I watched a very interesting documentary about the rise of nuclear power in the 50's A is for Atom. The account is fascinating as nuclear technology so far is perhaps human's greatest pandora's box creation. Plus it is incredably important as one Russian scientist puts it "it is the only source of energy that will last for the next 1000 years". It is particularly for countries such as Russia, Canada and parts of the US. What will we get fresh food with and heat our homes with oil and gas run out. Coal? Wood?
At one point Curtis get's Dr Adam Weinberg to admit that 'The decision what was acceptable isn't something that we technologies can make it is something that the public makes'. But overall Curtis shows that in the US it was really Westinghouse and GE that were setting the public agenda. The technology that they were using was designed for 60 Megawatt reactors but they were using it to build 1,000 megawatt reactors because those are more profitable. Also in England, Russia and the US deployments were rushed and cost cutting rampant.
Posted by Anthony at September 11, 2005 04:55 PM