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Stephen Mihm   “……….In July 1953, the construction of the nation’s first full-scale civilian nuclear power plant was funded. Much of this, as historian Paul Boyer has observed, was driven by a desire to find a “silver lining” in the mushroom cloud. While Americans had generally supported the use of nuclear weapons on Japan, the growing specter of thermonuclear war in the 1950s sparked a growing desire to find peaceful applications for the new technology that would compensate for its destructive powers……….

Eisenhower wasted no time in trumpeting the news of the new plant. In December 1953, he appeared before the United Nations and delivered his “Atoms for Peace” speech. Eisenhower pledged that the United States would solve what he called the “fearful atomic dilemma” — to figure out how the new technology could improve life on Earth rather than destroy it.

Foremost among these was the promise of nuclear energy. “The United States knows that peaceful power from the atomic energy is no dream of the future,” he declared. “That capability, already proved, is here — now — today.”……..

The Shippingport plant soon began generating electricity, and the government pronounced the reactor a success. And on one level, it certainly was: it sparked the construction of dozens of nuclear power plants in the U.S. and abroad, a good number of them designed and built by Westinghouse. Everything miraculous about the nuclear power industry began at Shippingport.

But so did everything that is overwhelming it now. Aside from the cost overruns, the electricity produced by Shippingport was quite costly. Though Duquesne Light bought electricity from the government at the rate of 8 mills per kilowatt-hour, the actual cost ranged between 55 and 60 mills.

In succeeding decades, nuclear power costs declined, but the industry remained heavily dependent on subsidies. And in recent years, the investment cost of developing new nuclear plants ballooned from $2,065 per kilowatt in 1998 to $5,828 in 2015, according to a World Nuclear Association report…..

All of this bodes ill for the future of nuclear power. But the failure for nuclear to live up to its potential should hardly surprise us. It began as an idealistic attempt to domesticate the bomb in peacetime; the actual economic cost and benefits of doing was a secondary concern at best.

The world has spent nearly sixty years trying to make economic sense of nuclear power, with limited success. It may be time to pull the plug.

To contact the author of this story:
Stephen Mihm at smihm1@bloomberg.net

To contact the editor responsible for this story:
Mike Nizza at mnizza3@bloomberg.net    https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2017-04-08/nuclear-power-s-original-mistake-trying-to-domesticate-the-bomb