Spotlight
History 101
Our previous historian Tom Wellock wrote some very interesting posts about the history of the NRC, and the history of nuclear power (did you know where the term “scram” comes from?) for the agency blog. We’ve reproduced them here as PDFs for easy reading and downloading.
- CRUD: Another Acronym Bites the Dust
- Defense in Depth - A War for Safety
- Penn State University’s Breazeale Reactor Celebrates 60 Years
- Melting Ice with the Peaceful Atom: The NRC and the End of the Cold War
- The Mystery of the Atomic Energy Commission Trowel — Part I
- The Mystery of the Trowel – Solved
- Radium Part I: Opening Pandora’s Box
- Radium Part II: Trying to Close Pandora’s Box
- The Reactor Safety Study: The Birth, Death and Rebirth of PRA
- Putting the Axe to the ‘Scram’ Myth
- The First Temple of the Atom: The AEC and the North Carolina State Research Reactor
- Ensuring Safety in the First Temple of the Atom
- “Too Cheap to Meter”: A History of the Phrase
- Floating Nuclear Power Plants: A Technical Solution to a Land-based Problem
- Waves of Uncertainty: The Demise of the Floating Reactor Concept
Page Last Reviewed/Updated Monday, February 23, 2026
Page Last Reviewed/Updated Monday, February 23, 2026