EBR-I is open seven days a week from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m.

Experimental Breeder Reactor-I opens Memorial Day weekend for summer tours

INL’s historical landmark museum opens Friday, May 26, and free guided tours will be provided seven days a week from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. through Labor Day weekend. Visitors may also tour the facility on their own aided by self-guided tour instructions.

EBR-I is featured in the Atlas Obscura, “the definitive guide to the world’s wondrous and curious places,” and is also listed in The Geek Atlas: 128 Places Where Science & Technology Come Alive.  

The reactor was completed in 1951 and was the first nuclear reactor to produce usable electricity on Dec. 20, 1951, with INL recently celebrating EBR-I’s 65^th anniversary. EBR-I was operated until late 1963 and decommissioned in 1964. It was dedicated as a Registered National Historic Landmark on Aug. 25, 1966, by President Lyndon Johnson and Glenn Seaborg, chairman of the Atomic Energy Commission.

EBR-I was also dedicated as a National Historic Mechanical Engineering Landmark in 1979 by the American Society of Mechanical Engineers, a Historic Landmark for Advances in Materials Technology in 1979 by the American Society of Metals, and a Nuclear Historic Landmark by the American Nuclear Society in 1987. In June 2004, the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) marked EBR-I as an IEEE Milestone in Electrical Engineering and computing.

Last summer, EBR-I hosted more than ten thousand visitors from across the world, and more than a quarter of a million visitors from every state and dozens of foreign countries have come through its doors since EBR-I opened for summer tours in 1975. All are encouraged to share the images of their experiences on the EBR-I Instagram and Facebook accounts, where additional information about EBR-I can be located.