How We Learned to Boil Water with a Split Atom | The First Nuclear Power Plant (Obninsk 1954)

In June 1954, near Moscow, a new kind of power station began feeding the grid: no coal, no dam, just atoms splitting inside a block of graphite. This is the story of the first nuclear power plant: the discovery of fission in 1938, Szilard's chain reaction, Fermi's Chicago Pile-1, the four light bulbs of EBR-I, Obninsk's AM-1 reactor, how a reactor actually makes electricity, and the first big plants at Calder Hall and Shippingport. Drawn as a living blueprint. CHAPTERS 0:00 One reactor, five megawatts 0:34 1938: the atom splits 1:16 Szilard and the chain reaction 1:53 Chicago Pile-1, 1942 2:39 EBR-I: four light bulbs, 1951 3:12 Kurchatov and Atoms for Peace 3:43 Obninsk AM-1, June 1954 4:33 How a reactor makes electricity 5:11 Calder Hall, 1956 5:42 Nautilus and Shippingport, 1957 6:24 "Too cheap to meter" 7:02 Next: the solar cell Anecdotes are marked: Szilard's traffic-light moment is his own later account. Previous episode: The Grid. Next episode: the first solar cell. Behind The First: the story behind the things we use. SOURCES Obninsk Nuclear Power Plant (Wikipedia; IAEA; ETHW); Discovery of nuclear fission (Wikipedia); Chicago Pile-1 (Wikipedia; U.S. DOE); Experimental Breeder Reactor I (Wikipedia; Idaho National Laboratory; IEEE Milestone); Atoms for Peace (Eisenhower Library); Calder Hall (Wikipedia; NDA); USS Nautilus (U.S. Navy); Shippingport Atomic Power Station (Wikipedia; ASME landmark); "Too cheap to meter" (U.S. NRC history); IAEA PRIS / World Nuclear Association (2024 share of world electricity). IMAGE CREDITS (Wikimedia Commons) Hahn Meitner 1912.jpg (Public domain) https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Fi... Leo Szilard.jpg (Public domain) https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Fi... Enrico Fermi 1943-49.jpg (Public domain) https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Fi... Stagg Field reactor.jpg (Public domain) https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Fi... First four nuclear lit bulbs.jpeg (Public domain) https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Fi... Igor Kurchatov 001.png (Public domain) https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Fi... Atoms for Peace stamp.jpg (Public domain) https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Fi... Stamp of USSR 1863.jpg (Public domain) https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Fi... RIAN archive 409173 World's first nuclear power plant in Obninsk.jpg (CC BY-SA 3.0) https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Fi... Calder Hall, Queen opening.jpg (OGL 3) https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Fi... Calder Hall nuclear power station (11823864155).jpg (Public domain) https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Fi... USS Nautilus (SS-571), the Navy's first atomic powered submarine, on its initial sea trials, 01-20-1955 (5286029630).jpg (Public domain) https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Fi... Shippingport Atomic Power Station - Oct. 10, 1956 (14492222700).jpg (Public domain) https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Fi... SolarModul 1954.jpg (Public domain) https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Fi... AUDIO Music: original tracks by the channel. Narration: synthetic voice (Microsoft Azure neural TTS).