Atomic City

Atomic City is located in the desert of Eastern Idaho, near the Idaho National Engineering Laboratory (INEL). Its claim to fame is that it was the first city in the US whose electricity was generated from nuclear power.

On display near the entrance to INEL are some of the old reactors developed in the 1960’s. This huge beast was being designed to provide the thrust to power a jet airplane. It sits on railroad tracks. The project never got anywhere due to the huge size of the reactors needed to generate the required thrust.

When I was a kid my family was on a driving trip through Idaho. My dad wanted to go through Atomic City to visit Experimental Breeder Reactor I, but my mom was against the idea, saying that we might get exposed to radioactivity. We ended up visiting anyway. I thought it was interesting, but I didn’t realize the historical significance of the site at the time.