Idaho Town Gets Atomic Power and Light
in Nuclear Power Demonstration

City Hall, Main Street, Arco, Idaho

The city of Arco, Idaho was the first in the world to receive all of its electricity from a nuclear power plant. (source)

Electricity, produced from nuclear energy, was first used to light and power a town in the United States when Arco, Idaho, became the first community in the Nation to receive its entire supply of power from a nuclear source on 17 Jul 1955. Electricity was produced locally by an experimental nuclear power plant operated by Argonne National Laboratory at the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission's National Reactor Testing Station, twenty miles from Arco. For more than an hour that night, the electrical power from the laboratory was fed into the transmission lines instead of Utah Power and Light supplying the small town.

Although town and power company officials knew of the project, the 1,200 residents of this little east central Idaho ranching center were not aware of it at the time. Before and during the experiment, those involved were sworn to secrecy. Afterwards word of the test spread around the community, though the official press release to the news media was not issued until a month later.

A motion picture record of the demonstration was was made, which was presented at the United Nations in Geneva. Delegates from seventy-two nations were there at the Atoms for Peace conference. On 12 Aug 1955, American scientists announced the results from the experimental power plant, built in the Snake River sagebrush plains 20 miles away from Argonne National Laboratory, which was responsible for its operation. The Associated Press report was carried in newspapers around the United States, and the world learned of the distinction attained by Arco.

Several weeks earlier, there had been another test started in which nuclear-produced electricity was fed into the general system of an electrical utility company. However, in that case it was only by-product power from an experimental submarine reactor at West Milton, New York, that was being utilized, on an interuptible basis, and only served as a supplement to electricity generated by conventional means. By contrast, at Arco, the community had been disconnected from the utility company service during the hour that the electricity generated by the nuclear power plant replaced it.

Nature bears long with those who wrong her. She is patient under abuse. But when abuse has gone too far, when the time of reckoning finally comes, she is equally slow to be appeased and to turn away her wrath. (1882) -- Nathaniel Egleston, who was writing then about deforestation, but speaks equally well about the danger of climate change today.

Carl Sagan: In science it often happens that scientists say, 'You know that's a really good argument; my position is mistaken,' and then they would actually change their minds and you never hear that old view from them again. They really do it. It doesn't happen as often as it should, because scientists are human and change is sometimes painful. But it happens every day. I cannot recall the last time something like that happened in politics or religion. (1987) ...(more by Sagan)

Albert Einstein: I used to wonder how it comes about that the electron is negative. Negative-positive—these are perfectly symmetric in physics. There is no reason whatever to prefer one to the other. Then why is the electron negative? I thought about this for a long time and at last all I could think was “It won the fight!” ...(more by Einstein)

Richard Feynman: It is the facts that matter, not the proofs. Physics can progress without the proofs, but we can't go on without the facts ... if the facts are right, then the proofs are a matter of playing around with the algebra correctly. ...(more by Feynman)

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