The early years of nuclear power were suffused with righteous purpose, as befits a new energy source. Yet I’ve been surprised by how little overt championing of nuclear electricity occurred. I mean, it did occur, and regularly, but the degree of fervor feels less than one sees in 2024 among
I know nothing about Rear-Admiral G. A. M. Wilson of Britain’s Royal Navy but my heart goes out to him in this scene recounted by physicist Terence Price: In preparation for that event I was one of a twenty-strong technical party that crossed the Atlantic in the summer of 1957
One of the more intriguing paragraphs about the 1950s I noticed was this one from historian Spencer Weart: The nuclear industry urgently wanted to dissociate civilian products from bombs. Publicists encouraged everyone to speak not of “atomic” but of “nuclear” power; aside from being scientifically more accurate, they hoped that
During my research, I managed to walk inside a handful of nuclear power reactors. Then 9/11 came along and ever since then, or so it seems to me, security at these power plants is so tight that visiting now would be impossible. So I was bemused to read British pioneer
David Lilienthal is rightly regarded as one of the pioneers of nuclear energy, in his role as inaugural chairman of the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission pushing for the “peaceful atom,” but he left his post, after three years, embittered. He became an international merchant banker/developer and had little to do
Huge construction projects like building a power reactor seem to require ceremonies when construction first begins. Dignitaries assemble and make speeches before some earth is excavated to signify commencement. This is sometimes called “sod-turning” or “sod-cutting.” I’ve noted that such ceremonies can involve unexpected tensions and humor, and in my
I’m researching and writing about the peaceful atom but the thought did occur to me when reading up about the Manhattan Project, how did they come up with the colossal amount of money needed? Well, a New York Times reporter has recently done a deep dig into just that subject,
Walker Cisler, an energetic, debonair electricity utility executive during the early years of nuclear power, penned a biography of sorts in 1976. He writes engagingly but I haven’t ended up using his material much, simply because other sources trump his. At one point he writes about the new Japanese market,
History professor Brian Balogh wrote a readable, academic 1991 book (most obscure in Australia) about nuclear debate, covering the three decades to 1975. In 1956, he writes, based on National Security Council papers (which I now wish I’d sighted): …the OCB [Operations Coordinating Board] warned that “there are signs that
Key reactor pioneers in the 1950s spearheaded the creation of a new profession, that of nuclear engineering. A historian of science in Scotland, Sean Johnston, wrote a book on just this topic (he gave the academic book an evocative title, something I admire). Intriguingly, one of his key protagonists resisted