Just before Walter Zinn, the creator and reactor-meister of Argonne, left for the private sector in 1956, his most treasured experimental reactor, EBR-I (a breeder), melted down on a remote Idaho reservation. Zinn had forewarned the Atomic Energy Commission that this might happen, because he was running a final, risky test on it. Afterwards, analysis of debris helped establish an important. . .
One of the most remarkable historical records of the Twentieth Century is the seven published journals (so entertaining, insightful, and elegantly written!) of David Lilienthal, often described as an architect (among many) of Roosevelt’s New Deal. He was the first chairman of the Atomic Energy Commission, from late 1946, and although he only served in that post for just over three years. . .
Functionaries—office bearers in state institutions or corporations—often disappear in histories, overwhelmed by more prominent actors. The second American utility to sign a hefty contract for a nuclear power plant, Commonwealth Edison (headquartered in Chicago) has left little trace on why it did so in 1955. It seems I could examine its annual reports over the late 1950s in the Library of. . .
In the very early days of nuclear power, the U.S. trade journal Nucleonics sparkled with rumors and scuttlebut (it also had much serious and valuable reportage). The December 1954 issue came out just after the passage of a new major piece of legislation opening up the nuclear power market, so the question on everybody’s lips was, “who will start making nuclear energy first?”. . .
One of the most valuable books on the history of nuclear stuff is the 1989 opus by AEC official historians, Richard Hewlett & Jack Holl: Atoms for Peace and War, 1953-1961: Eisenhower and the Atomic Energy Commission. (A History of the United States Atomic Energy Commission. Vol. III) (California Studies in the History of Science). You can now even buy it as an expensive Kindle ebook! A. . .
Commonwealth Edison (now buried within giant Exelon) was one of the largest utilities in the late 1940s and into the 1950s. When the United States opened up to nuclear energy, with new legislation in 1954, Com Ed was one of the first out of the starting gates; its Dresden 1 plant was the first private nuclear power station in the country. What intrigues me is how slow the “quick”. . .
Today I was combing a chapter for any permissions requirements. This is when I include a snappy quote and need to get approval (pay money?) from the publisher or sometimes the author. One engaging account of a dramatic episode in 1950s history, the 1955 lighting of a small Idahoan town Arco by a small boiling-water reactor experiment, is written by Ray Haroldsen, an engineer then at Argonne. . .
“The proposition that there were leaks in the Australian Department of External Affairs from the end of the war, dramatically revealed by the defection of Vladimir Petrov in April, 1954, has commanded great attention and has come to be generally accepted,” is stated (p. 92) by Wayne Reynolds in his 2000 book Australia’s Bid for the Atomic Bomb at the start of a chapter called. . .
The history of nuclear energy is littered with rumors and feints. At the tail end of 1957, the industry’s American trade journal offered up this snippet: The Argentine government is studying an offer to build an $80-million, 280-Mw nuclear power station for the city of Buenos Aires, Nucleonics has learned; Burns & Roe of New York would do the engineering on the project in cooperation. . .
At the 1955 Geneva conference on the Peaceful Uses of Atomic Energy, one of the busiest luminaries was John Cockcroft. The British head of Harwell was collared by the Argentinean delegation, headed by a naval officer. The Argentineans had previously sought help via diplomatic channels but there was nothing in it for the United Kingdom, whose Cold War remit did not typically extend to South. . .