Atomic energy’s birthplace: First-ever nuclear power plant celebrating 75th anniversary

ARCO, Idaho (KIFI) – Seventy-five years ago, Experimental Breeder Reactor-1 (EBR-1) became the first-ever nuclear power plant to produce electricity near Arco, Idaho.

"This is the first place in the entire world where we managed to produce enough electricity to light four, simple light bulbs,” said EBR-1 Tour Guide Vic Thomas. “It's the very beginning of us being able to use atomic energy peacefully."

The Museum of Idaho and Idaho National Laboratory hosted a historic tour for dozens of community members Friday to commemorate the milestone.

The groundbreaking achievement on December 20, 1951, was followed two years later by another breakthrough. In 1953, EBR-1 successfully produced more fuel than it consumed – the first demonstration of breeder reactor technology.

The reactor was cooled by liquid sodium. It ran for a dozen years until December 1963.

Later that decade, it was designated a National Historic Landmark by U.S. President Lyndon B. Johnson.

“This is representing a whole legacy of electricity production across the United States. At the laboratory, we are now creating small modular reactors and microreactors, and that legacy, it began here."” Thomas said.

While the site remains the birthplace of atomic power, INL guides quickly corrected a common myth. 

"Everybody believes EBR-1 is the reactor that lit the city of Arco. That is not true—it was the BORAX-III reactor," said INL Ambassador Liza Raley.

On July 17, 1955, electricity for Arco’s 500 residents was unhooked from the grid and connected directly to the Borax-III reactor in a historic first for nuclear power generation.

"For 45 minutes in the middle of the night, they powered the entire city of Arco with atomic power. That made Arco the first city in the world to ever be powered entirely by atomic power,” Raley said. “Now, the joke that we normally make is in 1951, they lit four iconic light bulbs at EBR-1. In 1955, they lit five light bulbs.”

Today, 57 nuclear power plants are producing 20 percent of America's electricity.