First Nuclear Power Plant Generates Electricity: EBR-1 in Idaho
Four light bulbs. That's what humanity's atomic future looked like on December 20, 1951—four 200-watt bulbs glowing in an Idaho desert facility, powered by a reactor the size of a small car. The Experimental Breeder Reactor-1 ran for just over two hours that first night. But here's what made it radical: it produced more fuel than it consumed, breeding new plutonium while generating power. Within a decade, nuclear plants would light entire cities. The reactor itself? Shut down in 1964 after proving the concept, then reopened as a museum—visitors can still see those original four bulb sockets, the tiny beginning of the atomic age's grand promise.
December 20, 1951
75 years ago
Key Figures & Places
nuclear power
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electricity
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Experimental Breeder Reactor I
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Arco, Idaho
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United States
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Nuclear power
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Nuclear power plant
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Experimental Breeder Reactor I
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Arco, Idaho
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Laboratoire national de l'Idaho
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Forschungsreaktor
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Leopold V of Austria seized Richard I while the English king returned from the Third Crusade, turning a triumphant homecoming into a decade-long captivity that …
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