User:Doeze/Timeline of nuclear power

This timeline of nuclear power is an incomplete chronological summary of significant events in the study and use of nuclear power.

1930s

Leo Szilard's reactor patent

• 1934
  • On June 24, Leo Szilard files the first patent for a nuclear reactor. The design, which predates the discovery of fission, resembles an accelerator-driven subcritical reactor, suggesting deuteron beam fusion interacting with indium, beryllium, bromine, or uranium as neutron-rich core materials.

1940s

• 

  The Chicago Pile-1, the first artificial nuclear reactor, built in secrecy at the University of Chicago in 1942 during World War II as part of theManhattan Project.

  1942
  • On December 2, Chicago Pile-1, the first artificial nuclear reactor, achieves criticality at the University of Chicago. The Manhattan Project's assembly uses blocks of natural uranium and graphite as a moderator to produce 0.5 watts of thermal power.
• 1943
  • On November 4, the X-10 Graphite Reactor achieves criticality at Oak Ridge National Laboratory. It is the world's second reactor, the first built for continuous operation, and the first reactor for the production of plutonium-239.
• 1944
  • Chicago Pile-3, the first heavy-water reactor, achieves criticality at Site A, Illinois. It uses deuterium oxide i.e. heavy water as a moderator instead of graphite.
  • On May 9, the Water Boiler reactor, the first aqueous homogeneous reactor and the first reactor to use enriched uranium, achieves criticality at Los Alamos National Laboratory, using a solution of uranyl sulfate at 14.7% enrichment.
• 1945
  • On September 5, ZEEP, the first reactor in Canada and outside the United States, achieves criticality at Chalk River Laboratories.

• 1946
  • On November 19, Clementine, the first fast neutron reactor, the first liquid metal cooled reactor, and the first reactor to use plutonium fuel achieves criticality at Los Alamos National Laboratory, using a mercury coolant abandoned by all later designs.
  • On December 25, F-1, the first reactor in the Soviet Union, in Europe, and outside North America, achieves criticality at the Kurchatov Institute.
• 1947
  • On August 15, GLEEP, the first reactor in the United Kingdom, achieves criticality at the Atomic Energy Research Establishment in Oxfordshire.
• 1948
  • On December 15, Zoé, the first reactor in France, begins experimental operation at Fort de Châtillon.

1950s

• 1950
• 1951
  • On August 24, EBR-I, the first breeder reactor, producing more fuel than it consumes, begins power operation.
• 1952
  • On October 27, the Saclay reactor, the first gas-cooled reactor, achieves criticality at the Saclay Nuclear Research Centre, France. While many early reactors were air-cooled, it is an experimental 2 MW design testing the first closed circuit nitrogen and carbon dioxide cooling.
  • On December 2, NRX, Canada's second reactor, constructed at Chalk River Laboratories, experiences the first core meltdown and first hydrogen explosion in a nuclear facility.
  • AI (Industrial Association Mayak), the first reactor for the production of tritium, begins operation at the Mayak plant in Ozyorsk, Soviet Union.
• 1953

  

  The final destructive test of BORAX-I, the first experimental boiling water reactor, in 1954.

  • On March 30, the S1W, the first pressurized water reactor, achieves criticality at Idaho National Laboratory. It it designed to power submarines
  • BORAX-I, the first boiling water reactor, achieves criticality at Argonne National Laboratory.
• 1954

  

  The submarine USS Nautilus, the first vessel to use nuclear propulsion, arriving in New York Harbor in 1956.

  • On January 21, the USS Nautilus, the first vessel to use nuclear propulsion and the first nuclear submarine, powered by the S2W reactor is launched from General Dynamics Electric Boat shipyard, Groton, Connecticut, and in 1958 completes the first journey under the North Pole.
  • On November 3, the Aircraft Reactor Experiment, the first molten-salt reactor, achieves criticality at Oak Ridge National Laboratory.

    

    The Convair NB-36H, the first aircraft to test operation of an onboard reactor in flight.

• 1955
  • On September 17, the Aircraft Shield Test Reactor, the first reactor operated during aircraft flight, begins test flights in the Convair NB-36H.
• 1956
• 1957
  • On December 5, the Lenin, the first nuclear-powered surface vessel, a Soviet icebreaker, is launched from the Admiralty Shipyards in Leningrad.
  • The OMRE, the first complete organic nuclear reactor, cooled and moderated by hydrocarbons, in this case terphenyls, achieves criticality at the Idaho National Laboratory.
• 1958
  • On September 27, a Soviet-supplied experimental 10 MW reactor, the first reactor in China, begins operation in Beijing. Nuclear power is developed only for weapons production until the Qinshan I reactor begins development in 1985.
• 1959

  

  The Kiwi A Prime nuclear thermal rocket engine is test fired at full power at Area 25, Nevada on July 8, 1960.

  • On July 14,the USS Long Beach, the first nuclear-powered surface combat ship, is launched from Fore River Shipyard, Massachusetts.
  • On July 1, Kiwi A, the first nuclear-powered rocket engine, begins testing at Area 25, Nevada, under Los Alamos Scientific Laboratory's Project Rover. It produces 70 MW for five minutes and achieves a core temperature of 2,900 K, using liquid hydrogen as the coolant, moderator, and propellant.

1960s

• 1960
  • On September 24, the USS Enterprise, the first nuclear-powered aircraft carrier, is launched from Newport News Shipbuilding, Virginia.
• 1961
  • On January 3, the Army Nuclear Power Program's SL-1 experiences a prompt critical accident, killing three workers. This is the first and only fatal nuclear power accident in the United States.
• 1962
  • On March 3, PM-3A, the first and only reactor to operate in Antarctica, achieves criticality at McMurdo Station.
  • On September 16, Indian Point Unit 1, the first reactor to use thorium fuel, begins commercial operation in New York.

• 1965
  • On April 3, NASA launches into orbit the Snapshot satellite carrying SNAP-10A, the first reactor operated in space. It uses a uranium zirconium hydride fuel-moderator hybrid, and a liquid sodium-potassium alloy (NaK) coolant.
  • A Soviet-suppled IRT-2000 pool-type research reactor begins operation as the first reactor in North Korea, at the Nyongbyon Nuclear Scientific Research Center.
• 1967
  • On 24 January, MH-1A, the first floating nuclear power plant, achieves criticality. It was developed by the Army Nuclear Power Program at Gunston Cove, Virginia.

1970s

• 1978
  • On November 5, voters in Austria reject a referendum to allow the startup of its first nuclear power plant, Zwentendorf, by 50.47% to 49.53%. A subsequent law makes Austria the first country to ban nuclear power.

1980s

• 1986
  • On April 26, in the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic, Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant Reactor No. 4 experiences a core meltdown during a test, the first Level 7 nuclear accident on the International Nuclear Event Scale. It destroys its containment building and spreads radioactive material across Europe.

1990s

• 1991
  • On December 15, Qinshan I, the first commercial reactor in China, is connected to the grid.
• 1993
  • On February 18, the United States and Russia sign the Megatons to Megawatts Program agreement. Russia agrees to dilute 500 metric tons of its excess weapons-grade highly enriched uranium to low-enriched uranium, using US-suppled natural uranium, for sale on the global market, over the course of 20 years. The deal is signed by William J. Burns and Viktor Mikhaylov in Washington D.C.

2010s

• 2013
  • In December, the 20-year Megatons to Megawatts Program successfully concludes with the final Russian delivery of low-enriched uranium to the US. Critics later say that it led to Rosatom's dominance over the global enriched uranium market.