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 the notion of a new profession, as Johnston writes (pp. 181-182): Hinton was averse to a. . .

The reactor pioneers of the 1940s and 1950s were, above all, practical. They politicked, they campaigned, but few of them could be said to display overt passion. Sometimes I had to divine their emotions from ephemera. In October 1956, just before the grand royal launch of Calder Hall, Christopher Hinton sent Mrs. Marr of Durdar, Carlisle a photograph of the plant as a memento, writing: “As you. . .

An intriguing minor personality in the 1950s was Jerome D. Luntz, editor of the new trade journal Nucleonics. Until the British, egged on by Christopher Hinton, established their own trade journal later in the decade, Nucleonics was avidly read around the globe by anyone remotely interested in the new science and technology. Luntz’s editorials were bold and unrestrained. He was as much a. . .

Conducting detailed archival research (at least for two countries, the United Kingdom and the United States) has meant that I’ve grown highly familiar with a great many “bit players” or “character actors” in the grand drama of nuclear power’s history. They are the middle managers, the senior scientists and engineers, the diplomats. Some might take part in. . .

One joy of archival research is stumbling across documents that reveal the character of key players. Christopher Hinton, the engineer who pioneered (with others) British power reactors, was a towering personality, often feared. Imagine then a London bureaucrat daring to challenge him on fiscal responsibility, especially as Hinton prided himself on budgetary control. Witness Hinton responding (Dec. . .

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. . .

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. . .