Our mission is to ensure the nation's energy security with safe, competitive and sustainable energy systems and unique national and homeland security capabilities.
INL is a government reservation located in the southeastern Idaho desert. At 890 square miles (569,135 acres), INL is roughly 85 percent the size of Rhode Island. It was established in 1949 as the National Reactor Testing Station, and for many years was the site of the largest concentration of nuclear reactors in the world. Fifty-two nuclear reactors were built, including the U.S. Navy's first prototype nuclear propulsion plant. During the 1970s, the laboratory's mission broadened into other areas, such as biotechnology, energy and materials research, and conservation and renewable energy. At the end of the Cold War, waste treatment and cleanup of previously contaminated sites became a priority.
The Department of Energy (DOE) is only the most recent inhabitant of the desert on which INL sits. Prehistoric campsites, historic homesteads, roads and canals are evidence of earlier inhabitants. The INL Cultural Resource Working Group, which includes historians, anthropologists, archaeologists, and representatives of the Shoshone-Bannock tribes and DOE, works to identify artifacts on the site and to protect and preserve their integrity.
Today, INL is a science-based, applied engineering national laboratory dedicated to meeting the nation's environmental, energy, nuclear technology, and national security needs. INL is a multiprogram, federally funded research and development center (FFRDC) emphasizing applied engineering to provide solutions for use across the DOE complex, as well as regionally, nationally, and world wide.
