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Nuclear engineering
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==History== Nuclear engineering was born in 1938, with the discovery of nuclear fission.<ref>{{cite web |title=The Discovery of Fission |url=https://www.osti.gov/opennet/manhattan-project-history/Events/1890s-1939/discovery_fission.htm |website=The Manhattan Project: an interactive history |publisher=US Department of Energy |access-date=7 April 2023}}</ref> The first ''artificial'' nuclear reactor, [[Chicago Pile-1|CP-1]], was designed by a team of physicists who were concerned that [[German nuclear weapons program|Nazi Germany]] might also be seeking to build a bomb based on nuclear fission. (The earliest known nuclear reaction on Earth occurred [[Natural nuclear fission reactor|naturally]], 1.7 billion years ago, in Oklo, Gabon, Africa.) The second artificial nuclear reactor, the [[X-10 Graphite Reactor]], was also a part of the [[Manhattan Project]], as were the [[plutonium]]-producing reactors of the [[Hanford Engineer Works]]. The first nuclear reactor to generate electricity was [[Experimental Breeder Reactor I]] (EBR-I), which did so near [[Arco, Idaho|Arco]], Idaho, in 1951.<ref name="INL">{{cite web |title=The World's First Nuclear Power Plant |url=https://inl.gov/experimental-breeder-reactor-i/ |website=Idaho National Engineering Laboratory |publisher=US Department of Energy |access-date=7 April 2023}}</ref> EBR-I was a standalone facility, not connected to a grid, but a later Idaho research reactor in the [[BORAX experiments|BORAX]] series did briefly supply power to the town of Arco in 1955. The first commercial nuclear power plant, built to be connected to an electrical grid, is the [[Obninsk Nuclear Power Plant]], which began operation in 1954. The second is the [[Shippingport Atomic Power Station]], which produced electricity in 1957. For a chronology, from the discovery of uranium to the current era, see [https://world-nuclear.org/information-library/current-and-future-generation/outline-history-of-nuclear-energy.aspx Outline History of Nuclear Energy] or [[History of nuclear power|History of Nuclear Power]]. Also see [http://History%20of%20Nuclear%20Engineering%20Part%201:%20Radioactivity History of Nuclear Engineering Part 1: Radioactivity], [http://Part%202:%20Building%20the%20Bomb Part 2: Building the Bomb], and [http://Part%203:%20Atoms%20for%20Peace Part 3: Atoms for Peace]. See [[List of commercial nuclear reactors|List of Commercial Nuclear Reactors]] for a comprehensive listing of nuclear power reactors and [https://pris.iaea.org/PRIS/WorldStatistics/OperationalReactorsByCountry.aspx IAEA Power Reactor Information System (PRIS)] for worldwide and country-level statistics on nuclear power generation.
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