The roughly 250 research reactors worldwide benefit all of us, but they are largely unknown to the public.
On December 2, 1942, Nobel Prize winner Enrico Fermi’s Manhattan Project team at the University of Chicago produced the first man-made self-sustaining nuclear chain reaction in what became known as Chicago Pile-1 (CP-1). Unfortunately, the debut of nuclear as a weapon has skewed public perception of civil nuclear technology for decades now.
Right after the war, research in peaceful uses of nuclear energy continued at Argonne National Laboratory in Lemont, mostly focused on generating electricity. Nearly all of the world’s nuclear power reactor types were either invented at Argonne or used its technology. Over the decades, it built and operated twelve experimental and prototype reactors at its lab here in Lemont, plus another fourteen at its facilities in the Idaho desert. Many Napervillians have worked at Argonne – ask them about it!
Research reactors are far smaller and operate at much lower temperatures and pressures than the big power plants. Rather than electricity, they produce neutrons for scientific experiments, testing materials, and making radioactive isotopes for medical procedures and industrial processes. A third of U.S. hospital patients are diagnosed or treated using radiation or radioactive materials, so these reactors have an enormous impact.
In 1956, the Illinois Institute of Technology in Chicago built the first privately-owned industrial research reactor in the world – the Armour Research Foundation Reactor. The University of Illinois also operated a research reactor at its Urbana-Champaign campus from 1960 to 1998. And Westinghouse ran a very small reactor in Zion for training reactor operators.
For a variety of reasons, including exaggerated claims of danger, Illinois’ research reactors have all been shut down. The University of Illinois at Champagne-Urbana, however, wants to build one that will educate its students, produce research results and heat campus buildings, to boot.
To learn about Argonne’s nuclear history, visit www.ne.anl.gov/About/ANL-Reactors.shtml.
