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.[2] 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.[3] 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.[4]
An increasing number of critics during the 1960s charged that the AEC's regulations were insufficiently rigorous in several important areas, including radiation protection standards, nuclear reactor safety, plant siting, and environmental protection.
In creating the AEC, Congress declared that atomic energy should be employed not only in the form of nuclear weapons for the nation's defense, but also to promote world peace, improve the public welfare and strengthen free competition in private enterprise.[6] At the same time, the McMahon Act which created the AEC also gave it unprecedented powers of regulation over the entire field of nuclear science and technology. It furthermore explicitly prevented technology transfer between the United States and other countries, and required FBI investigations for all scientists or industrial contractors who wished to have access to any AEC controlled nuclear information. The signing was the culmination of long months of intensive debate among politicians, military planners and atomic scientists over the fate of this new energy source and the means by which it would be regulated. President Truman appointed David Lilienthal as the first Chairman of the AEC.[2]:91–92 Congress gave the new civilian AEC extraordinary power and considerable independence to carry out its mission. To provide the AEC exceptional freedom in hiring its scientists and engineers, AEC employees were exempt from the civil service system. The AEC's first order of business was to inspect the scattered empire of atomic plants and laboratories to be inherited from the U.S. Army.[4][pageneeded]
Because of the great need for security, all production facilities and nuclear reactors would be government-owned, while all technical information and research results would be under AEC control. The National Laboratory system was established from the facilities created under the Manhattan Project. Argonne National Laboratory was one of the first laboratories authorized under this legislation as a contractor-operated facility dedicated to fulfilling the new AEC's missions.[citation needed] Argonne was the first of the regional laboratories to involve universities in the Chicago area. Others were the Clinton (CEW) labs and the Brookhaven National Laboratory in the Northeast, although a similar lab in Southern California did not eventuate.[7]
On 11 March 1948 Lilienthal and Kenneth Nichols were summoned to the White House where Truman told them "I know you two hate each other’s guts". He directed that "the primary objective of the AEC was to develop and produce atomic weapons", Nichols was appointed a major general and replaced Leslie Groves as chief of the Armed Forces Special Weapons Project (AFSWP); previously Lilienthal had opposed his appointment. Lilienthal was told to "forgo your desire to place a bottle of milk on every doorstop and get down to the business of producing atomic weapons."[8] Nichols became General Manager of the AEC on 2 November 1953.[9]
The AEC was in charge of developing the U.S. nuclear arsenal, taking over these responsibilities from the wartime Manhattan Project. In its first decade, the AEC oversaw the operation of Los Alamos Scientific Laboratory, devoted primarily to weapons development, and in 1952, the creation of new second weapons laboratory in California, the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. The AEC also carried out the "crash program" to develop the hydrogen bomb (H-bomb), and the AEC played a key role in the prosecution of the Rosenbergs for espionage.
After serving as director of the Manhattan Project's Los Alamos Laboratory, physicist J. Robert Oppenheimer voiced strong opinions to the AEC, as chairman of its general advisory board of nuclear scientists, against development of the "super" or hydrogen bomb along with Lilienthal. Subsequently, Lilienthal left the AEC at the White House's request in 1950 and Oppenheimer's appointment to the board was not renewed in 1952. With them removed, President Truman announced his decision to develop and produce the hydrogen bomb. The first test firing of an experimental H-bomb ("Ivy Mike") was carried out in the Central Pacific on November 1, 1952, under President Truman. Furthermore, U.S. Navy Admiral Lewis W. Strauss was appointed in 1953 by the new President Eisenhower as the Chairman of the AEC, to carry out the military development and production of the H-bomb.[10]
Lilienthal wanted to give high priority to peaceful uses, especially with nuclear power plants. However, coal was still cheap, and the electric power industry was not interested. The first experimental nuclear power plant was started in Pennsylvania under President Eisenhower in 1954.[11]
Domestic uranium procurement program
The AEC developed a program for sourcing uranium domestically. Before 1947, the main sources for the mineral had been Canada and (what was then) the Belgian Congo, though the Manhattan Project also secretly processed uranium from the tailings of vanadium plants in the US West during World War II. The Colorado Plateau was known to contain veins of carnotite ore, which contains both vanadium and uranium. The AEC developed its program in accordance with the principle of free enterprise.[12] Rather than discovering, mining, and processing the ore itself, the federal government provided geological information, built roads, and set a fixed rate for purchasing ore through one of the mills in the area.[13] This prompted individuals to discover and produce the ore, which the government would then buy. The AEC was the only legal buyer of uranium from the beginning of the program in 1947 through 1966. From 1966 to the end of the program in 1970, the AEC continued to buy uranium to support the market until private industry could develop sufficiently.
