The History of Nuclear Power

Origins of Nuclear Research¹

The idea of the atom has been around for centuries — the Greeks believed that our world was made up of tiny, invisible particles they named atoms, from the word atomos, meaning indivisible.² In 1789, a German chemist discovered the element uranium, named after the planet Uranus. Then, in 1895, Wilhelm Röntgen discovered ionizing radiation, an energy released by atoms that appears as particles, such as neutrons, or electromagnetic waves, such as gamma or X-rays. Henri Becquerel discovered beta radiation in 1896 when he found that pitchblende, which contains both radium and uranium, caused a photographic plate to grow dark due to the beta radiation and the alpha particles that emitted from the pitchblende. In 1896, Marie and Pierre Curie deemed this emitting of particles radioactivity and went on to isolate polonium and radium from the pitchblende in 1898. Ernest Rutherford proved that radioactivity created a different element in 1902. In 1911, Frederick Soddy discovered that radioactive elements have different isotopes, or radionuclides, with the same chemistry. Rutherford then discovered nuclear rearrangement in 1919 when he fired alpha particles from radium into nitrogen, which created oxygen.³

When two atoms are combined, or one is broken apart, energy is released – these reactions are called fusion and fission, respectively, and are the basis of nuclear power. At the onset of World War Two and through the Cold War, the intent of nuclear development changed from economical energy generation to weapons of mass destruction, but that does not make nuclear energy a black-and-white issue. While nuclear technology is the foundation of the largest bomb ever created, it is also the resource that made mankind reaching the stars possible, and may be the future of sustainable energy.

Nuclear Development from the 1930s to the 1980s

1930s

1931

May 20 - 24 - The first international conference on nuclear physics is held at the Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich, Switzerland.
October 11 - 18 - The second international conference on nuclear physics is held in Rome, Italy.

1932

James Chadwick discovers the neutron.
April 14 - John Cockcroft and Ernest Walton create nuclear transformations by bombarding atoms with accelerated protons.
September 24 - 30 - The third international conference on nuclear physics is held at the Abram Ioffe’s Physico-Technical Institute in Leningrad.⁴
October 10 - The first experiments into nuclear fission in the USSR are conducted at the National Science Center Kharkiv Institute of Physics and Technology (KIPT) in Ukraine.⁵

1934

Irène and Frédéric Joliot-Curie discover artificial radionuclides, meaning radioactive elements can be artificially created from stable elements.

1935

October 22 - Enrico Fermi discovers a method to create a greater variety of radionuclides using neutrons.⁶

1938

Otto Hahn and Fritz Strassmann split uranium apart, creating several lighter elements — such as barium — which demonstrates atomic fission.

1939

Lise Meitner, Niels Bohr, and Otto Frisch used Hahn and Strassmann’s discovery to confirm Einstein’s theory of mass and energy from 1905⁷ by calculating the masses of the fission products and finding that they did not equal the uranium’s mass, proving that it had been turned into energy during fission.
Leo Szilard and Fermi propose a new method of slowing emitted neutrons to more effectively cause fission.
Francis Perrin demonstrates fission in a uranium and water mixture and uses a neutron-absorbing material to control the reaction.
Werner Heisenberg calculated the possibility of a nuclear chain reaction and that it could generate energy.
Yakov Zeldovich, Yuliy Khariton, and Alexander Leypunsky prove that a nuclear chain reaction is theoretically possible at the Radium Laboratory (renamed the Khlopin Radium Institute in 1950) in Russia.⁸
September 1 - World War Two begins.
October 11 - The Einstein-Szilard letter is delivered to Roosevelt, advising him to look into nuclear fission as a weapon, as Germany may already be researching it.
October 21 - The Advisory Committee on Uranium meets for the first time.

image src=wc:Ir%C3%A8ne_et_Fr%C3%A9d%C3%A9ric_Joliot-Curie_1935.jpg caption="Irène and Frédéric Joliot-Curie (1935)" image src=wc:1-Einstein_and_Szilard_letter_to_Roosevelt_NNSA.jpg caption="Einstein and Szilard (1946)"

