The Cult of the Atom: The Secret Papers of the Atomic Energy Commission is a 1982 book by Daniel Ford. Ford is an economist and former director of the Union of Concerned Scientists, who used the Freedom of Information Act to access thousands of Atomic Energy Commission (AEC) documents. The AEC was the predecessor of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. [1] [2] [3]
The Cult of the Atom is a piece of political literature that discusses issues brought up by the nuclear disarmament movement.
The United States Atomic Energy Commission (AEC) was an agency of the United States government established after World War II by the U.S. Congress to foster and control the peacetime development of atomic science and technology. President Harry S. Truman signed the McMahon/Atomic Energy Act on August 1, 1946, transferring the control of atomic energy from military to civilian hands, effective on January 1, 1947. This shift gave the members of the AEC complete control of the plants, laboratories, equipment, and personnel assembled during the war to produce the atomic bomb.
The United States Department of Energy (DOE) is an executive department of the U.S. federal government that oversees U.S. national energy policy and manages the research and development of nuclear power, the military's nuclear weapons program, nuclear reactor production for the United States Navy, energy-related research, and domestic energy production and energy conservation.
The Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) is an independent agency of the United States government tasked with protecting public health and safety related to nuclear energy. Established by the Energy Reorganization Act of 1974, the NRC began operations on January 19, 1975, as one of two successor agencies to the United States Atomic Energy Commission. Its functions include overseeing reactor safety and security, administering reactor licensing and renewal, licensing radioactive materials, radionuclide safety, and managing the storage, security, recycling, and disposal of spent fuel.
The Atomic Age, also known as the Atomic Era, is the period of history following the detonation of the first nuclear weapon, The Gadget at the Trinity test in New Mexico, on 16 July 1945, during World War II. Although nuclear chain reactions had been hypothesized in 1933 and the first artificial self-sustaining nuclear chain reaction had taken place in December 1942, the Trinity test and the ensuing bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki that ended World War II represented the first large-scale use of nuclear technology and ushered in profound changes in sociopolitical thinking and the course of technological development.
David Eli Lilienthal was an American attorney and public administrator, best known for his Presidential Appointment to head Tennessee Valley Authority and later the Atomic Energy Commission (AEC). He had practiced public utility law and led the Wisconsin Public Utilities Commission.
Henry DeWolf "Harry" Smyth was an American physicist, diplomat, and bureaucrat. He played a number of key roles in the early development of nuclear energy, as a participant in the Manhattan Project, a member of the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission (AEC), and U.S. ambassador to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).
"Atoms for Peace" was the title of a speech delivered by U.S. President Dwight D. Eisenhower to the UN General Assembly in New York City on December 8, 1953.
I feel impelled to speak today in a language that in a sense is new—one which I, who have spent so much of my life in the military profession, would have preferred never to use. That new language is the language of atomic warfare.
The Office of Atoms for Peace (OAP) of Thailand (สำนักงานปรมาณูเพื่อสันติ) in Chatuchak district, Bangkok, Thailand, was established in 1961 as the Office of Atomic Energy for Peace. The OAP serves as the main authority for nuclear research in Thailand. The OAP employs approximately 400 people. The research topics and services provided at the OAP include radioisotope production, gamma radiography, neutron activation analysis, neutron radiography, and gemstone irradiation.
SM-1 was a 2-megawatt nuclear reactor developed by the American Locomotive Company (ALCO) and the United States Atomic Energy Commission (AEC) as part of the US Army Nuclear Power Program (ANPP) in the mid-1950s. The compact "package" reactor was designed to produce electricity and generate heat for remote military facilities. The first, the SM-1, served as the Army's primary training facility to train reactor operations personnel from all three services. In 1954, the Department of Defense placed the US Army in charge of all military nuclear power plants except those used for propulsion by the US Navy. The Army's Chief of Engineers established the US Army Engineer Reactors Group in April 1954, and decided to construct the SM-1 facility at the Corps of Engineers headquarters at Fort Belvoir, Virginia, about 18 miles south of Washington, D.C. About 800 personnel were trained on the SM-1 during its operational life, from 1957 to 1973. The power plant was shut down in March 1973, and is monitored within a "restricted access" section of the post. Inspectors enter the shut-down operations control room every decade or so. The Army plans to start demolition in 2020.
Richard Greening Hewlett was an American public historian best known for his work as the Chief Historian of the United States Atomic Energy Commission.
The Atomic Energy Commission of Japan was established in 1956 and serves as the regulatory body for nuclear power in Japan. The Atomic Energy Basic Law contained a provision for its creation, and shortly after the law was enacted, the organization started activities, which are stated to be: assure that research and use of nuclear power is conducted safely and with peaceful intentions, and construct plans for the use and development of nuclear power. It is now structured with 3 different committee members as commission of inquiry to the Cabinet Office.
Too cheap to meter refers to a commodity so inexpensive that it is cheaper and less bureaucratic to simply provide it for a flat fee or even free and make a profit from associated services. Originally applied to nuclear power, the phrase is also used for services that can be provided at such low cost that the additional cost of itemized billing would outweigh the benefits.
Major General Kenneth David Nichols CBE was an officer in the United States Army, and a civil engineer who worked on the secret Manhattan Project, which developed the atomic bomb during World War II. He served as Deputy District Engineer to James C. Marshall, and from 13 August 1943 as the District Engineer of the Manhattan Engineer District. Nichols led both the uranium production facility at the Clinton Engineer Works at Oak Ridge, Tennessee, and the plutonium production facility at Hanford Engineer Works in Washington state.
Anthony Mazzocchi was an American labor leader. He was a high elected official of the Oil, Chemical and Atomic Workers International Union (OCAW), serving as vice president from 1977 to 1988, and as secretary-treasurer from 1988 to 1991. He was credited by President Richard Nixon as being the primary force behind enactment of the Occupational Safety and Health Act of 1970, was a mentor to Karen Silkwood, a union activist in Oklahoma; and a co-founder of the Labor Party. For his efforts, he was called the "Rachel Carson of the American workplace."
In Pacific Gas & Electric Co. v. State Energy Resources Conservation & Development Commission, 461 U.S. 190 (1983), the United States Supreme Court held that a state statute regulating economic aspects of nuclear generating plants was not preempted by the federal Atomic Energy Act of 1954. The case provides a framework that has guided other cases involving preemption of federal authority.
Larry Bogart (1914–1991) was a U.S. independent critic of the nuclear power industry. Bogart abandoned a career in public relations in the mid-1960s to organize community groups and speak out about the problems of the "peaceful atom".
Nathan Solon Finney, who wrote under the name Nat S. Finney, was an American journalist. He spent long periods as a Washington correspondent for the Minneapolis Tribune and, later, the Buffalo Evening News. A specialist on economics and nuclear energy, he covered atomic tests in the Pacific, was the first journalist to visit Los Alamos National Laboratory, and was the first to report on Soviet missiles in Cuba.
Jane Hamilton Hall was an American physicist. During World War II she worked on the Manhattan Project. After the war she remained at the Los Alamos National Laboratory, where she oversaw the construction and start up of the Clementine nuclear reactor. She became assistant director of the laboratory in 1958. She was secretary of the General Advisory Committee of the Atomic Energy Commission from 1956 until 1959, and was a member of the committee from 1966 to 1972.
James Thomas Ramey was an American lawyer, government official, and expert on the applications of nuclear technology. Ramey served as one of the five commissioners of the United States Atomic Energy Commission (AEC) from 1962 to 1973, the longest tenure of any AEC commissioner. He was married to the noted endocrinologist, physiologist and feminist Estelle Ramey.