Not sure whether we are talking of the same problem but the Oak Ridge site alone cost more than a billion dollars and nothing cost a billion those years (the to

Not sure whether we are talking of the same problem but the Oak Ridge site alone cost more than a billion dollars and nothing cost a billion those years (the total federal budget outlay in 1942 was a modest 35 billion which admittedly climbed to almost 93 billion by 1945). The K-25 building was half of that: 1,640,000 square feet floor space, 97,500,000 cubic feet volume. The Hanford site was another 400 million. They created an entire industry out of nothing. EV is not that bad but yes, it's quite bad. And the possibility was always known, the devil really is in the details.