How to Reinvigorate US Commercial Nuclear Energy

摘要

December 2017 marked the sixtieth anniversary of commercial nuclear energy in the United States, which began with the opening of the Shippingport Atomic Power Station in Pennsylvania. It also marked the seventy-fifth anniversary of the scientific birth of nuclear power, when Chicago Pile-1, built as part of the Manhattan Project and located in an abandoned squash court underneath Stagg Field in the middle of the University of Chicago campus, achieved the first controlled, self-sustaining nuclear chain reaction. Over these years, US policies and innovations successfully underpinned the growth of global commercial nuclear trade, while addressing the threat of non-peaceful applications of commercial technologies.