Harold V. Lichtenberger
Harold V. Lichtenberger was the project engineer famed for pulling the switch that “ushered in mankind’s first electric power from an atomic source,” as one local newspaper put it. Along with Walter Zinn and M. Novick, he co-authored the Argonne National Laboratory’s “Feasibility Report: Fast Neutron Pile for a Test of Conversion.” This report, published October 14, 1949, outlined a proposal for EBR-I. Declassified since that time, it covered design concepts for the reactor and various systems. It also included technical drawings of the reactor configuration, plans for the reactor building, and a site map showing EBR-I’s precise location off Highway 20 in eastern Idaho.