Idaho National Engineering Laboratory
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| Motto | The energy of innovation |
|---|---|
| Established | 1949 |
| Research type | nuclear energy, national security, energy, and environment |
| Budget | ~ $1 billion (2010) |
| Director | Mark Peters |
| Staff | ~ 4,000 (2016) |
| Location |
Idaho Falls, Idaho, U.S. & a large area to the west |
| Campus | 890 sq mi (2,310 km2) |
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Operating agency
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Battelle Energy Alliance |
| Website | www |
| Former Names: INEEL, INEL, ERDA, NRTS |
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Idaho National Laboratory (INL) is one of the national laboratories of the United States Department of Energy and is managed by the Battelle Energy Alliance. While the laboratory does other research, historically it has been involved with nuclear research. Much of current knowledge about how nuclear reactors behave and misbehave was discovered at what is now Idaho National Laboratory. John Grossenbacher, former INL director, said, "The history of nuclear energy for peaceful application has principally been written in Idaho".
More than 50 reactors have been built by various organizations at what is commonly called "the Site", including the ones that gave the world its first usable amount of electricity produced from nuclear power and the power plant for the world's first nuclear submarine. Although many are now decommissioned, these facilities represent the largest concentration of reactors in the world.
It is located on a 890-square-mile (2,310 km2) complex in the high desert of eastern Idaho, between Arco to the west and Idaho Falls and Blackfoot to the east. Atomic City, Idaho is just south. The lab currently employs approximately 4,000 people.
What is now Idaho National Laboratory in southeastern Idaho began its life as a U.S. government artillery test range in the 1940s. Shortly after the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor, the U.S. military needed a safe location for performing maintenance on the Navy's most powerful turreted guns. The guns were brought in via rail to near Pocatello, Idaho, to be re-sleeved, rifled and tested. As the Navy began to focus on post-World War II and Cold War threats, the types of projects worked on in the Idaho desert changed, too. Perhaps the most well-known was the building of the prototype reactor for the world’s first nuclear-powered submarine, the USS Nautilus
In 1949, the federal research facility was established as the National Reactor Testing Station (NRTS). In 1975, the United States Atomic Energy Commission (AEC) was divided into the Energy Research and Development Administration (ERDA) and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC). The Idaho site was for a short time named ERDA and then subsequently renamed to the Idaho National Engineering Laboratory (INEL) in 1977 with the creation of the United States Department of Energy (DOE) under President Jimmy Carter. After two decades as INEL, the name was changed again to the Idaho National Engineering and Environmental Laboratory (INEEL) in 1997. Throughout its lifetime, there have been more than 50 one-of-a-kind nuclear reactors built by various organizations at the facility for testing; all but three are out of service.
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Wikipedia