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Speaker 1: This Day in History Class is production of iHeartRadio. Hello

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Speaker 1: and welcome to This Day in History Class, a show

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Speaker 1: for those who can never know enough about history. I'm

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Speaker 1: Gabe Lucier, and today we're talking about a lesser known

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Speaker 1: milestone of the atomic age, in early effort to prove

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Speaker 1: that nuclear power was a safe and reliable means of

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Speaker 1: generating electricity. The day was July eighteenth, nineteen fifty five.

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Speaker 1: A ceremony commemorating the first sale of atomic electricity was

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Speaker 1: held at a power plant in West Milton, New York.

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Speaker 1: The Atomic Energy Commission facilitated the sale and the buyer

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Speaker 1: was a local power service called the Niagara Mohawk Power Company.

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Speaker 1: The energy sold that day was generated by an experimental

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Speaker 1: prototype reactor designed for the US Navy. It was called

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Speaker 1: the Submarine Intermediate Reactor, or SIR, and it was housed

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Speaker 1: inside an enormous containment sphere at the Kesselring site in

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Speaker 1: upstate New York. As a prototype, the SIR plant would

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Speaker 1: only be used for this one sale of energy produced

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Speaker 1: by nuclear power. The point of the largely symbolic ceremony

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Speaker 1: was to announce to the world that ten years after

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Speaker 1: the explosion of the first atomic bomb. The US was

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Speaker 1: now investing in more peaceful uses for nuclear power. US

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Speaker 1: atomic research began in earnest in the mid nineteen forties,

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Speaker 1: in the midst of World War II, and as you

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Speaker 1: might expect, most of the government's efforts centered on the

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Speaker 1: development of nuclear weapons. It wasn't until after the war

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Speaker 1: that focused lifted to civilian applications such as generating power.

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Speaker 1: On December twentieth, nineteen fifty one, Idaho's Experimental Breeder Reactor

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Speaker 1: one EBR one became the first power plant to produce

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Speaker 1: usable electricity through atomic fission. During the initial test, the

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Speaker 1: plant generated enough electricity to power four two hundred watt

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Speaker 1: light bulbs, and it eventually produced enough juice to light

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Speaker 1: the entire facility. However, none of the power produced by

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Speaker 1: EBR one was ever distributed to the public. The country's

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Speaker 1: first actual sale of atomic generated power didn't occur until

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Speaker 1: four years later. The event took place on July eighteenth,

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Speaker 1: nineteen fifty five, at the Navy's SIR Plant at the

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Speaker 1: Kessel Ring site in West Milton, New York. The reactor

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Speaker 1: there had been built as a prototype propulsion unit for

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Speaker 1: use in nuclear submarines such as the Nautilus and the

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Speaker 1: Sea Wolf, but on the day of the ceremony, the

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Speaker 1: plant's power output was instead applied to the local electrical grid.

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Speaker 1: New Mexico's Senator Clinton Anderson was on hand for the ceremony,

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Speaker 1: and he took the occasion to remark on just how

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Speaker 1: far nuclear research had come in only a decade. His

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Speaker 1: speech began quote, for all those whose faith in the

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Speaker 1: peacetime promise of atomic energy has been unswerving, this is

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Speaker 1: the day of vindication. On this day, steam from a

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Speaker 1: prototype submarine reactor is being channeled into a turbine generator

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Speaker 1: to produce electric energy which can light homes and turn

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Speaker 1: the wheels of industry. Today we again have proof positive

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Speaker 1: that the fantastic power of atomic energy, which in its

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Speaker 1: military applications threatens to destroy all we hold deer, can

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Speaker 1: also be bent to the ways of peace. When Senator

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Speaker 1: Anderson finished, it was Lewis Strauss's turn to speak. He

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Speaker 1: was the then Chairman of the Atomic Energy Commission, and

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Speaker 1: he was the man tasked with throwing the switch that

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Speaker 1: would send the power from the reactor flowing into the grid.

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Speaker 1: Just like Anderson, Strauss praised the nation's newfound commitment to

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Speaker 1: harnessing what he called the peaceful atom. Today, he said,

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Speaker 1: this atomic power plant, designed and constructed for experimental military purposes,

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Speaker 1: is being consecrated in the most convincing manner possible to

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Speaker 1: the benefit of man. It is a moving demonstration that

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Speaker 1: the atom can, indeed be stripped of its military casing

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Speaker 1: and adapted to the arts of peace. Strauss leaned into

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Speaker 1: that theme even harder as he prepared to throw the switch,

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Speaker 1: telling the crowd quote before me stands a large two

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Speaker 1: way switch. If I throw its blade in one direction,

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Speaker 1: it will turn the propeller shaft of a military weapon.