Because the government itself was not producing ore, it claimed that it had no obligation to regulate miner safety. A congressional report published in 1995 concluded that, "The government failed to act to require the reduction of the hazard by ventilating the mines, and it failed to adequately warn the miners of the hazard to which they were being exposed."[14] The Radiation Exposure Compensation Act of 1990 sought to compensate miners and families who developed cancer as a result of exposure to radon gas in uranium mines.
Regulations and experiments
The AEC was connected with the U.S. Department of Defense by a "Military Liaison Committee"'. The Joint Committee on Atomic Energy exercised congressional oversight over the AEC and had considerable power in influencing AEC decisions and policy.[15]
The AEC's far-reaching powers and control over a subject matter which had far-reaching social, public health, and military implications made it an extremely controversial organization. One of the drafters of the McMahon Act, James R. Newman, famously concluded that the bill made "the field of atomic energy [an] island of socialism in the midst of a free-enterprise economy".[16]
Before the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) was created, nuclear regulation was the responsibility of the AEC, which Congress first established in the Atomic Energy Act of 1946. Eight years later, Congress replaced that law with the Atomic Energy Act of 1954, which for the first time made the development of commercial nuclear power possible, and resolved a number of other outstanding problems in implementing the first Atomic Energy Act. The act assigned the AEC the functions of both encouraging the use of nuclear power and regulating its safety. The AEC's regulatory programs sought to ensure public health and safety from the hazards of nuclear power without imposing excessive requirements that would inhibit the growth of the industry. [citation needed] This was a difficult goal to achieve, especially in a new industry, and within a short time the AEC's programs stirred considerable controversy. Stephanie Cooke has written that:
the AEC had become an oligarchy controlling all facets of the military and civilian sides of nuclear energy, promoting them and at the same time attempting to regulate them, and it had fallen down on the regulatory side ... a growing legion of critics saw too many inbuilt conflicts of interest.[17]:252
The AEC had a history of involvement in experiments involving radioactive iodine. In a 1949 operation called the "Green Run", the AEC released iodine-131 and xenon-133 to the atmosphere which contaminated a 500,000-acre (2,000km2) area containing three small towns near the Hanford site in Washington.[18]:130–131 In 1953, the AEC ran several studies on the health effects of radioactive iodine in newborns and pregnant women at the University of Iowa. Also in 1953, the AEC sponsored a study to discover if radioactive iodine affected premature babies differently from full-term babies. In the experiment, researchers from Harper Hospital in Detroit orally administered iodine-131 to 65 premature and full-term infants who weighed from 2.1 to 5.5 pounds (0.95 to 2.49kg).[18]:132–134 In another AEC study, researchers at the University of Nebraska College of Medicine fed iodine-131 to 28 healthy infants through a gastric tube to test the concentration of iodine in the infants' thyroid glands.[18]:132–134
Public opinion and abolition of the AEC
During the 1960s and early 1970s, the Atomic Energy Commission came under fire from opposition concerned with more fundamental ecological problems such as the pollution of air and water.[19]:113 Under the Nixon Administration, environmental consciousness grew exponentially and the first Earth Day was held on April 22, 1970.[19]:113 Along with rising environmental awareness came a growing suspicion of the AEC and public hostility for their projects increased. In the public eye, there was a strong association between nuclear power and nuclear weapons, and even though the AEC had made a push in the late 1960s, to portray their efforts as being geared toward peaceful uses of atomic energy, criticism of the agency grew. The AEC was chiefly held responsible for the health problems of people living near atmospheric test sites from the early 1960s, and there was a strong association of nuclear energy with the radioactive fallout from these tests.[19]:115 Around the same time, the AEC was also struggling with opposition to nuclear power plant siting as well as nuclear testing. An organized push was finally made to curb the power held by the AEC, and in 1970 the AEC was forced to prepare an Environmental impact statement (EIS) for a nuclear test in northwestern Colorado as part of the initial preparation for Project Rio Blanco.[20]:244
