The Peaceful Atom

As we drove through southeastern Idaho, we passed through isolated federal government lands of the Idaho National Laboratory. We made a stop at a museum dedicated to the Experimental Breeder Reactor 1 (EBR-I), the world’s first nuclear reactor to produce usable amounts of electricity. It was the early 1950s and the United States had just ended a war with nuclear weapons, engaged in a Cold War arms race with the Soviet Union, and we were wondering what to do next. In 1953, President Dwight D. Eisenhower gave his “atoms for peace” speech in which he called for a new way of thinking about how to use this awesome power.

The museum was cool, but it had an air of boosterism about it. There was a mention of how Three Mile Island actually didn’t melt down, but we didn’t see anything about Chernobyl or Fukushima. Gotta tell the whole story I always say.