While I keep most of FIAT History focused on cars, some volumes branch out into other areas of FIAT’s wide reach across Italy’s and the world’s industrial endeavors. Sometimes, I discover things which are, well - mind boggling.
Did you know FIAT once operated a nuclear reactor? Did you know they still own it?
Here is the story of the Avogadro RS-1 plant:
Post World War II, nuclear energy was a huge area of global interest. Although the war’s surrender terms prevented the Italian government from pursuing nuclear weapons, it did not prevent private Italian companies from non-military nuclear endeavors. FIAT’s CEO at the time was Vittorio Valletta. In 1946, he decided FIAT should pursue nuclear energy and research.
Partnering with Edison Italy (electric company), Cogne Steel (metals), Montecatini (chemical), and Pirelli, along with several lesser players, FIAT formed the Centro Italiano Studi ed Espirienze (CISE). CISE came into existence 1 full year before the International Atomic Energy Agency and 8 years before formation of the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN). Clearly, Valletta and FIAT were ahead of the game.
Progress went slowly for several years, mostly because the Italian government had quickly built some reactors for energy purposes and had taken up most of the small allotment of enriched uranium Italy was allowed to possess. However, in 1953 President Eisenhower created the “Atoms for Peace” program to, in President Eisenhower’s words, “…hasten the day when fear of the atom will begin to disappear from the minds the people and the governments of the East and West.”
Valletta was soon in contact with the US. In 1955, using good industrial relations with the US bolstered by FIAT’s former automobile production facility in Poughkeepsie, NY, Valletta negotiated with Lewis Strauss, head of the US Atomic Energy Commission for permission to buy nuclear reactors. In 1956, President Eisenhower sent Valletta a personal letter congratulating FIAT on becoming the first private company to benefit from the Atoms for Peace program. Building a reactor was a go!
Originally, 2 reactors were planned by CISE. However, with Italy debating nationalization of the energy industry, CISE was wary of risking too much. The US also began having second thoughts about handing out enriched U-235 around the world. FIAT scaled back their plans to a single, small reactor in Saluggia.
Faced with shrinking budgets at CISE, FIAT and Montecatini created a new organization called the Società Ricerche Impianti Nucleari (SORIN). Through SORIN, FIAT quickly reached an agreement with American Machine and Foundry (AMF) - for you bowlers, yes, that AMF – to build a pool-type reactor.
Construction on the reactor began in 1957. In November 1959, after receiving a blessing from Monsignor Francesco Imberti, Archbishop of Vercelli, the reactor went critical for the first time. In blessing the reactor, Monsignor Imberti noted it’s intent for peaceful purposes and requested God’s blessings “fall down on FIAT and Montecatini.”
The reactor was named Avogadro RS-1 in honor of Amadeo Avogadro, a brilliant scientist from Torin who has a gas law named after him. According to Valletta, it was capable of producing 5 thermal megawatts.
In 1958, SIMCA, the French automobile company then owned by FIAT, floated a concept car called the Fulgur. The Fulgur would use atomic energy to power electric motors. Coincidence? Probably not. However, for whatever reasons, SORIN chose to use the reactor primarily for biomedical research.
FIAT did use the facility for other purposes, as well. For example, in 1968, Illustrato Fiat noted that replacement elements for the much larger Enrico Fermi nuclear power plant were built at the Avogadro facility.
By the late 60s, with Italy having nationalized its energy system and several high profile murders of energy big wigs occurring in the process, FIAT and SORIN decided to completely withdraw from the energy world. Avogadro then focused solely on biomedical research until its decommissioning in 1971.
By 1978, the working internals were all dismantled, but the facility itself continued to serve. Beginning in 1984, Avogadro was used to store nuclear waste. SORIN itself went through several iterations, all controlled by FIAT. Today, it is known as LivaNova and, via FIAT, is part of the Stellantis empire.
Although initially commissioned for "temporary nuclear waste storage", Avogadro still stores nuclear waste today. The plant is owned by Deposito Avogadro Srl, a company 100% owned by FIAT, however the actual nuclear material it contains is owned by Sogin, a company owned by the Italian government. Some of the nuclear waste was sent to France, the UK, and the US for processing along the way. In 2025, the waste which went to France will begin to return to Avogadro for continued storage after being converted to a lower level of radioactivity.
And there you have it. FIAT built a pool-type nuclear reactor in the late 1950s. They still own the facility today, although it is no longer active and now serves as a nuclear waste storage facility.
And, somewhere along the way, they were actually thinking of creating atomic powered electric cars…