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of History Daily plus other fantastic history podcasts at IntoHistory.com. These days, when people think of alternative energy, most rightfully think of wind and solar.

Those two have shown huge gains in efficiency, just as impressive drops and cost and are now significant additions to our overall energy mix.

Some of you might also think of hydroelectric, which has been with us for a while, but there

haven't been too many new dams being built.

And then probably an even smaller portion of you will think of nuclear.

Personally, I'm on the fence with nuclear power.

There are some very smart people that have vastly greater knowledge of the subject than I do,

and they seem pretty bullish on atomic energy.

Heck, 70% of France's power is nuclear, and say what you will, about the French.

But it was a Frenchman, Henri Bechrelle, that discovered radioactivity,

and then it was carried forward by Pierre and Mary Curie.

The French have a long history of being at the forefront of nuclear science, so they must

know something.

Then again, it's hard to argue that there are downsides to nuclear power.

Three Mile Island, Fukushima, Chernobyl, and another you probably don't know too much about, Idaho

Falls.

On January 3rd, 1961 at 901 p.m., an experimental military nuclear power reactor known as

SL1 went from fully shut down to explosively supercritical in mere milliseconds.

Three soldiers were killed in the blast, and it could have been much worse. On today's

Saturday matinee, we're bringing you an episode from the podcast, Redacted, Declassified

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