Reactor where first usable electricity was generated from atomic power commemorating 72nd anniversary with free tours
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ARCO – On a cold winter day in 1951, Walter Zinn and a group of scientists met in a small nuclear reactor 50 miles west of Idaho Falls to conduct an experiment that would change the modern world forever.
It was five days before Christmas, and Cold War tensions between the United States and the Soviet Union were at their height.
During a time when the Soviets believed everything the United States did with nuclear power was about weapons, Zinn and his team were conducting an experiment that would prove atomic energy could be used for peaceful means.
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On Dec. 20, 1951, the group of scientists conducted the world’s first usable electricity generated by a nuclear reactor. They lit four light bulbs, and the next day, lit the entire building.
That’s the story behind Experimental Breeder Reactor I, the first nuclear reactor in Idaho built on the National Reactor Testing Site. NRTS is the predecessor to the Idaho National Laboratory.
EBR-I continued to operate until 1963 before being decommissioned the following year. It was dedicated as a Registered National Historic Landmark on Aug. 25, 1966 by President Lyndon B. Johnson and Atomic Energy Commission Chairman Glenn Seaborg.
Today, EBR-I is a museum that offers tours to the public between Memorial Day and Labor Day. It’s typically closed during the winter months, but it will be open for tours on Dec. 20 to commemorate 72 years since that initial experiment.
Tours will be available from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. There is no cost to participate and bus rides will be available for the first 50 people to register.
“We made history at EBR-I back in 1951,” INL Media Relations and Digital Content manager Sarah Neumann says in a news release. “This is one more chance for us to share our history with community members.”
Visitors can download the free TravelStorys app before they leave home and listen to an on-demand tour of the INL on their drive across the desert.
To sign up for a bus ride, send an email to tours@inl.gov with the number of people in your party.