nuclear undone
  • blog
  • about
  • contact

undo your thinking

listen to the facts

absorb new ideas

History of reactor development at Argonne

1/14/2014

0 Comments

 
By Lenka Kollar

Did you know that all nuclear reactor technology originated at Argonne National Laboratory? The Manhattan Project, in which the first fission chain reaction was sustained, started at the University of Chicago. The lab was then moved to the Chicago suburbs and became known as the Argonne National Laboratory, the first of it's kind in the United States. Argonne expanded to Argonne-West in Idaho to run reactor experiments away from the densely populated Chicago area. In 2005, the US Department of Energy merged Argonne-West with the Idaho National Energy and Environmental Laboratory to form the current Idaho National Laboratory.

All reactor technology that is used around the world originated at these sites or were designed by Argonne. The tree below shows the development of each generation of reactors. The base of the tree is CP-1, the world's first reactor developed as part of the Manhattan Project, below the bleachers at the unused football stadium at UChicago. Next came research reactors (the bottom left branch) and then pressurized water reactors and production reactors (bottom right branch). Production reactors were used to produce plutonium for weapons and pressurized water reactors were developed for use in submarines and later electricity production. Boiling water reactors (top left) were also developed for electricity production. And finally, fast reactors (top right) are the next generation of advanced reactors to be used for electricity production. They can actually consume nuclear waste as fuel!
Picture
To learn more about each of these types of reactors, see the interactive tree image on the Argonne website.
0 Comments



Leave a Reply.

    Picture

    Archives

    January 2017
    December 2016
    November 2016
    October 2016
    August 2016
    June 2016
    May 2016
    February 2016
    January 2016
    October 2015
    September 2015
    August 2015
    July 2015
    June 2015
    May 2015
    April 2015
    March 2015
    February 2015
    January 2015
    December 2014
    November 2014
    October 2014
    September 2014
    August 2014
    July 2014
    June 2014
    May 2014
    April 2014
    March 2014
    February 2014
    January 2014
    December 2013
    November 2013
    October 2013

    Categories

    All
    American Nuclear Society
    Climate Change
    Diversity In Stem
    Energy
    Environmentalists
    Fuel Cycle
    I'm A Nuke
    International
    IYNC
    Navy
    Nonproliferation
    Nuclear Energy
    Nuclear Energy
    Nuclear Engineers
    Nuclear Technology
    Policy
    Radiation
    Reactors
    Science Education
    Sustainability
    UAE
    Women In Engineering

    RSS Feed


    Follow on Bloglovin
Powered by Create your own unique website with customizable templates.
Photos used under Creative Commons from Idaho National Laboratory, Jim.Richmond, Idaho National Laboratory, IAEA Imagebank