The history of nuclear energy

In 1942, a team of scientists headed by Enrico Fermi built what they called an "atomic pile"—a vast pile of graphite blocks containing uranium metal and uranium oxide fuel—in a squash court under the stands of Stagg Field, the unused football field at the University of Chicago. That "pile," which supported the world’s first man-made chain reaction—the self-sustaining splitting, or fissioning, of uranium atoms—yielded a considerable amount of energy.

The Stagg Field demonstration, designed to demonstrate the feasibility of producing plutonium for an atomic bomb, was part of the Manhattan Project. Under the Manhattan Project, a bomb was detonated in the New Mexico desert, and then the new weapon was dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, spurring Japan’s surrender.

Americans were stunned to learn of the awesome power unleashed by the atomic bomb, and policymakers began looking for more benign applications of controlled nuclear fission. Congress spent the first half of 1946 battling over the question of military or civilian control over the atom. Civilian control won in passage of the Atomic Energy Act, signed into law by President Truman on Aug. 1, 1946. The act gave the new Atomic Energy Commission monopoly control over development of both military and commercial uses of atomic energy. According to the act, atomic energy should be used "toward improving the public welfare, increasing the standard of living, strengthening free competition among private enterprises...and cementing world peace."

Just five years later, in 1951, a group of scientists, engineers and technicians produced the world’s first usable electricity from nuclear fission. In 1953, President Dwight Eisenhower unveiled his vision of "Atoms for Peace" in a speech before the United Nations, and a year later, he signaled the start of construction of the first large-scale nuclear power plant exclusively for civilian use. The Shippingport Atomic Power Station began operating in 1957, and less than two years later, the world’s first privately financed nuclear power plant—Dresden 1—began operations in central Illinois. In 1964, Jersey Central Power & Light ordered the 650-megawatt Oyster Creek—the first plant that could be justified on purely economic grounds, and the rush to place orders for nuclear power plants began.

Since then, the United States has built more than a hundred commercial nuclear power plants that supply about 20 percent of the country’s electricity. In addition, the U.S. government has signed agreements for the peaceful use of nuclear energy with 25 countries and two organizations, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and the European Atomic Energy Community. These agreements promote nonproliferation objectives and establish a framework for nuclear trade. Under the agreements, the two sides give their support to the IAEA’s safeguards system—which is essential to an effective nonproliferation regime. They also express their commitment to the principles of the Nuclear Suppliers Group—28 nuclear supplier nations that coordinate trade policies to ensure that nuclear materials and technologies are used for peaceful purposes. These principles include: full-scope IAEA safeguards as a condition for nuclear exports to non-nuclear weapons states, controls on nuclear-related dual-use items and the exercise of restraint in the export of sensitive items.

For details on the history of nuclear energy, see the Timeline at Nuclear Technology Milestones 1942-2000 on this site, the Nuclear Age Timeline on DOE's Web site and the Timeline of Nuclear Technology on the Public Broadcasting Service's Web site.

Nuclear Energy Institute—Washington, DC
August 2000