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Article: A new Manhattan project for clean energy independence: the United States must marshal its resources and talent to tackle the challenge of coping with climate change.
- Article from:
- Issues in Science and Technology
- Article date:
- June 22, 2008
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 2008 National Academy of Sciences. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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In 1942, President Franklin D. Roosevelt asked Sen. Kenneth McKellar, the Tennessean who chaired the Appropriations Committee, to hide $2 billion in the appropriations bill for a secret project to win World War II.
Sen. McKellar replied, "Mr. President, I have just one question: Where in Tennessee do you want me to hide it?" That place in Tennessee turned out to be Oak Ridge, one of three secret cities that became the principal sites for the Manhattan Project.
The purpose of the Manhattan Project was to find a way to split the atom and build a bomb before Germany could. Nearly 200,000 people worked secretly in 30 different sites in three countries. ...