Difference between revisions of "Timeline of nuclear energy"

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|1942 || || Fermi and Szilard create Chicago Pile-1, Chicago University. ||
 
|1942 || || Fermi and Szilard create Chicago Pile-1, Chicago University. ||
 
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| 1942 || || {{w|Manhattan Project}}: The world's first nuclear chain reaction takes place in {{w|Chicago}}.<ref name="Nuclear Power History: Timeline From Inception To Fukushima">{{cite web|title=Nuclear Power History: Timeline From Inception To Fukushima|url=https://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/06/13/timeline-nuclear-power-history-fukushima_n_1593278.html|website=huffingtonpost.com|accessdate=9 December 2017}}</ref> || {{w|United States}}
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| 1942 (December 2) || || {{w|Manhattan Project}}: The world's first nuclear chain reaction takes place in {{w|Chicago}}.<ref name="Nuclear Power History: Timeline From Inception To Fukushima">{{cite web|title=Nuclear Power History: Timeline From Inception To Fukushima|url=https://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/06/13/timeline-nuclear-power-history-fukushima_n_1593278.html|website=huffingtonpost.com|accessdate=9 December 2017}}</ref><ref name="The History Of Nuclear Energy"/> || {{w|United States}}
 
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| 1945 (July 16) || || {{w|Manhattan Project}}: The {{w|United States}} stages first test of a plutonium weapon, code-named [[w:Trinity (nuclear test)|“Trinity”]], before dawn in the {{w|Jornada del Muerto}} desert in {{w|New Mexico}}.<ref name="Nuclear Power History: Timeline From Inception To Fukushima"/> || {{w|United States}}
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| 1945 (July 16) || || {{w|Manhattan Project}}: The {{w|United States}} stages first test of a plutonium weapon, code-named [[w:Trinity (nuclear test)|“Trinity”]], before dawn in the {{w|Jornada del Muerto}} desert in {{w|New Mexico}}.<ref name="Nuclear Power History: Timeline From Inception To Fukushima"/><ref name="The History Of Nuclear Energy"/> || {{w|United States}}
 
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| 1945 (August 6) || || {{w|Manhattan Project}}: American bomber drops atomic bomb on Japanese city of Hiroshima.<ref name="Nuclear Power History: Timeline From Inception To Fukushima"/> || {{w|Japan}}
 
| 1945 (August 6) || || {{w|Manhattan Project}}: American bomber drops atomic bomb on Japanese city of Hiroshima.<ref name="Nuclear Power History: Timeline From Inception To Fukushima"/> || {{w|Japan}}

Revision as of 21:31, 13 December 2017

This is a timeline of nuclear energy.

Big picture

Time period Development summary
1895–1945 The science of atomic radiation, atomic change and nuclear fission is developed in this period, much of it in the last six of those years, in which most development is focused on the atomic bomb.[1]
1945–1950s After the end of World War II attention is given to harnessing nuclear energy in a controlled fashion for naval propulsion and for making electricity. In the 1950s, nuclear power is first used for electricity generation. Since 1956, the prime focus is put on the technological evolution of reliable nuclear power plants.[2][3]
1960–late 1970s The world’s nuclear capacity grows from 1 GW to over 100 GW, driven by the growth of electricity consumption and a political desire to move away from oil dependency following the oil crisis of the 1970s.[2] The nuclear power industry in the United States grows rapidly in the 1960s. Utility companies see this

new form of electricity production as economical, environmentally clean, and safe.[3]

1970s–2002 The nuclear power industry suffers some decline and stagnation.[1] In the mid–1970s public opinion grows more critical of nuclear power, with increasing fear of accidents and an uncertainty as to the handling of radioactive waste.[2]
1980s Chernobyl
1990s