1940s

1940

Carl Friedrich von Weizsäcker concludes that if a “uranium machine” can sustain a chain reaction, the Uranium-238 could become ‘element 94,’ also known as plutonium.
April 10 - The MAUD Committee (a reference to Niels Bohr’s housekeeper, Maud Ray), a group of British scientists working to determine if an atomic bomb was possible, is established.
June 12 - President Roosevelt creates the National Defense Research Committee (NDRC), which absorbs the Uranium Committee.

1941

May 17 - Arthur Compton at the National Academy of Sciences reports favorably on the prospects of military uses of nuclear power.
June 22nd - Germany invades the Soviet Union, halting its nuclear research.
June 28 - Roosevelt creates the Office of Scientific Research and Development (OSRD), which absorbs the NDRC and Uranium committees.
July 15 - The MAUD Committee issues a final report on the design and cost of building an atomic bomb.
August 20 - Prime Minister Churchill becomes the first leader to approve a nuclear weapons program, the Tube Alloys.
October 9 - An official copy of the MAUD report is taken to President Roosevelt, who approves a project to confirm findings in the United States.
December 6 - Vannevar Bush, the head of OSRD, organizes an accelerated research project to be managed by Arthur Compton.
December 18 - The researchers sponsored by OSRD to develop nuclear weapons hold their first meeting.

1942

January 19 - President Roosevelt authorizes the atomic bomb project.
January 24 - Arthur Compton centralizes plutonium research at the University of Chicago.
July - September - A conference is held at UC Berkeley to discuss potential designs for a fission bomb. Edward Teller suggests a hydrogen bomb.
August 13 - The Manhattan Engineering District is established.
September 23 - Lieutenant General Leslie Groves becomes director of the Manhattan Project.
September 29 - Secretary of War Robert P. Patterson authorizes Site X, the Oak Ridge, Tennessee laboratory.
October 19 - Groves appoints Robert Oppenheimer to coordinate the project at Site Y, the Los Alamos, New Mexico laboratory.
December 2 - The first self-sustaining nuclear chain reaction takes place at the Chicago Pile-1 reactor at the University of Chicago by the Metallurgical Laboratory, or Met Lab.⁹ Led by Professor Arthur Compton, Enrico Fermi, Leo Szilard, and Eugene Eigner, the reactor was built on an old squash court under the abandoned Stagg Field football stands, without permission from or notification of any elected officials, the Mayor of Chicago, or the President of the University. The Chicago Pile-1, or CP-1, was a 20 foot tall stack of graphite and uranium blocks arranged in 56 layers with cadmium control rods.¹⁰ The pile was completed December 1st. On December 2nd, 49 scientists gathered, and Fermi “directed the operators to slowly move the control rods, and their instruments clicked to record the neutron count. At 3:53 p.m., they recorded that a self-sustaining nuclear chain reaction was achieved for the first time ever. It had taken 28 minutes.”¹¹

image src=wc:Chicago_pile_I_banner.jpg caption="Chicago Pile-1"

1943

February 9 - Groves and Patterson approve the Hanford Site and build location in Benton County, Washington, for the world’s first plutonium-producing reactor.¹²
February 18 - Construction begins on the electromagnetic separation plant for enriching uranium at Oak Ridge, Tennessee.
April 1 - The Los Alamos Laboratory is established in New Mexico.
July - The Los Alamos Laboratory, Clinton Engineer Works (CEW), and Hanford Engineer Works (HEW) are designated as military districts, removing them from state control.
July 10 - The first sample of plutonium arrives at the Los Alamos Laboratory.
August 13 - The first drop test of a gun-type fission weapon at Dahlgren Proving Ground in Virginia takes place.
August 19 - President Roosevelt and Prime Minister Churchill sign the Quebec Agreement, merging the Tube Alloys with Manhattan Project.¹³
September 8 - The first meeting of the Combined Policy Committee is held to coordinate the atomic efforts of the United States, Great Britain, and Canada.
October 10 - Construction of the first Hanford Site reactor begins.
November 4 - The X-10 Graphite Reactor goes critical at Oak Ridge.

