentetzi

An unusual event during the recent General Conference of the International Atomic Energy Agency distracted the delegations of member states and the press from the Russian war in Ukraine and the fear of the next nuclear disaster. It was a small exhibition, Building the IAEA Headquarters and its Laboratories , at the IAEA headquarters in Vienna, which brought to life the history of the agency’s laboratories through photographs, original letters and documents, explanatory texts, and timetables.

I was invited to participate in a related panel discussion that shed light on the early days of the “ world’s first full-fledged laboratory of a truly international character ” (in the words of an article about Seibersdorf Laboratory that ran in the January 1962 edition of the IAEA Bulletin ) and its role in science diplomacy. There, I spoke of something that had struck me: Women were totally missing from the agency during this early period—making nuclear diplomacy an exclusively male business. To a large extent (as, for example, the recent IAEA missions to Ukraine show) nuclear continues to be a gendered endeavor.

The Aircraft Reactor Experiment at Oak Ridge National Laboratory

Experimentation on the world’s first molten salt reactor to potentially power aircraft was already underway in November 1954, being carried out by the U.S. Air Force. Oak Ridge National Laboratory was the scene for the power-dense, high-temperature reactor experiment known as the Aircraft Reactor Experiment (ARE).

JNSI celebrates accomplishments on 10th anniversary

The Japan Nuclear Safety Institute (JANSI) marked its 10th anniversary on November 15 by publishing a letter that highlighted some of the organization’s greatest accomplishments of the past decade. In the letter, William Edward Webster Jr., chairman of the JANSI board of directors, and Hiromi Yamazaki, JANSI president and chief executive officer, expressed their “sincere gratitude to all our members and other stakeholders who have provided support and guidance over the past 10 years.”

CP-1 at 80: Preparing for the first controlled nuclear chain reaction

As we approach the 80th anniversary of controlled nuclear fission, Nuclear Newswire is prepared to deliver not one but three #ThrowbackThursday posts of CP-1 highlights unearthed from past issues of Nuclear News .

ANS was founded in 1954, nearly 12 years after the first controlled nuclear chain reaction was achieved on December 2, 1942, inside a pile of graphite and uranium assembled on a squash court at the University of Chicago’s Stagg Field. By 1962, ANS was prepared to “salute the 20th anniversary of the first chain reaction” at their Winter Meeting, displaying a model of Chicago Pile-1 and presenting a specially cast medal to Walter Zinn, a representative of Enrico Fermi’s scientific team. Over the years, ANS has continued to mark significant anniversaries of CP-1 at national meetings and in NN.

November 7: The unofficial day of women in nuclear science?

Marie Curie was born in Warsaw in 1867 on this day, 155 years ago. Exactly 11 years later, in 1878, Lise Meitner was born in Vienna. November 7 is also the date when, in 1911, the Swedish Royal Academy of Science decided to award Curie a second Nobel Prize for her 1898 discovery of the elements radium and polonium (coincidentally, her 44th birthday). Curie, who at age 36 had shared the 1903 Nobel Prize in Physics with her husband, Pierre Curie, and Henri Becquerel, later accepted the chemistry prize on December 10, 1911. She remains to this day the only person—man or woman—to receive two Nobel Prizes in two different fields of science. (Linus Pauling was also awarded Nobel Prizes in two categories: chemistry and peace.) On this unofficial day of women in nuclear science, let’s take a moment to acknowledge the fundamental discoveries of both Curie and Meitner.

Collectables on tour from an earlier nuclear era

Collecting belt buckles from nearly every nuclear power plant in the U.S. wasn’t the goal for Don Hildebrant when he obtained his first one. Over time, it just turned out that way.

One day years ago, Hildebrant came across a buckle from the nuclear plant where he worked, and it seemed before he knew it, he had collected more than 250 of them—some from plants that were never even completed. “When you look at the collection, you will see an interesting story of where nuclear power has been, and how far it has come,” he said.

The story of the Windscale Piles

The Windscale Piles, circa 1956. (Photo: DOE)

After the Atomic Energy Act of 1946 ended collaboration between the United States and its World War II allies (specifically, the United Kingdom and Canada), the British government felt it necessary to go down its own path in developing nuclear technology. As a result, the Windscale Piles, in Seascale, Cumberland, England, were planned and built with the aim of producing plutonium for the U.K.’s defense purposes. Windscale Pile No. 1 became operational in 1950, and Windscale Pile No. 2 followed shortly after in 1951.

Early in the design process, the U.K. government came to realize that it did not have an adequately expansive piece of land that could provide a safety barrier in case of an issue at a water-cooled reactor. If the flow of water coolant were to be interrupted, an evacuation and exclusion zone could require a large land area that Britain simply did not have. The government, therefore, decided to construct both reactors with a natural draft air convection core cooling system. A massive cooling chimney at each reactor would soar nearly 400 feet into the air.

