this post was submitted on 29 Mar 2026
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I don't know history of uranium very much but wasn't it first used to paint ceramics and later radium for glowing watches? Uranium bombs were made later probably after it was used to generate power. But I wonder what our world would look like if there was not as much scare of nuclear power. Perhaps bit like fallouts world? We still have some time left to 23rd October 2077 thankfully.
The first man made reactor (there's an extinct naturally occurring one) was created in 1942 as part of the Manhattan project to create the first bombs. So we really did speed run the tech tree for bomb on that one. The first nuclear power plant was in 1951.
First use: glowing paint
Second use: cancer
I was pro nuclear until solar became cheaper than nuclear but I think if there was less scare about nuclear, there would have been more Chernobyls. That happened because of thinking it's completely safe.
Chernobyl happened through the incompetence of leadership, not because they thought it was "completely safe".
It's a good thing leadership incompetence is something that only ever happens once
And only in USSR!
Incompetence AND overconfidence, cause those reactors were the latest generation and considered completely safe.
I'd sure hope that the latest generation of a technology would be considered safe. That's generally how things work. And then when accidents occur, we learn and make things safer the next time.
As to them considering it completely safe, I'd love to read about that if you have sources. Cause I doubt that they thought it couldn't fail.
I was pro-nuclear until Georgia Power stuck me with the bill for Plant Vogtle 3 and 4.
(Or rather, I was pro-nuclear until shortly after construction began on a 7-year plan that ultimately took 15 years, when it started to become clear that gross incompetence and corruption was going to make it an expensive debacle.)
Nuclear power from Vogtle 3 and 4 costs 16¢ per kWh (according to the linked document), by the way, compared to less than 0.1¢ per kWh expected by OP's comic.