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Farrington Daniels (March 8, 1889 – June 23, 1972)

The Nuclear Pebble Bed Reactor concept was invented by an American in 1944, and considered by the US government but “encountered numerous design problems” and was dropped. While initially disappointed, the inventor, Farrington Daniels, moved quickly to solar energy before eventually dying of liver cancer. He apparently paid the price for his stint with the Manhattan Project, as plutonium has a half life in the liver of around 50 years. Remaining a lifetime in the liver and bones, it has plenty of opportunity to cause cancer. Jimmy Carter would have been exposed to plutonium during the Chalk River Nuclear Accident clean-up, and was just diagnosed with liver cancer.

Later the US taxpayer funded more study of the Pebble Bed, which still proved a failure. In the same period, the Germans decided to adopt the Pebble Bed, which failed dangerously in nuclear…