In 1973, the AEC predicted that, by the turn of the century, one thousand reactors would be needed producing electricity for homes and businesses across the United States.[21] However, after 1973, orders for nuclear reactors declined sharply as electricity demand fell and construction costs rose. Some partially completed nuclear power plants in the U.S. were stricken, and many planned nuclear plants were canceled.[17]:283[bettersourceneeded]
By 1974, the AEC's regulatory programs had come under such strong attack that Congress decided to abolish the agency. Supporters and critics of nuclear power agreed that the promotional and regulatory duties of the AEC should be assigned to different agencies. The Energy Reorganization Act of 1974 transferred the regulatory functions of the AEC to the new Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC), which began operations on January 19, 1975. Promotional functions went to the Energy Research and Development Administration which was later incorporated into the United States Department of Energy.[22]
Lasting through the mid-1970s, the AEC, along with other entities including the Department of Defense, National Institutes of Health, the American Cancer Society, the Manhattan Project, and various universities funded or conducted human radiation experiments.[23] The government covered up most of these radiation mishaps until 1993, when President Bill Clinton ordered a change of policy. Nuclear radiation was known to be dangerous and deadly (from the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945), and the experiments were designed to ascertain the detailed effect of radiation on human health.[23][24] In Oregon, 67 prisoners with inadequate consent to vasectomies had their testicles exposed to irradiation.[25] In Chicago, 102 volunteers with unclear consent received injections of strontium and cesium solutions to simulate radioactive fallout.[23]
For many years, the AEC provided the most conspicuous example of the benefit of atomic age technologies to biology and medicine.[26]:649–684 Shortly after the Atomic Energy Commission was established, its Division of Biology and Medicine began supporting diverse programs of research in the life sciences, mainly the fields of genetics, physiology, and ecology.[27] Specifically concerning the AEC's relationship with the field of ecology, one of the first approved funding grants went to Eugene Odum in 1951.[27] This grant sought to observe and document the effects of radiation emission on the environment from a recently built nuclear facility on the Savannah River in South Carolina. Odum, a professor at the University of Georgia, initially submitted a proposal requesting annual funding of $267,000, but the AEC rejected the proposal and instead offered to fund a $10,000 project to observe local animal populations and the effects of secondary succession on abandoned farmland around the nuclear plant.[27]
In 1961, AEC chairman Glenn T. Seaborg established the Technical Analysis Branch (to be directed by Hal Hollister) to study the long-term biological and ecological effects of nuclear war.[28] Throughout the early 1960s, this group of scientists conducted several studies to determine nuclear weapons' ecological consequences and their implications for human life. As a result, during the 1950s and 1960s, the U.S. government placed emphasis on the development and potential use of "clean" nuclear weapons to mitigate these effects.[28]
In later years,[when?] the AEC began providing increased research opportunities to scientists by approving funding for ecological studies at various nuclear testing sites, most notably at Eniwetok, which was part of the Marshall Islands. Through their support of nuclear testing, the AEC gave ecologists a unique opportunity to study the effects of radiation on whole populations and entire ecological systems in the field.[27] Prior to 1954, no one had investigated a complete ecosystem with the intent to measure its overall metabolism, but the AEC provided the means as well as the funding to do so. Ecological development was further spurred by environmental concerns about radioactive waste from nuclear energy and postwar atomic weapons production. In the 1950s, such concerns led the AEC to build a large ecology research group at their Oak Ridge National Laboratory, which was instrumental in the development of radioecology. A wide variety of research efforts in biology and medicine took place under the umbrella of the AEC at national laboratories and at some universities with agency sponsorship and funding.[26]:649–684 As a result of increased funding as well as the increased opportunities given to scientists and the field of ecology in general, a plethora of new techniques were developed which led to rapid growth and expansion of the field as a whole. One of these techniques afforded to ecologists involved the use of radiation, namely in ecological dating and to study the effects of stresses on the environment.[27]
