Introduction Part 2

This book proposes to explore some of the more notable failures, follies, and fiascos of the U.S. nuclear energy age, from 1946 to today. It’s intentionally about the goofs, not the gains, which are considerable. The screw-ups are instructive, and should guide us as we move ahead in a nuclear energy revival.

With nuclear power once again a major topic of debate, this book contributes a dash of hot-sauce realism to pie-in-the-nuclear-sky prophecies from the industry and Washington of technological wizardry to come. The past wasn’t entirely a pleasant walk in the woods. My message: wait a minute and look at the experience of the radioactive past. We can learn from the past before we blunder into the future.

Following World War II and the phenomenal success of the Manhattan Project in developing nuclear (A-bombs) and thermonuclear (H-bombs) weapons, the U.S. was enthralled by hyper-optimistic notions about what the atom could do, beyond blowing up enemy cities and spreading radioactive fallout around the globe. There was, of course, an element of guilt in this enthusiasm, as President Eisenhower’s “Atoms for Peace” proposals demonstrated.

The popular press – and government circles – were filled with bizarre notions of the prospects of nuclear energy for enriching civilian life. Nuclear-powered airplanes, ships,  and cars; home heating by atomic fission; locomotives driven by nukes. All seemed possible, even likely, in the years following the days that the bombs fell on Japan.

A major message of the Manhattan Project, drawn from its unique experience, was “think big.” In retrospect, that was probably bad guidance; big thinking over the next 60 years produced a lot of waste, bad technology, and spinning of technological wheels. Thinking small, and focused, might have produced better overall results, particularly when it came to technologies beyond conventional, civilian nuclear power plants. Smaller may have been better.

But that wasn’t the case. Big thinking and intellectual and political hyperbole dominated the years after the Manhattan Project. It was imagination let loose to conjure up miracles of atomic energy. The nuclear physicists were the masters of the universe, and they were not shy about proclaiming their mastery.

Few of the popular flights of nuclear fantasy, of course, came to pass. This book explores those failures, taking a hard, unvarnished look at atomic energy’s promises for the future.