Tracking the future of nuclear energy.
Nuclear Power Daily Editorial Team
Editorial Team

Nuclear Power Daily Editorial Team

Editorial Team

The Nuclear Power Daily Editorial Team produces Nuclear Power Daily's coverage of nuclear energy. We report on reactors and small modular reactors, the fuel cycle, waste and safety, policy, and fusion research. Articles reflect our team's collective editorial process, source verification, drafting, technical review, and editing, rather than a single writer's work. Nuclear Power Daily takes editorial responsibility for content under this byline. For more on how we work, see our editorial policy.

Civil Nuclear

In 1961, a routine restart at the SL-1 reactor in Idaho ended when an operator withdrew the central control rod about 20 inches by hand, triggering a steam explosion that lifted the entire 26,000-pound vessel off the floor in about four milliseconds and killed all three men on duty

On January 3, 1961, three young servicemen restarting a small Army reactor in the Idaho desert died in about four milliseconds when a single control rod came up 20 inches instead of four. SL-1 remains the only fatal reactor accident in U.S. history — and no one has ever fully explained why the rod moved that far.

Jul 29, 2026
Civil Nuclear

What happened when biologists released fourteen wolves into a 2.2-million-acre national park after a seventy-year absence, and why are ecologists still arguing about whether the rivers really changed course because of it?

In January 1995, biologists released fourteen gray wolves into Yellowstone's Lamar Valley after a seventy-year absence. Thirty-one years later, the descendants number about 100 across eight packs — and ecologists are still sorting out which parts of the ecosystem actually changed because of them.

Jul 29, 2026
Civil Nuclear

A single uranium fuel pellet the size of a fingertip holds roughly the energy of one tonne of coal, 149 gallons of oil, or 17,000 cubic feet of natural gas, and a typical reactor core contains about 10 million of them stacked into 12-foot zirconium rods.

A uranium fuel pellet the size of a fingertip holds roughly the energy of a tonne of coal — and a typical reactor core stacks about ten million of them into twelve-foot zirconium rods. Here's how the math, the metallurgy, and the physics actually work.

Jul 28, 2026
Civil Nuclear

In 1946, physicist Louis Slotin was demonstrating a criticality experiment at Los Alamos when the screwdriver holding two beryllium hemispheres apart slipped, the plutonium core flashed blue, and Slotin shielded his colleagues with his body knowing he had just absorbed a fatal dose

On 21 May 1946, physicist Louis Slotin's screwdriver slipped during a criticality demonstration at Los Alamos, sending a plutonium core prompt-critical in a flash of blue light. He pulled the beryllium shell off with his bare hand, shielded seven colleagues, and died nine days later — the second man killed by the same sphere of plutonium, later nicknamed the demon core.

Jul 28, 2026
Civil Nuclear

In December 1942, beneath the abandoned squash court under Chicago’s Stagg Field, Enrico Fermi’s team pulled the cadmium control rods from a stack of graphite bricks and uranium slugs and watched the world’s first self-sustaining nuclear chain reaction hold steady for 28 minutes before Fermi ordered the emergency rod called zip dropped back in and the pile went silent

On December 2, 1942, in a squash court beneath the University of Chicago's Stagg Field, Enrico Fermi's team ran the world's first self-sustaining nuclear chain reaction at about half a watt for 28 minutes — held in check by cadmium rods, an axe, and three buckets of cadmium sulfate solution.

Jul 28, 2026
Civil Nuclear

What happened when engineers built a single eight-mile dam across a dying inland sea, cutting off the shrinking northern lobe from the salt flats below, and why did the fish come back within a decade?

In 2005, Kazakhstan closed the eight-mile Kok-Aral Dam across the strait dividing the Aral Sea, walling off its northern lobe from the salt flats to the south. Within a decade, salinity in the Small Aral had halved and fish catches climbed tenfold — from 400 tonnes a year to 4,000.

Jul 27, 2026
Civil Nuclear

In 1955, the town of Arco, Idaho drew every watt of its electricity for about an hour from an experimental fast breeder called BORAX-III sitting out on the desert flats, becoming the first community on Earth to light its streetlamps entirely with atoms splitting a few miles away.

On July 17, 1955, an experimental boiling water reactor called BORAX-III pushed 2,000 kilowatts across the Idaho desert and lit every home in Arco, Idaho, making a thousand-person town the first community on Earth powered entirely by fission — for about an hour, while most residents slept.

Jul 27, 2026