In 1969, the AEC's relationship with science and the environment was brought to the forefront of a growing public controversy that had been building since 1965. In search for an ideal location for a large-yield nuclear test, the AEC settled upon the island of Amchitka, part of the Aleutian Islands National Wildlife Refuge in Alaska.[20]:246 The main public concern was about their location choice, as there was a large colony of endangered sea otters in close proximity. To help defuse the issue, the AEC sought a formal agreement with the Department of the Interior and the U.S. state of Alaska to help transplant the colony of sea otters to other former habitats along the West Coast.[20]:247
Arctic ecology
The AEC played a role in expanding the field of arctic ecology. From 1959 to 1962, the Commission's interest in this type of research peaked. For the first time, extensive effort was placed by a national agency on funding bio-environmental research in the Arctic. Research took place at Cape Thompson on the northwest coast of Alaska, and was tied to an excavation proposal named Project Chariot.[29]:22 The excavation project was to involve a series of underground nuclear detonations that would create an artificial harbor, consisting of a channel and circular terminal basin, which would fill with water. This would have allowed for enhanced ecological research of the area in conjunction with any nuclear testing that might occur, as it essentially would have created a controlled environment where levels and patterns of radioactive fallout resulting from weapons testing could be measured.[29]:23 The proposal never went through, but it evidenced the AEC's interest in Arctic research and development.
The simplicity of biotic compositions and ecological processes in the arctic regions of the globe made ideal locations in which to pursue ecological research, especially since at the time there was minimal human modification of the landscape.[29]:25 All investigations conducted by the AEC produced new data from the Arctic, but few or none of them were supported solely on that basis.[29]:25 While the development of ecology and other sciences was not always the primary objective of the AEC, support was often given to research in these fields indirectly as an extension of their efforts for peaceful applications of nuclear energy.[citation needed]
Reports
The AEC issued a large number of technical reports through their technical information service and other channels. These had many numbering schemes, often associated with the lab from which the report was issued. AEC report numbers included AEC-AECU (unclassified), AEC-AECD (declassified), AEC-BNL (Brookhaven National Lab), AEC-HASL (Health and Safety Laboratory), AEC-HW (Hanford Works), AEC-IDO (Idaho Operations Office), AEC-LA (Los Alamos), AEC-MDCC (Manhattan District), AEC-TID, and others. Today, these reports can be found in library collections that received government documents, through the National Technical Information Service (NTIS), and through public domain digitization projects such as the Technical Report Archive & Image Library, which are available via HathiTrust.[30]
Glenn Theodore Seaborg was an American chemist whose involvement in the synthesis, discovery and investigation of ten transuranium elements earned him a share of the 1951 Nobel Prize in Chemistry. His work in this area also led to his development of the actinide concept and the arrangement of the actinide series in the periodic table of the elements.
The Hanford Site is a decommissioned nuclear production complex operated by the United States federal government on the Columbia River in Benton County in the U.S. state of Washington. It has also been known as SiteW and the Hanford Nuclear Reservation. Established in 1943 as part of the Manhattan Project, the site was home to the Hanford Engineer Works and B Reactor, the first full-scale plutonium production reactor in the world. Plutonium manufactured at the site was used in the first atomic bomb, which was tested in the Trinity nuclear test, and in the Fat Man bomb used in the bombing of Nagasaki.
