Nuclear Records

The largest man-made explosion ever detonated. The Tsar Bomba hydrogen bomb yielded 50 megatons of TNT - 3,800× more powerful than the bomb dropped on Hiroshima. The fireball was 8 km wide; the mushroom cloud reached 67 km. Its shockwave circled the Earth three times.

The Mayak Production Association in Chelyabinsk Oblast is widely considered the most radioactively contaminated place on Earth - a result of the 1957 Kyshtym disaster, decades of deliberate dumping into the Techa River, and Lake Karachay (so radioactive that standing on its shore for one hour delivers a lethal dose).

France's four N4-class reactors at Civaux and Chooz are the most powerful pressurised water reactors ever built, each generating 1,750 MW of electricity - enough to power 1.6 million homes. They represent the peak of EDF's reactor programme before Flamanville's EPR design took over.

France generates approximately 70–75% of its electricity from 56 nuclear reactors, the highest share of any country. This gives France one of the lowest grid CO₂ intensities in Europe (~56 g CO₂/kWh vs Germany's ~380 g). French nuclear policy dates back to the 1974 Messmer Plan following the oil crisis.

The IAEA officially counts 28 emergency workers who died from Acute Radiation Syndrome within months of Chernobyl, plus 15 thyroid cancer deaths in the following years. Including indirect deaths and projected cancer mortality, estimates range from the IAEA's ~4,000 to the TORCH report's 30,000–60,000 projected cancer deaths.

The Chernobyl Exclusion Zone (CEZ), also called the "Zone of Alienation," covers approximately 2,600 km² around the plant. About 350,000 people were permanently evacuated. Ironically, the zone is now a thriving wildlife sanctuary - wolves, lynx, bears, and Przewalski's horses roam freely without human pressure.

The total economic cost of Chernobyl, accounting for the cleanup, health costs, lost agricultural production, evacuee compensation, and long-term decommissioning, is estimated at $700 billion in 2005 dollars. Fukushima's cleanup and decommissioning is projected at $200 billion+. By comparison, Three Mile Island cost "only" $1 billion.

The Fukushima Daiichi accident led to the evacuation of approximately 154,000 people from a 20km exclusion zone and beyond. About 2,200 evacuation-related deaths (from stress, disrupted medical care, suicide) were attributed to the evacuation itself - more than would have been expected from radiation exposure alone.

Under the stands of Stagg Field, Enrico Fermi and his team achieved the world's first controlled self-sustaining nuclear chain reaction at 3:25 PM on December 2, 1942. The reactor ran at 200 watts - barely enough to power a light bulb. Fermi's coded telegram: "The Italian navigator has just landed in the New World."

The Experimental Breeder Reactor-1 (EBR-I) in Idaho became the first reactor to generate usable electricity on December 20, 1951, initially powering four 200-watt lightbulbs. By the next day it was generating enough to power the entire EBR-I building. This moment launched the nuclear power age.

The National Ignition Facility's inertial confinement fusion experiments have achieved plasma temperatures exceeding 3.6 billion degrees Celsius - more than 200× hotter than the Sun's core (15 million°C). This is necessary because the extreme density of stars provides confinement unavailable in a lab.

On December 5, 2022, the National Ignition Facility achieved fusion ignition for the first time in history - the laser energy delivered to the target (2.05 MJ) was exceeded by the fusion energy produced (3.15 MJ), giving a yield of 1.5×. This milestone, 60 years in the making, proved the physics of fusion works.

Switzerland's Beznau Unit 1, connected to the grid on September 1, 1969, is the world's oldest currently operating commercial nuclear power reactor. It is a 365 MWe Westinghouse PWR. Switzerland controversially extended its operating licence indefinitely, relying on rigorous annual safety reviews rather than a fixed end date.

The Sellafield complex in Cumbria, which produced plutonium for weapons and housed the Windscale reactors (one of which caught fire in 1957), began formal decommissioning in the 1980s. It will not be completed until approximately 2120: a 140-year programme, making it the longest decommissioning project in human history.

Geologists discovered in 1972 that the Oklo uranium mine in Gabon had hosted 16 natural nuclear fission chain reactions approximately 1.7 billion years ago. The reactions ran for ~100,000 years, producing an estimated 100 kW of power. The natural reactor worked because uranium-235 was more abundant then, and water acted as moderator.

The Sun is a naturally occurring nuclear fusion reactor, fusing approximately 600 million tonnes of hydrogen into helium every second. This releases 3.86 × 10²⁶ watts of energy. The Sun has been "running" for 4.6 billion years and has enough hydrogen fuel for another ~5 billion years - dwarfing any energy challenge humanity faces.