Nuclear reactor lower than had previously been thought. The memorandum was a product of the MAUD Committee, which was working on the UK atomic bomb project, known as Tube Alloys, later to be subsumed within the Manhattan Project. Eventually, the first artificial nuclear reactor, Chicago Pile-1, was constructed at the University of Chicago, by a team led by Italian physicist Enrico Fermi, in late 1942. By this time, the program had been pressured for a year by U.S. entry into the war. The Chicago Pile achieved criticality on 2 December 1942 at 3:25 PM. The reactor support structure was made of wood,
Generation II reactor Generation II reactor A generation II reactor is a design classification for a nuclear reactor, and refers to the class of commercial reactors built up to the end of the 1990s. Prototypical generation II reactors include the PWR, CANDU, BWR, AGR, VVER and RBMK. These are contrasted to generation I reactors, which refer to the early prototype of power reactors, such as Shippingport, Magnox/UNGG, AMB, Fermi 1, and Dresden 1. The last commercial Gen I power reactor was located at the Wylfa Nuclear Power Station and ceased operation at the end of 2015. The nomenclature for reactor designs, describing four