The Price of Power

TO THE SMALL group of expatriate scientists monitoring their instruments on a grey December afternoon in 1942, it must have seemed that the applications of nuclear power were limited only by the scope of man’s imagination. They had achieved the world’s first controlled chain reaction, heralding the birth of the nuclear age. The enthusiasm of those early days gave rise to visions of atom-powered aircraft and electricity too cheap to meter. In the course of time, many of these ideas were discarded as flights of fancy; but one concept endured: the production of inexpensive, clean electricity.

Growing Appetite

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Milton R. Copulos

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TO THE SMALL group of expatriate scientists monitoring their instruments on a grey December afternoon in 1942, it must have seemed that the applications of nuclear power were limited only by the scope of man’s imagination. They had achieved the world’s first controlled chain reaction, heralding the birth of the nuclear age. The enthusiasm of those early days gave rise to visions of atom-powered aircraft and electricity too cheap to meter. In the course of time, many of these ideas were discarded as flights of fancy; but one concept endured: the production of inexpensive, clean electricity.

Growing Appetite