Kodak Had Weapons Grade Uranium In Their Basement
Kodak’s strange entanglement with uranium and nuclear weapons.
When you think about nuclear reactors and energy, the usual players will generally come to your mind. The United States, Russia…Kodak.
Hold on a minute. Kodak!?
Yup, Kodak had approximately 3.5 lbs. of weapons grade uranium in the basement of their Rochester NY headquarters for about 30 years. The idea of a corporation having a nuclear reactor or weapons grade uranium sounds bizarre today, but this story takes us back to a different time.
Nuclear energy and weapons were new and not entirely understood at this time. Please keep this in mind as best as you can as you digest all this information. At times this story will get so crazy you will either cringe or laugh.
This story will also show you a different version of Kodak. In our current time, the name Kodak is synonymous with failure of a sort — a failure to see the future. Kodak is the company that saw and totally missed the digital film revolution.
Today, Kodak is a regular star in case studies on how not to run a business. I know I personally read about 2 or 3 case studies on the company in business school. However, at one point in time, Kodak was a scientific…