Full timeline

Year Event type Details Country
1789 German chemist Martin Klaproth discovers uranium and names it after the planet Uranus.[1] Germany?
1895 German physicist Wilhelm Röntgen discovers X-rays.[1] Germany
1896 French phycisist Henry Bequerel becomes the first to discover evidence of radioactivity. The name of the phenomenon is given by Pierre and Marie Curie.[1] France
1898 Pierre and Marie Curie isolate polonium and radium from the pitchblende.[1] France
1898 Samuel Prescott shows that radiation destroys bacteria in food.[1]
1900 French scientist Paul Ulrich Villard discovers gamma rays while studying the radiation emanating from radium.[1]
1902-1919 New Zealand-born British physicist Ernest Rutherford shows that radioactivity as a spontaneous event emitting an alpha or beta particle from the nucleus creates a different element. Rutherford would go on to develop a fuller understanding of atoms and in 1919 he manages to fire alpha particles from a radium source into nitrogen and finds that nuclear rearrangement is occurring, with formation of oxygen.[1][3] United Kingdom
1905 Albert Einstein publishes paper putting forward the equivalence between mass and energy.[1] Germany
1911 English radiochemist Frederick Soddy discovers that naturally-radioactive elements have a number of different isotopes (radionuclides), with the same chemistry. In the same year, Hungarian radiochemist George de Hevesy shows that such radionuclides are invaluable as tracers, because minute amounts can readily be detected with simple instruments.[1] United Kingdom
1913 Bohr model of the atomic structure.
1932 English physicist James Chadwick discovers the neutron.[1] United Kingdom
1932 Cockcroft and Walton produce nuclear transformations by bombarding atoms with accelerated protons.[1]
1934 Irene Curie and Frederic Joliot find that some transformations like those created by Cockcroft and Walton create artificial radionuclides, thus discovering artificial radioactivity.[1] France
1935 Italian-American physicist Enrico Fermi finds that a much greater variety of artificial radionuclides could be formed when neutrons are used instead of protons.[1] Italy
1938 German chemists Otto Hahn and Fritz Strassmann in Berlin show that the new lighter elements are barium and others which are about half the mass of uranium, thereby demonstrating that nuclear fission has occurred.[1][3] Germany
1939 Otto Hahn and Austrian-Swedish physicist Lise Meitner, along with a small group of scientists, publish results of their discovery of nuclear fission of uranium when it absorbes an extra neutron.[4][5]
1939 Frederic Curie confirmed a theory put forth by Leo Szilard. World War II begins.
1942 Fermi and Szilard create Chicago Pile-1, Chicago University.
1942 (December 2) Manhattan Project: The world's first nuclear chain reaction takes place in Chicago.[6][3] United States
1945 (July 16) Manhattan Project: The United States stages first test of a plutonium weapon, code-named “Trinity”, before dawn in the Jornada del Muerto desert in New Mexico.[6][3] United States
1945 (August 6) Manhattan Project: American bomber drops atomic bomb on Japanese city of Hiroshima.[6] Japan
1942-1945 Manhattan Project: The Manhattan Project builds the worlds first Atomic Bomb.
1946 The United States Congress creates the Atomic Energy Commission (AEC).[3] United States
1949 The Soviet Union gets the atomic bomb.
1951 Experimental Breeder Reactor I starts up in Idaho and produces the world’s first useable electric power from nuclear energy, illuminating four light bulbs.[6] United States
1952 first Hydrogen bomb.
1954 The Soviet Union opens the 5 MW Obninsk Nuclear Power Plant, the first nuclear power plant to produce electricity for a power grid.[6] Russia
1955 The first nuclear powered submarine, USS Nautilus launches.
1956 Calder Hall opens in Sellafield, England. It is the first commercial nuclear power station for civil use.[2][6] United Kingdom
1956 Marcoule Nuclear Site is commissioned by the French nuclear program, generating its first electricity.[6] France
1957 The United States completes its first first large-scale nuclear power plant in Shippingport, Pennsylvania.[6] United States
1959 The first nuclear plant built without government funding is completed in Dresden, Illinois. United States
1960 Yankee Rowe Nuclear Power Station starts operation in Rowe, Massachusetts, using the first fully commercial PWR of 250 MWe, designed by Westinghouse.[1] United States
1964 The first two Soviet nuclear power plants are commissioned.[1] Soviet Union
1965 The US launches the first nuclear reactor in space.
1972 The world's first commercial prototype fast neutron reactor (the BN-350) started up in Kazakhstan, producing 120 MW of electricity and heat to desalinate Caspian seawater.[1] Soviet Union
1973 The first large RBMK (1,000 MW - high-power channel reactor) is commissioned at Sosnovy Bor, Leningrad Oblast.[1] Soviet Union
1974 Atucha I Nuclear Power Plant becomes operational near Zárate, Buenos Aires. It's the first nuclear power plant in Latin America. Argentina
1979 The Three mile island accident occurs when a water pump in the secondary cooling system of a pressurised-water reactor malfunctions.[2][6] United States
1983 Nuclear power generates more energy than natural gas.
1986 The Chernobyl explosion occurs.
1987 Yucca Mountain is considered as a storage place for nuclear waste material produced in the US.
1990 Italy has all of its four reactors closed down.[2]
1991 Statistics The United States have twice as many operating nuclear powerplants as any other country. At the end of the year, 31 other countries also have nuclear powerplants in commercial operation or under construction.[3]
1996 Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO), Japan’s biggest power utility, starts commercial operation of the world’s first advanced boiling water reactor (ABWR), commissioned at the Kashiwazaki-Kariwa Nuclear Power Plant.[6] Japan
2005 Finland approves construction of one of the world’s largest nuclear power plants, raising the dormant atomic power industry’s hopes for a revival.[6] Finland
2011 (March 11) A 9.0 magnitude earthquake and tsunami wrecks the Fukushima nuclear plant, triggering nuclear meltdowns that contaminate food and water and force mass evacuations. Nearly 16,000 people are killed in the earthquake and the tsunami and 3,300 remain unaccounted for.[6] Japan
2012 Japan shuts its last working nuclear power reactor following the nuclear disaster, leaving it without nuclear power for the first time since 1970.[6] Japan

