Nuclear History

American Nuclear Society President Mark Peters visited Idaho National Laboratory on August 12 to unveil the plaque that officially designates the Hot Fuel Examination Facility (HFEF) a Nuclear Historic Landmark.

Landmark status was conferred on HFEF last October. It is INL’s 10th landmark on the list and one of 101 the Society has honored since 1985. ANS’s Nuclear Historic Landmark Award memorializes sites and facilities where outstanding physical accomplishments that advanced the peaceful uses of nuclear energy have taken place. The award recognizes facilities that were in service at least 20 years ago.

Over the past two weeks, in the “Trivia Tuesday” and “Throwback Thursday” sections of Nuclear News Daily, we have dug into the story of Idaho National Laboratory’s official list of reactors, past and present, at the site. We are now bringing that exploration to Newswire, compiling the research done for the Daily and extending the conversation further.

The American Museum of Science and Energy recently hosted national technical director of Oak Ridge National Laboratory and American Nuclear Society member Paul Cantonwine on its podcast, AMSEcast. There, Cantonwine discussed the creation of the nuclear navy and the life of Admiral Hyman George Rickover.

On Sunday, May 17, in Baltimore, Md., there will be an open house on the NS Savannah to commemorate National Maritime Day. The Savannah acted as a passenger and cargo ship from 1962 to 1970, serving as a floating ambassador for President Eisenhower’s Atoms for Peace program and, more broadly, for the safe and peaceful uses of nuclear power.

Sunday, April 26, at 1:23 a.m. local time will mark 40 years since the most severe nuclear accident in history: the meltdown of Unit 4 at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant in Ukraine, then part of the Soviet Union.

A clarification: While it is accurate to call the accident at Chernobyl a meltdown, it is important to understand the fundamental difference between it and the accidents at Fukushima Daiichi and Three Mile Island. As you will read below, the accident at Chernobyl was a catastrophic, reactivity-induced meltdown that unfolded in a matter of seconds and minutes. In contrast, the gradual loss-of-coolant-induced meltdowns at both Fukushima and TMI unfolded over the course of hours and were orders of magnitude less destructive by every conceivable metric.

In the ensuing four decades, countless books, documentaries, articles, and conference sessions have examined Chernobyl’s history and impact from various angles. There is a similar abundance of outlooks in the archives of Nuclear News, where hundreds of scientists, advocates, critics, and politicians have shared their thoughts on Chernobyl over the years. Today, we will take a look at some highlights from the pages of NN to see how the story of Chernobyl evolved over the decades.

The world’s first nuclear-powered merchant ship, the NS Savannah, will have a public site visit in Baltimore, Md., on Saturday, February 21.

To register for the event and find up-to-date details on the event’s address, time, and more, click here.

In early 1951, Los Alamos scientists Edward Teller and Stanislaw Ulam devised a breakthrough that would lead to the hydrogen bomb [1]. Their design gave the United States an initial advantage in the Cold War, though comparable progress was soon achieved independently in the Soviet Union and the United Kingdom.

The core of Pile No. 1 at Windscale caught fire in the fall of 1957. The incident, rated a level 5, “Accident with Wider Consequences,” by the International Nuclear and Radiological Event Scale (INES), has since inspired nuclear safety culture, risk assessment, accident modeling, and emergency preparedness. Windscale also helped show how important communication and transparency are to gaining trust and public support.

Longenecker & Associates has announced a $500,000 pledge from John and Bonnie Longenecker to the National Atomic Testing Museum in Las Vegas, Nev. The contribution will strengthen the museum’s missions to inform the public about America’s national security legacy and current programs and to inspire students, educators, and young professionals pursuing careers in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics.

The sixth annual World Nuclear Energy Day is being celebrated today following its inception in 2020. In recognition, here is a throwback to an Atomic Energy Commission cartoon from the early days of nuclear power:

Mobley

American Nuclear Society member John Mobley IV recently donated some historical nuclear artifacts and memorabilia to the Department of Nuclear Engineering and Radiological Sciences (NERS) at the University of Michigan.

