Arco Idaho

We headed to Arco to see the first nuclear breeder reactor in the world. ERB-1 was the first experimental atomic reactor to successfully generate electrical power. Established in 1951 it was the source of early atomic energy knowledge in the US.

While very interesting, it was amazing just how rudimentary it was. The reactor was nothing but a concrete silo where Uranium 235 was allowed to irradiate (throw neutrons at) some inert Uranium 238, which absorbed the U 235 neutrons, and thereby convert it into Plutonium 239. Plutonium 239 can be used as either fuel rods for similar nuclear reactors, or can be used for weapons production.

The robotic arms in this concrete case were used to handle the fuel that would enter the reactor. The windows were filed with a mineral oil which prevented the radiation from escaping while still allowing the workers to see what they were doing with the arms. Each such window cost about $5 million to have manufactured.

This common bank vault was used to store the Plutonium that was created by the interaction of the U 235 and U 238 in the breeder reactor. While not very sophisticated, it did the job of keeping the very potentially dangerous material under wraps.

At 1:50 PM on December 20, 1951, the reactor created enough electrical power to light 4 200-watt lightbulbs. Having done this, it became the world’s first electricity generating nuclear power plant. It later generated enough electrical power to run everything in the building.

When the lighting was successful, all the engineers in ERB-1 decided to memorialize the event by carving their names into the wall. Well, of course, this was 1951, so only the male engineers were allowed to carve their names. One interesting misogynistic fact is that the bottom name on the etching, which has been preserved, is that of the janitor. The male janitor could inscribe, but the female engineers could not. Ward Clever might approve, but I suspect June might not.

ERB-1 was established long before the current proliferation of computing. But even then, the government was sufficiently concerned about outside interference in the operation of nuclear reactors that all equipment in the facility were analog switches and analog dials. Essentially, my phone is 1,000 times more powerful than the equipment used to managed this amazing operation!

On July 17, 1955, EBR-1 made another milestone in atomic power generation. For about an hour, ERB-1 provided power to the entire town of Arco, making Arco the first city in the world to be powered by atomic electrical generation. We also learned that ERB-1 and its successors created the Plutonium that was used in the atomic bomb dropped on Nagasaki Japan, and also created the fuel used to power the Voyager rockets into deep space, where they are still functioning today.

Adjacent to the site of EBR-1 was the town of Midway Idaho, named because it was about halfway between Blackfoot Idaho and Arco Idaho. Hoping to lure the workforce from ERB-1 to live and shop in their community, in 1950 they changed the towns name officially to Atomic City.

Well, the ploy didn’t work. Despite its proximity, the workforce of ERB-1 never converged on Atomic City. Today it is a town with an official population of 29. It has one bar, the Atomic Bar, which we visited and engaged in conversation with about 25% of all the town’s inhabitants – oh, yeah, and their favorite Schnauzer Teddy.

We hoofed it down to Blackfoot to tour the Idaho Potato Museum. We learned that Idaho produces a third of the nation’s potatoes every year. We also saw a video that gave us the poop on how McDonalds makes their fries taste so great – they precook them a bit before freezing and sending them to their stores, and they dip them in a sugar solution to add both to their crispness and flavor.

Much of the potato crop in Idaho is Russets. In the late 1800’s, Luther Burbank developed the Burbank Russet Potato, that was resistant to the blight that brought about the great Irish and European potato famines that killed millions. The success of the variety made it a staple worldwide. This was a potato actually autographed by Dan Quayle since he did not know how to spell potato - he added an "e" at the end.

At the museum, we learned that while the roots (potatoes are tubers that grow underground at the base of the plant) are delicious, the flowers of the potato plant are actually poisonous. As a result, in England the Society for the Prevention of Unwholesome Diets condemned potatoes. That is where the nickname “spud” came from. Not far out of town we saw field upon field of Russets growing.

When they are harvested, they can be stored in bunkers or potato crypts where the cool and

the humidity combine to essentially arrest their decay. As a result of this, they can be stored in these bunkers for several months and still show up at store shelves as good as if they were just dug up. That is why potatoes are pretty much available year-round.

Finally, we paid a visit to Craters of the Moon National Monument. Established by Calvin Coolidge in 1924, the park is jointly managed by the National Park Service and the Bureau of Land Management. We hiked all over the park and thoroughly enjoyed ourselves.

We have been to many volcanic parks and monuments, and this was among the better. Many of the features of the monument we had seen before, but the ribbon like flows of lava we saw here were unlike any we had seen before. The monument was well worth the visit.

Arco has an interesting tradition, made possible by the local terrain. When kids graduate from high school here, its traditional that they spray paint the year of their graduation into the bluffs overlooking the town. In some way it looks a bit trashy, but in other ways it looks pretty cool.

Talk to you soon!