The Biden administration is pouring billions into the nuclear industry. The payoff isn’t certain

America aims for nuclear-power renaissance, The Economist 25 June 23

After the second world war, America’s newly created Atomic Energy Commission was on the hunt for a remote site where engineers could work out how to turn the raw, world-altering power contained in a nuclear bomb into electricity. They settled on the desert shrubland of south-eastern Idaho. Towns in the area fell over themselves to compete for the headquarters of the reactor test site, viewing it as a catalyst for growth. Idaho Falls, then a city of 19,000, launched what it called “the party plan”. Locals wooed officials at lunches, cocktail parties and tours of the city. The guest lists always included women who were “as winsome as possible” to make the town seem attractive to the (male) engineer in charge of choosing.

The party plan worked. Nearly 75 years later, Idaho Falls (with a population of 67,000) remains home to the test site’s successor and the centre of nuclear-power research in the United States: the Idaho National Laboratory (inl)…………………… (Subscribers only)
https://www.economist.com/united-states/2023/06/25/america-aims-for-nuclear-power-renaissance

June 26, 2023 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | Uncategorized