3 - The Nuclear World: Atoms for Peace

Summary

The history of nuclear power is examined through the work of a number of pioneering physicists, chemists, and engineers, including Marie Curie in Paris (radiation), Ernest Rutherford, James Chadwick, and John Cockcroft in Cambridge (model of the nucleus), and Enrico Fermi in Rome, New York, and Chicago (the first nuclear reactor CP-1). Albert Einstein and Leo Szilard’s cautionary letter to Franklin Roosevelt, the Manhattan Project at Los Alamos that oversaw the making of the first nuclear bomb, US Admiral Hyman Rickover’s nuclear fleet, and the transition to electricity-generating fission power by the US, UK, and Soviet Union is explored.

The ‘70s growth of “too cheap to meter” nuclear power is shown to be expensive, dangerous, and incapable of treating its own waste. Examples of the failure of the nuclear industry are given, in particular, accidents at Mayak, Cumbria, Three Mile Island, Chernobyl, and Fukushima, as well as numerous deep geologic repositories. The state-of-the-art of nuclear power, so-called small modular reactors, and the current slate of existing and under-development power plants are discussed. The history, design specifications, and potential for success of nuclear fusion is included with examples from JET, ITER, NIF, and others.