Argonne National Laboratory

Web posted Saturday, November 11, 2000

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By Brandon Haddock
Staff Writer

The radioactive materials that powered the atomic bomb, and the bomb itself, were researched and produced at places such as Hanford, Wash., Los Alamos, N.M., and Oak Ridge, Tenn. But the process began at another facility, a small lab at the University of Chicago that still exists in a modern incarnation today.

That lab, now named Argonne National Laboratory, is where Enrico Fermi made the pioneering effort to build the world's first nuclear reactor, dubbed ``Chicago Pile 1.''

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The lab went on to solve daunting metallurgical challenges that faced Hanford and Oak Ridge in their quest to use reactors to manufacture plutonium.

Argonne traces its history to 1941, when the University of Chicago's metallurgical laboratory was founded. Its first reactor, under Dr. Fermi's direction, went operational in December 1942.

As Hanford and Oak Ridge built their own reactors based on Chicago Pile 1, that reactor was moved to a Chicago suburb. A second reactor, Chicago Pile 3, was built to devise solutions to problems facing the Hanford reactor, according to a history published on Argonne's World Wide Web site.

Argonne officially was christened in 1946, after the creation of the Atomic Energy Commission.

Operated by the University of Chicago, Argonne went on to become the world's most prominent developer of nuclear reactors. It built two experimental ``breeder'' reactors, which produce plutonium from uranium.

Today, Argonne has branched out into numerous fields. Its research ranges from the ``pure'' sciences of physics, biology, chemistry and mathematics, to efforts to build more energy-efficient means of transportation and to clean up pollution.

The lab has an annual budget of about $465 million, and it employs 4,200 people, about 700 of whom hold doctorate degrees, according to an Argonne fact sheet.

Argonne's main campus is located on a 1,700-acre site southwest of Chicago. A satellite campus, founded in 1951, is located on 900 acres in Idaho and houses most of the laboratory's research reactors.

Reach Brandon Haddock at (706) 823-3409.

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