When I was 8, I read a 1970s novel, describing a struggle of young nuclear engineers to promote newer reactor design through the behemoths of rigid bureaucracy. The new design was inherently safer and thus did not need the expensive steel containment shell built around, thus saving resources to the Motherland.<p>Chernobyl happened the next year, we lived 250km north of it. Luckily for us, most of the fallout precipitated on heads of other people some 100km south. Yet the radiation levels were a part of daily weather forecast for the next decade. We didn&#x27;t have a toaster, a microwave, a dishwasher or a VCR home then, but we owned a radiometer.<p>We were instructed to hide from the rain in the weeks after the accident. I remember hiding with a friend under concrete slabs at a construction site on our way from school. The habit kind of stuck in the unconscious: in Belarus, people still scramble for cover at the slightest hint of rain, even though the accident was a full generation ago. I only realized it after living abroad for some years.<p>Anyway, whenever someone on Reddit or here rediscovers that Nuclear is Safe when Done Right, I always remember that novel.