In October 1947, David Lilienthal, chairman of the Atomic Energy Commission, set up an Industrial Advisory Group comprising mainly utility and manufacturing company execs. Lilienthal knew nothing much could happen with nuclear energy (i.e. commercial nuclear-generated electricity) during those early days when all the focus was on Cold War nuclear weapons work, all top secret stuff. He was hoping. . .
Christopher Hinton, head of the British military reactors, sent some kind of a 1952 Christmas letter to the huge Windscale complex. Gethin Davey, the capable physicist/engineer managing that complex, responded (handwritten!) a couple of days before Christmas: Dear Sir Christopher,Thank you for your letter dated 19th Dec., which is most appreciated by all of us at Windscale. The past year has been. . .
In 1963, Len Owen, once #2 under pioneer Christopher Hinton, but now seven years into his latest role of the production/engineering arm of the United Kingdom Atomic Energy Authority, addressed the Institution of Civil Engineers in Great George Street, Westminster, not far from Parliament Square. He called his speech “Nuclear engineering in the United Kingdom in the first ten years,”. . .
Say what you like about Western nuclear safety and dose management in the postwar era, there was nothing like the blatant disregard for public protection that the Soviet Union exhibited. Because the communist state was highly effective at secrecy, few realized the discrepancy between West and East in those early years (in fact it took the collapse of the Soviet Union to bring the sordid facts to. . .
On July 19, 1956, the New York Times included an article that began: “The Atomic Energy Commission announced tonight that current atomic tests in the Pacific had proved it was now possible to minimize the ‘widespread fallout hazard’ from nuclear explosions. Lewis L. Strauss, commission chairman, made the announcement. He also said ‘real progress’ had been made in developing a variety of. . .
Physicist/engineer James Mahaffey has written a number of books. His main three are Atomic Awakening: A New Look at the History and Future of Nuclear Power (2009); Atomic Accidents: A History of Nuclear Meltdowns and Disasters from the Ozark Mountains to Fukushima (2014); and Atomic Adventures: Secret Islands, Forgotten N-Rays, and Isotopic Murder—A Journey into the Wild World of Nuclear Science. . .
In Canadian chemist Les Cook’s slightly homespun nuclear memoir, he offers many interesting perspectives. Canadians today may be surprised to learn how the scientific and conceptual engineering contributions to the initiation of the Chalk River project, or to the first two reactors at Chalk River, ZEEP and NRX, all came from outsiders. Indeed the first really new basic conceptual innovation. . .