Surprisingly, a decent chunk of America's nuclear reactors are in the midwest. Illinois and Pennsylvania are by and away the largest producers of nuclear energy in the US, with 11 and 9 reactors respectively.
Being from Southern Ohio, I've always considered Pennsylvania to be Midwest. Maybe it's because the cultural difference between Eastern Ohio and Pennsylvania is much less marked than the difference between Southern Ohio and Kentucky.
Nuclear reactions were first mastered in Illinois, but arguably Idaho gets credit for the first generation of electricity via nuclear reactor with the 100kW EBR-1 in 1951. Credit for the first grid-tied nuclear power plant goes to the Soviets, with the commissioning of the the Obninsk Nuclear Power Plant in 1954. Curiously the latter produced a miniscule amount of power by modern standards, with a mere 5MW of nameplate capacity.
The reactor out in Idaho was designed and built as Chicago Pile-4 and was only placed in Idaho because our there it couldn’t blow up around anything that mattered.
I’m not sure a reactor designed, built and operated by scientists at the university of Chicago has much to do with Idaho.
Note: as a native Chicagoan and a lover of nuclear energy, I take this stuff overly seriously :)
If only my state would adopt cleaner electricity production more so than having predominant production from coal. There is 1 single small reactor supplying less than 10% of power.
e.g.: https://www2.census.gov/geo/pdfs/maps-data/maps/reference/us...