Time Warp
A casual observer might be forgiven for thinking the Manhattan Project produced nothing more than a bomb. In reality, the physicists who harnessed the atom also opened the door to a practically inexhaustible energy source.
That reality was clear to future Nobel Prize-winner Eugene Wigner. When Wigner agreed to direct research at what was then Clinton Laboratories, one of his primary goals was to develop a nuclear reactor that produced electric power. In fact it was his protégé—longtime ORNL Director Alvin Weinberg—who led the lab’s effort on the Homogeneous Reactor Experiment, which put 150 kilowatts of electricity on TVA’s grid in 1954.
Weinberg realized, however, that as promising as nuclear power was, ORNL would have to broaden its scope. Through the 1960s, he pursued other lines of research and is credited with preparing the lab for challenges looming in the future.
Those challenges were not long in coming. In June 1973, President Nixon called for a report on U.S. energy R&D, but by the time the report was delivered in December, events had already brought America’s need for a coherent energy policy into painful focus.
That October, the Organization of Arab Petroleum Exporting Countries cut off oil sales to the United States and other countries that supported Israel during the Yom Kippur War. The price of crude oil more than tripled, and petroleum products such as heating oil, diesel, and gasoline were expensive and scarce. At ORNL, fuel was rationed, thermostats were lowered, and the steam plant was converted from heating oil and natural gas back to coal.
The Arab Oil Embargo demonstrated just how precarious America’s energy position was. When Atomic Energy Commission Chairman Dixy Lee Ray delivered Nixon’s report in December, it pointed to an array of alternative and renewable technologies—as well as conservation measures.
The year was also stressful for ORNL, as the lab lost both Weinberg and a number of major projects. But 1974 was better: ORNL had a new permanent director—Herman Postma—and new opportunities with the passing of the Energy Reorganization Act of 1974 and the creation of the Energy Research and Development Organization.
ORNL’s research focus expanded to include bioenergy, solar power, geothermal energy, energy conservation and grid technologies. The lab’s research in nuclear technologies—both fission and fusion—grew as well.
Postma’s 1975 State of the Laboratory address discussed the impact of the oil embargo and resulting energy crisis:
“With the price of energy rising by a factor of three, the public became further aware of the impact of energy on every aspect of their lives, and moreover, the public now seems cognizant of the important role of technology.”
Many of the challenges that catalyzed American energy policy in the ’70s are still with us, but other factors are relatively new. The worldwide demand for reliable, clean, low-cost energy is greater than ever, and ORNL is positioned to meet these technological challenges, just as it was four decades ago.