Idaho National Laboratory (INL) is one of the national laboratories of the United States Department of Energy and is managed by the Battelle Energy Alliance. While the laboratory does other research, historically it has been involved with nuclear research. Much of current knowledge about how nuclear reactors behave and misbehave was discovered at what is now Idaho National Laboratory. John Grossenbacher, former INL director, said, "The history of nuclear energy for peaceful application has principally been written in Idaho".
Various organizations have built more than 50 reactors at what is commonly called "the Site", including the ones that gave the world its first usable amount of electricity from nuclear power and the power plant for the world's first nuclear submarine. Although many are now decommissioned, these facilities are the largest concentration of reactors in the world.
It is on a 890-square-mile (2,310 km2) complex in the high desert of eastern Idaho, between Arco to the west and Idaho Falls and Blackfoot to the east. Atomic City, Idaho is just south. The laboratory employs approximately 4,000 people.
What is now Idaho National Laboratory in southeastern Idaho began its life as a U.S. government artillery test range in the 1940s. Shortly after the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor, the U.S. military needed a safe location for performing maintenance on the Navy's most powerful turreted guns. The guns were brought in via rail to near Pocatello, Idaho, to be re-sleeved, rifled and tested.[3] As the Navy began to focus on post-World War II and Cold War threats, the types of projects worked on in the Idaho desert changed, too. Perhaps the most well-known was the building of the prototype reactor for the world's first nuclear-powered submarine, the USS Nautilus.
In 1949, the federal research facility was established as the National Reactor Testing Station (NRTS).[4] In 1975, the United States Atomic Energy Commission (AEC) was divided into the Energy Research and Development Administration (ERDA) and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC). The Idaho site was for a short time named ERDA and then subsequently renamed to the Idaho National Engineering Laboratory (INEL) in 1977 with the creation of the United States Department of Energy (DOE) under President Jimmy Carter. After two decades as INEL, the name was changed again to the Idaho National Engineering and Environmental Laboratory (INEEL) in 1997. Throughout its lifetime, there have been more than 50 one-of-a-kind nuclear reactors built by various organizations at the facility for testing; all but three are out of service.
On February 1, 2005, Battelle Energy Alliance took over operation of the lab from Bechtel, merged with Argonne National Laboratory-West, and the facility name was changed to "Idaho National Laboratory" (INL).[5] At this time the site's clean-up activities were moved to a separate contract, the Idaho Cleanup Project, which is currently managed by the Idaho Environmental Coalition , LLC. Research activities were consolidated in the newly named Idaho National Laboratory.
According to AP news reports in April 2018, a single barrel of "radioactive sludge" ruptured while being prepared for transport to the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant in Southeast New Mexico for permanent storage. The 55-gallon barrel that ruptured is part of the badly-documented radioactive waste from the Rocky Flats Plant near Denver.
In the Snake River Plain, most of INL is high desert with scrub vegetation and a number of facilities scattered throughout the area; the average elevation of the complex is 5,000 feet (1,520 m) above sea level. INL is accessible by U.S. Route 20, and U.S. Route 26, but most of the area (except Experimental Breeder Reactor I) is restricted to authorized personnel and requires appropriate security clearance. The tiny town of Atomic City is on the INL's southern border, and the Craters of the Moon National Monument is to the southwest.
Here is a local Business that supports the community
Google Map- https://goo.gl/maps/nbp8AihPLyDaZCPY8
6768 Big Bend Dr, Idaho Falls, ID 83406
Be sure to check out this attraction too!