If you’re like me, then you don't really know how our entire power grid works, nor how we managed to set it up back in the days of telegrams and typewriters.
These staggering photos from the early days of the Department of Energy don’t exactly illuminate either of those questions, but they do show a lot of researchers doing science and big machines looking cool. What more could you want?
Here are 20 historical pics of US energy in action, featuring everything you want to see and nothing you need to know.
1
Electric Master-Slave Manipulators
At the control arms, 1965.
2
Looking Through an Electron Microscope
The High Temperature Materials Laboratory, 1987.
3
Hydrogen Bubble Chamber
At Argonne, 1970.
4
Opening the World's Heaviest Door
97,000 pounds at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, 1979.
5
Electrostatic Generator
5-million volt Argonne Van de Graaff, 1950s.
6
Argonne's First Computer
AVIDAC, the first digital computer at Argonne National Laboratory in 1953.
7
Lab Operation
Spectrochemical.
8
Mechanical Department
Building a barrier.
9
President Jimmy Carter
Visiting Oak Ridge in 1978, accompanied by Al Gore.
10
Wiring
Putting in new IBM accounting equipment.
11
Electronic Flash Tubes
Illuminating events in the 40-inch Heavy Liquid Bubble Chamber. 1970.
12
Plant Ambulance
On call 24/7.
13
Hot Cell Technicians
In front of bromide shielding windows. 1965.
14
The First Neutrino-Induced Reaction in Pure Hydrogen
Produced in the bubble chamber at the AEC's Argonne.
15
Strategic Petroleum Reserve
At work in the late ‘70s.
16
Security Equipment
Including a full board with phones for air support. (Seems excessive.)
17
Healed Machines
Metal fabrication plant.
18
Michigan-Argonne Heavy Liquid Bubble Chamber
With a massive magnet in the middle. 1968.
19
“Wet Chemistry” Facility
A plutonium analysis lab, 1965.
20
Technicians
Preparing samples for spectrograph equipment.