1944

April 5 - Emilio Segre receives the first sample of plutonium from the Oak Ridge reactor and discovers that the fission rate is too high for a gun-type weapon.
July 17 - The Thin Man gun-type is abandoned, as it is impractical to use with plutonium, making an implosion-type weapon, the Fat Man bomb, a top priority. Research on a uranium gun-type continues with Little Boy, a gun-type using Uranium-235 at Clinton Engineer Works in Oak Ridge, Tennessee.
September 22 - The first Radioactive Lanthanum (RaLa) Experiment with a radioactive source takes place at Los Alamos.
September 26 - The largest nuclear reactor, the B Reactor, goes critical at the Hanford Site.
November - Samuel Goudsmit concludes that German scientists didn’t make substantial progress towards nuclear bombs or reactors, as the programs were not a high priority.

1945

February 2 - The first plutonium created at the Hanford Site arrives at Los Alamos.
April 27 - The first meeting of the Target Committee at Los Alamos occurs to determine potential locations to bomb in Japan, such as Kyoto, Hiroshima, Yokohama, the Kokura Arsenal, and Niigata.
May 7 - Germany surrenders.
May 10 - The second meeting of the Target Committee occurs.
May 28 - The third meeting of the Target Committee occurs to finalize the list of cities to bomb.
June 11 - The Met Lab of the University of Chicago argues for a demonstration of the bomb before it is used on civilian targets.
July 16 - The first nuclear explosion of an implosion-style plutonium-based nuclear weapon occurs at the Alamogordo Bombing and Gunnery Range in New Mexico. The explosion, called the Trinity Test, yields about 15 to 20 kilotons and marks the beginning of the atomic age.
July 24 - President Truman discloses to Premier Stalin that the United States has atomic bombs, something the latter knows already due to espionage.
July 25 - General Carl Spaatz is ordered to drop a bomb on either Hiroshima, Kokura, Niigata, or Nagasaki as soon as the weather permits after August 3rd.
July 26 - The Potsdam Declaration is issued, threatening Japan with destruction if it does not surrender.
August 6 - The B-29 plane ‘Enola Gay’ drops Little Boy on Hiroshima.
August 9 - The B-29 plane ‘Bockscar’ drops Fat Man on Nagasaki because Kokura was obscured by clouds and smoke.
August 15 - Japan surrenders.
August 20 - A special committee is established to work on uranium under the State Defense Committee of the USSR.¹⁴

1946

February - A Soviet spy ring in Canada is exposed by defector Igor Gouzenko, resulting in “atomic spy hysteria,” which pushed American Congressional discussions about postwar atomic regulation.
July 1 - The testing at Bikini Atoll in the Marshall Islands commenced with the test of the Able bomb as part of Operation Crossroads.
July 25 - The Baker bomb is tested at Bikini Atoll to determine the effects of a nuclear device underwater. Baker sank eight ships and permanently contaminated the rest.
August 1 - President Truman signs the Atomic Energy Act of 1946 into law, ending the uncertainty regarding control of atomic research in the postwar United States, as well as creating the Atomic Energy Commission (AEC) to control nuclear energy development and explore peaceful uses of nuclear energy.
December 25 - The F-1 reactor achieves a self-sustaining chain reaction at the Kurchatov Institute in Russia. This is the first working nuclear reactor in the USSR and Europe.¹⁵

1947

January 1 - The Atomic Energy Act of 1946, or the McMahon Act, takes effect. The Manhattan Project is turned over to the United States Atomic Energy Commission.
March 12, 1947 - December 26, 1991 (44 years and 9 months) The Cold War Begins.
August 15 - The Manhattan District is abolished.

