From the time Admiral Hyman Rickover was granted the project of building America’s first civilian-only nuclear power plant, Shippingport, naysayers abounded. Rickover was a man who cultivated enemies. Shippingport would be regarded as the first PWR, pressurized-water reactor. Researching Rickover’s life and achievements yielded many intriguing bits and pieces, positive and negative. One that never failed to make me smile occurred in 1954, when Electrical World, a trade journal, reported that the PWR was being mocked as “Power Without Reason.”
Lowen, Rebecca S. 1987. “Entering the atomic power race: Science, industry, and government.” Political Science Quarterly 102 (Autumn): 459–79.