The Leak : An account of Brookhaven’s HFBR, its leak, and its closure

“Why did a tiny leak bring down a hugely successful research reactor 25 years ago?”

That’s how Robert P. Crease, an academic who writes a regular column for Physics World , introduces The Leak: Politics, Activists, and Loss of Trust at Brookhaven National Laboratory , a book he wrote with former interim BNL director Peter D. Bond that was published this month by MIT Press.

“Were this story fiction, its characters, plot twists and ironies would be entertaining,” Crease writes in his October 5 Physics World post about the book. “But because it’s fact, it’s a tragicomedy.”

After six decades of IAEA research, NN revisits one scientist’s take on the agency’s early years

A groundbreaking ceremony held last week at the International Atomic Energy Agency’s laboratories in Seibersdorf, Austria, marked the start of construction on a nuclear applications building that will host three state-of-the-art laboratories: Plant Breeding and Genetics, Terrestrial Environment and Radiochemistry, and Nuclear Science and Instrumentation.It was a significant achievement for the second phase of the Renovation of the Nuclear Applications Laboratories initiative , known as ReNuAL2—and a fitting way to observe the 60th anniversary of the nuclear applications laboratories at Seibersdorf, about an hour’s drive south the IAEA’s headquarters in Vienna. For Nuclear Newswire , it was all the reason we needed to dig into the Nuclear News archives and explore the bygone days of research at the IAEA.

The world watched as Queen Elizabeth II welcomed the U.K.’s Atomic Age

As citizens of the United Kingdom and others around the world mourn the death of Queen Elizabeth II, many have reflected on how the world has changed during the seven decades of the queen’s reign—the same decades that saw the rise of civilian nuclear power.

Calder Hall was already under construction at the Sellafield site in West Cumbria when Princess Elizabeth became queen in 1953. Queen Elizabeth traveled to the site in October 1956 and declared, in a televised ceremony, that “It is with pride that I now open Calder Hall, Britain’s first atomic power station.” Watch the fanfare in a historical clip uploaded to YouTube by Sellafield Ltd below.

Cue ominous chords and fade in from black . . .

It’s 1976, and you’re watching TV when a public service announcement from the American Nuclear Society airs, showing the earth being squeezed dry of its last drops of oil by a giant hand as it urges more “safe, reliable, and economical” nuclear power plants. The narrator’s last words, intoned over a fading sunset, still ring true today: “Our world is hungry for energy, and we must move ahead to preserve our future. If we don’t, we could find ourselves in the dark ages of the seventies.”

Defending the nuclear discipline

Craig Piercy [email protected]

If you keep tabs on nuclear in popular culture, you know that Netflix recently released a four-part series entitled Meltdown: Three Mile Island . Nominally listed as a “documentary,” the series starts out with a generally accurate chronology of the 1979 event. However, it soon veers off the rails into an uncorroborated conspiracy theory of how the cleanup team risked “wiping out the entire East Coast” in their haste to complete the job on time. Nuclear Newswire has done a fantastic job of unpacking the distortions and outright falsehoods in “ Meltdown : Drama disguised as a documentary ."

Netflix showrunners were clearly more interested in maximizing the number of eyeballs on their content than in the accuracy of the information they present. But should that make us angry? Netflix is not a news organization; they are a highly algorithm-driven purveyor of video entertainment. Their “recommendation engine” knows what we want, and we happily let them spoon-feed us our next binge watch.

Lake Barrett’s reality-grounded perspective on Netflix’s drama Meltdown: Three Mile Island

In an ANS-sponsored online event held on June 8, independent energy consultant Lake Barrett shared his perspective on the Netflix docudrama series Meltdown: Three Mile Island . Barrett, who was the Nuclear Regulatory Commission’s on-site director and senior federal official for the cleanup of the TMI Unit 2 accident in the early 1980s, countered inaccuracies in the series during an interview with ANS Executive Director/CEO Craig Piercy.

The Kemeny Commission Report from the pages of Nuclear News

This week’s Throwback Thursday post is again about Three Mile Island—this time looking at the coverage from the pages of the December 1979 issue Nuclear News about the Kemeny Commission . The twelve-person commission, announced by President Carter immediately after the accident in April 1979, was headed by John Kemeny—then president of Dartmouth College—with orders to investigate the causes and any consequences of the accident.

Former Nuclear Weapons Testing

CDC conducts radiation dose reconstruction and public health research in communities in the United States and around the world to understand community-level health effects of radiation exposures. Projects include determining probable impacts of radiation exposure in communities where nuclear weapon testing took place in the 1940s–1960s and parts of the former Soviet Union affected by the 1986 Chernobyl nuclear power plant accident.