Mobley is a nuclear engineering education researcher at the University of Michigan. Among his roles at ANS, he is currently the secretary of Young Members Group; the vice chair of the Education, Training and Workforce Development Division; and the vice chair of Student Sections Committee.

He said he chose to donate part of his collection to NERS because the University of Michigan is broadly committed to nuclear outreach at the local, state, and federal levels. The university is home of the first ANS Student Section, which turned 70 this year.

The American Nuclear Society recently announced the designation of three new nuclear historic landmarks: the Hot Fuel Examination Facility, the Neely Nuclear Research Center, and the Oak Ridge Gaseous Diffusion Plant K-25. Today’s article, the final offering in a three-part series, will focus on the historical significance of the Oak Ridge Gaseous Diffusion Plant K-25.

The American Nuclear Society recently announced the designation of three new nuclear historic landmarks: the Hot Fuel Examination Facility, the Neely Nuclear Research Center, and the Oak Ridge Gaseous Diffusion Plant. Today’s article, the second in a three-part series, will focus on the historical significance of the Neely Nuclear Research Center.

The Hallam nuclear power plant, about 25 miles southwest of Lincoln, Neb., was an important part of the Atomic Energy Commission’s Reactor Power Demonstration Program. But in the end, it operated for only 6,271 hours and generated about 192.5 million kilowatt-hours of electric power during its short, 15-month life.

The American Nuclear Society recently announced the designation of three new nuclear historic landmarks: the Hot Fuel Examination Facility (HFEF), the Neely Nuclear Research Center, and the Oak Ridge Gaseous Diffusion Plant. Today’s article, the first in a three-part series, will focus on the historical significance of HFEF.

The world’s first nuclear-powered merchant ship, the NS Savannah, will have a public site visit in Baltimore, Md., on Saturday, November 15.

To register for the event and find up-to-date details on the event’s address, time, and more, click here.

The world’s first nuclear-powered merchant ship, the NS Savannah, will have a public site visit in Baltimore, Md., on Saturday, August 23.

To register for the event and find up-to-date details on the event’s address, time, and more, click here.

By Craig H. Piercy, CEO and Executive Director of the American Nuclear Society

Eighty years ago today, at exactly 5:29:45 a.m. local time* on July 16, 1945, the United States Army detonated the world’s first nuclear bomb in the Jornada del Muerto desert of southern New Mexico. The searing flash and thunderous shockwave marked the culmination of the Manhattan Project, a secret, three-year national effort to harness nuclear fission and hasten the end of the Second World War.

The Trinity Test, overseen by Manhattan Project director Major General Leslie Groves and Los Alamos Laboratory director Dr. J. Robert Oppenheimer, was the final act of that race to build the atomic bomb. Hoisted atop a 100-foot steel tower, the plutonium implosion device, known as the Gadget, unleashed a blast equal to 21,000 tons of TNT and temperatures hotter than the center of the sun.

From ten miles away, observers wearing darkened welder goggles looked on in stunned silence. “We knew the world would not be the same,” recalled Oppenheimer.

The Manhattan Project is usually considered to have been initiated with Albert Einstein’s letter to President Franklin Roosevelt in October 1939. However, a lesser-known document that was just as impactful on wartime nuclear history was the so-called Frisch-Peierls memorandum. Prepared by two refugee physicists at the University of Birmingham in Britain in early 1940, this manuscript was the first technical description of nuclear weapons and their military, strategic, and ethical implications to reach high-level government officials on either side of the Atlantic. The memorandum triggered the initiation of the British wartime nuclear program, which later merged with the Manhattan Engineer District.

The National Atomic Testing Museum, better known as the Atomic Museum, is celebrating its 20th anniversary this year. Located in Las Vegas, Nev., the museum was established in 2005 to preserve the legacy of the Nevada Test Site, now called the Nevada National Security Sites.