Nuclear power has been a bête noire of mine for decades.  When I was a kid, I thought this was the future – power “too cheap to meter” as the high priests of the cult of the atom told us.  But a book came out in 1971 by two veterans of the American nuclear project that was an epiphany for me:  Poisoned Power.  Long before Three Mile Island, Chernobyl, and Fukushima, it made a convincing case against nuclear power.  In the half century since, I have seen virtually nothing that has made me rethink my opposition.  A brilliant new book, Atoms and Ashes – A Global History of Nuclear Disasters, has further deepened my convictions – not that they really needed any deepening, as my posts here will attest. Continue reading →