Ernest Orlando Lawrence was an American nuclear physicist and winner of the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1939 for his invention of the cyclotron, being the youngest winner of the Nobel Prize in Physics. He is known for his work on uranium-isotope separation for the Manhattan Project, as well as for founding the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory.
Nuclear fallout is the residual radioactive material propelled into the upper atmosphere following a nuclear blast, so called because it "falls out" of the sky after the explosion and the shock wave has passed. It commonly refers to the radioactive dust and ash created when a nuclear weapon explodes. The amount and spread of fallout is a product of the size of the weapon and the altitude at which it is detonated. Fallout may get entrained with the products of a pyrocumulus cloud and fall as black rain. This radioactive dust, usually consisting of fission products mixed with bystanding atoms that are neutron-activated by exposure, is a form of radioactive contamination.
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 energy production, 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 energy conservation.
Edwin Mattison McMillan was an American physicist credited with being the first to produce a transuranium element, neptunium. For this, he shared the 1951 Nobel Prize in Chemistry with Glenn Seaborg.
Willard Frank Libby was an American physical chemist noted for his role in the 1949 development of radiocarbon dating, a process which revolutionized archaeology and palaeontology. For his contributions to the team that developed this process, Libby was awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1960.
A nuclear and radiation accident is defined by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) as "an event that has led to significant consequences to people, the environment or the facility." Examples include lethal effects to individuals, large radioactivity release to the environment, or a reactor core melt. The prime example of a "major nuclear accident" is one in which a reactor core is damaged and significant amounts of radioactive isotopes are released, such as in the Chernobyl disaster in 1986 and Fukushima nuclear disaster in 2011.
The Savannah River Site (SRS) is a U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) reservation in the United States, located in the state of South Carolina on land in Aiken, Allendale, and Barnwell counties adjacent to the Savannah River. It lies 25 miles (40 km) southeast of Augusta, Georgia. The site was built during the 1950s to refine nuclear materials for deployment in nuclear weapons. It covers 310 square miles (800 km2) and employs more than 10,000 people.
John William Gofman was an American scientist and advocate. He was Professor Emeritus of Molecular and Cell Biology at the University of California at Berkeley.
The Metallurgical Laboratory was a scientific laboratory at the University of Chicago that was established in February 1942 to study and use the newly discovered chemical element plutonium. It researched plutonium's chemistry and metallurgy, designed the world's first nuclear reactors to produce it, and developed chemical processes to separate it from other elements. In August 1942 the lab's chemical section was the first to chemically separate a weighable sample of plutonium, and on 2 December 1942, the Met Lab produced the first controlled nuclear chain reaction, in the reactor Chicago Pile-1, which was constructed under the stands of the university's old football stadium, Stagg Field.
The Report on the International Control of Atomic Energy was written by a committee chaired by Dean Acheson and David Lilienthal in 1946 and is generally known as the Acheson–Lilienthal Report or Plan. The report was an important American document that appeared just before the intensification of the early Cold War. It proposed the international control of nuclear weapons and the avoidance of future nuclear warfare. A version, the Baruch Plan, was vetoed by the Soviets at the United Nations.
Plutonium-238 is a radioactive isotope of plutonium that has a half-life of 87.7 years.
Plutonium is a chemical element; it has symbol Pu and atomic number 94. It is an actinide metal of silvery-gray appearance that tarnishes when exposed to air, and forms a dull coating when oxidized. The element normally exhibits six allotropes and four oxidation states. It reacts with carbon, halogens, nitrogen, silicon, and hydrogen. When exposed to moist air, it forms oxides and hydrides that can expand the sample up to 70% in volume, which in turn flake off as a powder that is pyrophoric. It is radioactive and can accumulate in bones, which makes the handling of plutonium dangerous.
