Nuclear powered townIn 1955, the American town of Arco, Idaho, became the first community in the world to have all its electrical needs provided by nuclear power. During the one-hour test, the town was cut off from all other sources of electrical power. Arco, a town of about 1,000 residents was about 20 miles away from the Atomic Energy Commission's (AEC) National Reactor Testing Station (NRTS) where the Boiling Water Reactor Experiment (BORAX), an experimental uranium-fuelled nuclear reactor, was operated by the Argonne National Laboratory. The demonstration was made to show the safety of nuclear-powered electricity and its ability to sustain the load. (NRTS is now the Idaho National Laboratory.)« |