1949

March 1 - The AEC announces the selection of a site in Idaho for the National Reactor Testing Station.
August 29 - The Soviet Union tests its first atomic bomb, called ‘First Lightning’ by the West.

image src=wc:Crossroads_Baker_bomb_explosion,_photographed_form_a_Grumman_F6F-5K_Hellcat_drone,_25_July_1946.jpg caption="The Baker Bomb" image src=wc:Crossroads_baker_explosion.jpg image src=wc:Operation_Crossroads_Baker.jpg

1950s

1950

December 20 - The first usable power from a nuclear source lights four lightbulbs at the Experimental Breeder Reactor 1 in Arco, Idaho.

1952

November 1 - The United States tests the first hydrogen bomb, called Ivy Mike, which had a yield of 10.4 megatons.

1953

August 12 - The Soviet Union tests a thermonuclear device, RDS-6s, for the first time.

1954

March 1 - The United States performs the Castle Bravo test, resulting in the largest yield by an American nuclear device at about 15 megatons.
June 27 - The world’s first grid-connected nuclear power plant, Obninsk, is put into operation in the Soviet Union.¹⁶

1955

July 17 - Arco, Idaho, becomes the first nuclear-powered town using the water boiler reactor BORAX III.
August 8 - 20 - The first United Nations International Conference on the Peaceful Uses of Atomic Energy was held in Geneva, Switzerland.
November 22 - The Soviet Union tests its first hydrogen bomb.

image src=wc:Soviet_postage_stamp_commemorating_the_Conference_on_the_Peaceful_Uses_of_Atomic_Energy,_1958_-_DPLA_-_4c7c8f556f94242a4e83be85a2de6ae7.jpg caption="Soviet Postage Stamp for the Confrence on the Peaceful Uses of Atomic Energy"

1956

October 17 - The first nuclear power station built to produce commercial energy, Calder Hall, is opened in Seascale, England.¹⁷

1957

October 1 - The United Nations created the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) to promote peaceful applications of nuclear power and to prevent the spread of nuclear weapons.
October - The first successful Soviet Union test of the intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) takes place, and Sputnik 1 is launched.
November 3 - The Soviet Union launches Sputnik 2, a satellite carrying a dog named Laika into space. Laika is the first earthling to reach space. There was never a plan for her reentry. Dr. Vladimir Yazdovsky took Laika home to play with his children before the launch, writing “Laika was quiet and charming … I wanted to do something nice for her: She had so little time left to live.”¹⁸ Yevgeniy Shabrov recalls from the day of the launch: “after placing Laika in the container and before closing the hatch, we kissed her nose and wished her bon voyage, knowing that she would not survive the flight.”¹⁹

image src=wc:Лайка_(собака-космонавт)1.jpg caption="Laika, the first earthling in space"

1958

January 31 - The first satellite launched by the United States, Explorer 1, reaches space.²⁰
The first successful United States test of ICBM took place, and NASA is created.
The United States, the Soviet Union, and the United Kingdom test over 100 nuclear devices.

1959

The world’s first nuclear-powered ice-breaker ship, Lenin, is constructed. ²¹

1960s

1960

February 13 - France conducts its first nuclear test, making them the world’s fourth nuclear power.
November 22 - The United States Navy commissions the world’s largest ship, the USS Enterprise, a nuclear-powered aircraft carrier.

