Why Did Nuclear Power Fail The First Time Around?

Now that the Glasgow conference and some mighty public relations work have put nuclear energy back in the spotlight, maybe it is worth examining why nuclear dismally failed to meet expectations, which might tell us why the nuclear advocates (some of them, anyway) are moving in new directions at long last, after clinging for decades to a model that did not work.

First, let’s understand that most nuclear power plants work in the sense that they produce electricity, and they have been working far better than in the past. The problems, largely,…