Nuclear Power History Pages

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Digital Nuclear Reactor History Museum

Our collection of digitized nuclear reactor historical items

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Hallam Sodium Graphite Reactor photos

Hundreds of photographs from the decommissioning of the Hallam Nuclear Power Facility, a Sodium Graphite Reactor that operated in Nebraska from 1963 to 1964.

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Offshore nuclear power plants

In the 1970s, Westinghouse and Newport News formed a joint venture called Offshore Power Systems to mass produce floating nuclear power plants. Vast environmental and...

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Nuclear Reactor Development History

Learn about the wide variety of nuclear reactor development programs that have happened up to about 1970

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Notes on Atoms for Peace and War

Notes and summary for the official Atomic Energy Commission's history from 1953 to 1961 covering the development of commercial nuclear power and also the new...

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Historical Nuclear Energy Films

A directory of historical nuclear energy films including digitization status and efforts

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Timeline of nuclear energy history

Learn the history of nuclear energy here, in timeline form from Roentgen’s discovery of x-rays, through the Manhattan project, up to Fukushima.

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General History of Nuclear Energy

Learn the history of nuclear energy here, from Roentgen’s discovery of x-rays, through the Manhattan project, up to Fukushima.

nick
About Dr. Nick Touran, Ph.D., P.E.

Nick Touran is a nuclear engineer with expertise in advanced nuclear reactor design, reactor development, and the history of nuclear power. After getting a Ph.D. at the University of Michigan, he spent 15 years at TerraPower in Seattle working on core design, business development, software development, and configuration management. He is now a consultant involved in advising and assisting numerous reactor development and deployment efforts. He is also a licensed professional engineer in Nuclear Engineering.

Nick has been active in public education around nuclear since 2006 as the founder of whatisnuclear.com. He has spoken at numerous institutions, schools, and public events, and was once featured on NPR’s Science Friday. Recently, he has coordinated the digitization of over 45 historical nuclear films.