ABSTRACT
The director of ANL, Walter Zinn, felt that experimental reactors should be built in a more remote area of the country, so a site was selected in Idaho. This site became known as the National Reactor Testing Station (NRTS) and the Argonne portion was known as ANL-W. The first reactor project at NRTS was the Experimental Breeder Reactor-I (EBR-I). Construction of the reactor began in 1949 and was completed in 1951. On December 20, 1951, a resistance load was connected to the reactor’s generator and about 45 kW of electricity generated. This marked the first generation of electricity from a nuclear reactor. The reactor could generate sufficient electricity to supply the power needed for operation of the facility. It is important to note that the first electricity was generated by a sodium-cooled fast-breeder reactor.