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Speaker 1: But when I throw it in the other direction, as

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Speaker 1: I am about to do, it will send atomic electionlectric

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Speaker 1: power surging through transmission lines to towns and villages, farms

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Speaker 1: and factories. Power not to burst bombs or propel submarines,

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Speaker 1: but to make life easier, healthier, and more abundant. This

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Speaker 1: switch is a symbol of the great dilemma of our times.

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Speaker 1: I throw it now to the side of the peaceful atom,

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Speaker 1: and by that choice, we the people of the United States,

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Speaker 1: mark the beginning of a fulfillment of the scriptural injunction

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Speaker 1: of Isaiah. They shall beat their swords into plowshares and

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Speaker 1: their spears into pruning hooks, And with that nod to

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Speaker 1: the Christian Bible, Strauss released ten thousand kilowatts of atomic

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Speaker 1: electricity onto the grid, marking the first time in the

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Speaker 1: nation's history that such power was sold to a private

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Speaker 1: company and used by the public. Writing for The Guardian,

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Speaker 1: chief US correspondent Alistair Cook tried to imagine how the

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Speaker 1: energy may have been used. There is understandably he wrote

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Speaker 1: no record of the uses to which consumers eventually put

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Speaker 1: the first flow of atomic generated electricity. For all that

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Speaker 1: mister Strauss did was pull a big copper switch and

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Speaker 1: wish the juice godspeed as it passed to the private

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Speaker 1: lines of the power company. But within the hour, it

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Speaker 1: is reasonable to deduce that farmers were switching on their

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Speaker 1: milking pumps, wilting children were swiping ice cream and soda

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Speaker 1: water from a refrigerator powered in a manner of speaking

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Speaker 1: by a submarine. Housewives would soon be cooking steaks, quite

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Speaker 1: oblivious of the hazard of radioactive fallout. In the evening,

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Speaker 1: blenders would were to make cocktails. And it's pretty certain

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Speaker 1: that in some humble house at nightfall a man read

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Speaker 1: about the doom of the H bomb by the light

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Speaker 1: of a bulb sparkling with atomic electricity. Like it or not,

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Speaker 1: the atomic age had just been extended indefinitely. Didn't take

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Speaker 1: long for the nation scientists to build on the success

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Speaker 1: of that inaugural sale. About two and a half years later,

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Speaker 1: the first commercial nuclear power plant in the US was

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Speaker 1: synchronized to the power grid in Pennsylvania, known as the

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Speaker 1: shipping Port Atomic Power Station. Its light water reactor far

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Speaker 1: exceeded the output of the SIR plant, making the continued

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Speaker 1: sale of atomic electricity a reality at last, and shipping

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Speaker 1: Port was just the beginning. As of twenty twenty three,

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Speaker 1: the United States is currently home to fifty four commercially

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Speaker 1: operating nuclear power plants, with ninety two nuclear power reactors

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Speaker 1: spread across twenty eight US states. Those reactors power tens

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Speaker 1: of millions of American homes, accounting for about eighteen percent

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Speaker 1: of all the electricity produced in the country each year.

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Speaker 1: Of course, the US is far from the only nation

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Speaker 1: to make use of nuclear power. In fact, atomic energy

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Speaker 1: now provides about ten percent of the world's electricity, with

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Speaker 1: some countries relying on it more heavily than others. The

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Speaker 1: first commercial sale of atomic electricity may be largely forgotten today,

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Speaker 1: but the movement that it started and the controversy it

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Speaker 1: entailed are still burning bright and likely will be for

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Speaker 1: generations to come. I'm Gabe Lucier and hopefully you now

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Speaker 1: know a little more about history today than you did yesterday.

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Speaker 1: If you'd like to keep up with the show, you

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Speaker 1: can follow us on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram at TDI

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Speaker 1: HC Show, and if you have any comments or suggestions,

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Speaker 1: feel free to send them my way by writing to

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Speaker 1: This Day at iHeartMedia dot com. Thanks to Chandler Mays

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Speaker 1: and Ben Hackett for producing the show, and thank you

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Speaker 1: for listening. I'll see you back here again tomorrow for

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Speaker 1: another Day in History class acted in the Bod