The Joint Committee on Atomic Energy (JCAE) was a United States congressional committee that was tasked with exclusive jurisdiction over "all bills, resolutions, and other matters" related to civilian and military aspects of nuclear power from 1946 through 1977. It was established by the United States Atomic Energy Act of 1946, and was the overseer of the United States Atomic Energy Commission. It had been preceded by the Senate Special Committee on Atomic Energy, chaired by Senator Brien McMahon. For its broad powers, it is described as one of the most powerful congressional committees in U.S. history. It was the only permanent joint committee in modern times to have legislative authority.
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.
Since the discovery of ionizing radiation, a number of human radiation experiments have been performed to understand the effects of ionizing radiation and radioactive contamination on the human body, specifically with the element plutonium.
The Armed Forces Special Weapons Project (AFSWP) was a United States military agency responsible for those aspects of nuclear weapons remaining under military control after the Manhattan Project was succeeded by the Atomic Energy Commission on 1 January 1947. These responsibilities included the maintenance, storage, surveillance, security and handling of nuclear weapons, as well as supporting nuclear testing. The AFSWP was a joint organization, staffed by the United States Army, United States Navy and United States Air Force; its chief was supported by deputies from the other two services. Major General Leslie R. Groves, the former head of the Manhattan Project, was its first chief.
The nuclear energy policy of the United States began in 1954 and continued with the ongoing building of nuclear power plants, the enactment of numerous pieces of legislation such as the Energy Reorganization Act of 1974, and the implementation of countless policies which have guided the Nuclear Regulatory Commission and the Department of Energy in the regulation and growth of nuclear energy companies. This includes, but is not limited to, regulations of nuclear facilities, waste storage, decommissioning of weapons-grade materials, uranium mining, and funding for nuclear companies, along with an increase in power plant building. Both legislation and bureaucratic regulations of nuclear energy in the United States have been shaped by scientific research, private industries' wishes, and public opinion, which has shifted over time and as a result of different nuclear disasters.
The United States Naval Radiological Defense Laboratory (NRDL) was an early military lab created to study the effects of radiation and nuclear weapons. The facility was based at the Hunter's Point Naval Shipyard in San Francisco, California.
1 2 Hewlett, Richard G. & Oscar E. Anderson (1962). A History of the United States Atomic Energy Commission. University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press.
↑ Rebecca S. Lowen, "Entering the Atomic Power Race: Science, Industry, and Government." Political Science Quarterly 102.3 (1987): 459–479. JSTOR2151403.
1 2 3 Seaborg, Glenn Theodore & Benjamin S. Loeb (1993). The Atomic Energy Commission under Nixon: adjusting to troubled times. New York: St. Martin's Press.
1 2 3 Hacker, Barton C (1994). Elements of Controversy: The Atomic Energy Commission and Radiation Safety in Nuclear Weapons Testing, 1947–1974. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.
1 2 Creager, Angela N.H. (2006). "Nuclear Energy in the Service of Biomedicine: The U.S. Atomic Energy Commission's Radioisotope Program, 1946–1950". Journal of the History of Biology. 39 (4): 649–684. doi:10.1007/s10739-006-9108-2. PMID17575955. S2CID24740379.
1 2 3 4 5 Hagen, Joel Bartholemew (1992). An Entangled Bank: The Origins of Ecosystem Ecology. New Brunswick, N.J.: Rutgers University Press.
Clarfield, Gerard H., and William M. Wiecek. Nuclear America: military and civilian nuclear power in the United States, 1940–1980 (Harpercollins, 1984).
Richard G. Hewlett; Oscar E. Anderson. The New World, 1939–1946. University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1962.
Richard G. Hewlett; Francis Duncan. Atomic Shield, 1947–1952. University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1969.
Richard G. Hewlett; Jack M. Holl. Atoms for Peace and War, 1953–1961: Eisenhower and the Atomic Energy Commission. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1989.
Rebecca S. Lowen. "Entering the Atomic Power Race: Science, Industry, and Government," Political Science Quarterly 102#3 (1987), pp.459–479 in JSTOR
Mazuzan, George T., and J. Samuel Walker. Controlling the atom: The beginnings of nuclear regulation, 1946–1962 (Univ of California Press, 1985) online.
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