The parts of a boat have funny names to a landsman. Many of the names go back hundreds of years and their origins are often lost. Some make sense only if you know something of sailing ship construction in the 16th century.
Cheap dreams, expensive realities. In the dawn of the nuclear era, cost was expected to be one of the technology's advantages, not one of its drawbacks. The first chairman of the Atomic Energy Commission, Lewis Strauss, predicted in a 1954 speech that nuclear power would someday make electricity âtoo cheap to meter.â.
Nuclear-powered electrical generators would provide power too cheap to meter. Between 1970 and 1974, American utilities ordered 140 new reactors for power plants. But construction costs were high and there were safety fears. After 1975, only 13 orders were placed for new nuclear reactors, and all of those were subsequently cancelled. In all, 100 of 140 reactors on order in 1975 were cancelled. Electricity from nuclear power plants was about half the price of coal in 1970, but twice as much in 1990.