Meta information on the timeline

How the timeline was built

The initial version of the timeline was written by User:Sebastian.

Funding information for this timeline is available.

What the timeline is still missing

[1] [2] [3] [4] [5] [6] [7]

Timeline update strategy

See also

External links

References

  1. 1.00 1.01 1.02 1.03 1.04 1.05 1.06 1.07 1.08 1.09 1.10 1.11 1.12 1.13 1.14 1.15 1.16 1.17 1.18 1.19 "Outline History of Nuclear Energy". world-nuclear.org. Retrieved 9 December 2017. 
  2. 2.0 2.1 2.2 2.3 2.4 2.5 "History of nuclear power". corporate.vattenfall.com. Retrieved 9 December 2017. 
  3. 3.0 3.1 3.2 3.3 3.4 3.5 3.6 3.7 "The History Of Nuclear Energy" (PDF). energy.gov. Retrieved 14 December 2017. 
  4. Meitner, L.; Frisch, O. R. (1939). "Disintegration of Uranium by Neutrons: A New Type of Nuclear Reaction". Nature. 143 (3615): 239. Bibcode:1939Natur.143..239M. doi:10.1038/143239a0. 
  5. Frisch, O. R. (1939). "Physical Evidence for the Division of Heavy Nuclei under Neutron Bombardment". Nature. 143 (3616): 276. Bibcode:1939Natur.143..276F. doi:10.1038/143276a0.  [The experiment for this letter to the editor was conducted on 13 January 1939; see Richard Rhodes The Making of the Atomic Bomb 263 and 268 (Simon and Schuster, 1986).]
  6. 6.00 6.01 6.02 6.03 6.04 6.05 6.06 6.07 6.08 6.09 6.10 6.11 6.12 "Nuclear Power History: Timeline From Inception To Fukushima". huffingtonpost.com. Retrieved 9 December 2017.