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Experimental Breeder Reactor I

nuclear reactor
Also known as: EBR-I

Learn about this topic in these articles:

breeder reactors

  • In breeder reactor

    …first experimental breeder reactor, designated EBR-1, was developed in 1951 by U.S. scientists at the National Reactor Testing Station (now called Idaho National Engineering Laboratory), near Idaho Falls, Idaho. France, Great Britain, Japan, and the Soviet Union subsequently built experimental breeders. Although interest in breeder reactors waned after the 1960s…

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history of nuclear power

  • Temelín Nuclear Power Plant, South Bohemia, Czech Republic
    In nuclear reactor: From production reactors to commercial power reactors

    …was the Experimental Breeder Reactor, EBR-I, which was designed at Argonne National Laboratory and constructed at what is now the Idaho National Laboratory near Idaho Falls, Idaho. EBR-I was an early experiment to demonstrate breeding, and in 1951 it produced the first electricity from nuclear heat. A much larger experimental…

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Quick Facts
Born:
December 10, 1906, Kitchener, Ontario, Canada
Died:
February 14, 2000, Clearwater, Florida, U.S. (aged 93)
Subjects Of Study:
nuclear energy
energy conversion

Walter Henry Zinn (born December 10, 1906, Kitchener, Ontario, Canada—died February 14, 2000, Clearwater, Florida, U.S.) was a Canadian-born nuclear physicist, who contributed to the U.S. atomic bomb project during World War II and to the development of the nuclear reactor.

In 1934 Zinn received a Ph.D. from Columbia University in New York. He was recruited by Enrico Fermi for the Manhattan Project, and it was he who, at the University of Chicago, withdrew a control rod from the atomic pile, releasing the world’s first self-sustaining nuclear reaction. He later supervised the dismantling of the pile and its removal to the Argonne National Laboratory (near Chicago), of which he was director (1946–56) before entering private business. In Idaho in 1951 he designed the first experimental breeder reactor. He also served as chief scientific adviser in the design of the U.S.S. Nautilus, the first nuclear-powered submarine. Zinn received numerous honours, including the Atoms for Peace Award (1960) and the Enrico Fermi Award (1969).

This article was most recently revised and updated by Encyclopaedia Britannica.