1961

January 31 - The first hominid, an American chimpanzee named Ham, reaches space and successfully survives the landing.
April 12 - Yuri Gagarin of the Soviet Union is the first man in space aboard the Vostok 1.
October 30 - The Soviet Union tests a hydrogen bomb with a yield of 50 megatons named Tsar Bomba. The biggest nuclear device ever detonated by the United States was Castle Bravo, with a yield of about 15 megatons.²²

image src=wc:Ham_Retreival_GPN-2000-001004.jpg caption="Ham, the first hominid in space" image src=wc:Ham_Tries_Out_His_Life_Support_System_-_GPN-2002-000046.jpg image src=wc:Chimpanzee_Ham_in_Biopack_Couch_for_MR-2_flight_MSFC-6100114.jpg image src=wc:Yuri_Gagarin_(1961)_-_Restoration.jpg caption="Yuri Gagarin, the first man in space" image src=wc:Yuri_Gagarin_Capsule_and_space_suit.jpg

1962

October 16 - 29 - The Cuban Missile Crisis is a thirteen-day period in which the United States and the Soviet Union come the closest to nuclear war.²³

1963

August 5 - The Test Ban Treaty between the Soviet Union, the United States, and the United Kingdom is signed, limiting the kinds of nuclear testing that can be done.

1964

August 26 - President Johnson signs the Private Ownership of Special Nuclear Materials Act, allowing the nuclear power industry to create its own fuel and requiring private ownership of uranium fuel.

1965

March 18 - Alexei Leonov of the Soviet Union conducts the first ever spacewalk.
April 3 - A nuclear reactor, SNAP-10A - Systems for Nuclear Auxiliary Power - is operated in space for the first time, launched by the United States.

image src=wc:Snapshot_satellite_with_SNAP-10A_reactor_HD.6D.563_(10967640793).jpg caption="SNAP-10A Reactor"

1968

July 1 - The Treaty on the Non-proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT) is signed.²⁴

1969

July 20 - The Apollo 11 successfully reaches the moon with a crew of Neil Armstrong, Edwin “Buzz” Aldrin, and Michael Collins.
1969-1979 - The détente begins, easing the tension between the Soviet Union and the United States.

image src=wc:Apollo_11_Crew.jpg caption="Apollo 11 and its crew" image src=wc:Aldrin_Apollo_11_original.jpg image src=wc:Apollo_11_Launch_-_GPN-2000-000630.jpg

1970s

1970

March 5 - The Treaty for Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons becomes effective.

1972

May 26 - The Interim Strategic Arms Limitation Treaty, or SALT I, and the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty, or ABM, is signed by the United States and the Soviet Union.
The first commercial breeder reactor in the Soviet Union goes online in Shevchenko, Kazakhstan.²⁵

1974

October 11 - The Energy Reorganization Act of 1974 divides the Atomic Energy Commission’s functions, creating the Energy Research and Development Administration (ERDA) for research and design and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) to regulate nuclear power.
November 1 - The first RBMK reactor begins operating at the Leningrad Nuclear Power Plant.
A second nuclear-powered ice-breaker ship, Arktika, is constructed.

1977

August 4 - President Carter signs the Department of Energy Organization Act, establishing the Department of Energy.
October 1 - The Department of Energy begins operations.
A third nuclear-powered ice-breaker ship, Sibir, is constructed.

1979

March 28 - The Three Mile Island reactor near Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, partially melts down, prompting the NRC to impose stricter regulations and inspection procedures.²⁶
June 17 - The United States and the Soviet Union sign the SALT II treaty, which limits the nuclear forces of both nations.
December 24 - The Soviet Union invades Afghanistan, halting the consideration of the SALT II treaty and beginning a nine-year war.

image src=wc:3MileIsland.jpg caption="Three Mile Island Reactor"

1980s

1980

January 2 - The détente ends after President Carter responds to the Soviet Union’s invasion of Afghanistan.

1983

January 7 - The Nuclear Waste Policy Act (NWPA) establishes a program for disposing of radioactive waste and spent fuel.
March 23 - President Reagan announced Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI), also called the “Star Wars Program,” a missile defense system to prevent attack by intercontinental or submarine-launched ballistic missiles.²⁷

1986

April 26 - Reactor 4 of the Chornobyl Power Plant in Prypiat, Ukraine, explodes.²⁸

image src=wc:Chernobyl_NPP_Site_Panorama_with_NSC_Construction_-_June_2013.jpg caption="Chornobyl 2013

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