Editing Atomic Age (section)

== 1970s to 1990s ==
[[File:View of Chernobyl taken from Pripyat.JPG|thumb|The abandoned city of [[Pripyat]]. The [[Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant]] can be seen on the horizon.]]

French advocates of nuclear power developed an aesthetic vision of nuclear technology as art to bolster support for the technology. Leclerq compares the nuclear cooling tower to some of the grandest architectural monuments of Western culture:<ref name=jbsh/>
<blockquote>
The age in which we live has, for the public, been marked by the nuclear engineer and the gigantic edifices he has created. For builders and visitors alike, nuclear power plants will be considered the cathedrals of the 20th century. Their syncretism mingles the conscious and the unconscious, religious fulfilment and industrial achievement, the limitations of uses of materials and boundless artistic inspiration, utopia come true and the continued search for harmony.<ref name=jbsh>John Byrne and Steven M. Hoffman (1996). ''Governing the Atom: The Politics of Risk'', Transaction Publishers, pp. 20–21.</ref>
</blockquote>

In 1973, the AEC predicted that, by the turn of the 21st century 1,000 reactors would be producing electricity for homes and businesses across the U.S. But after 1973, reactor orders declined sharply as electricity demand fell and construction costs rose. Many orders and partially completed plants were cancelled.<ref name="Mortal Hands p. 283"/>

Nuclear power has proved controversial since the 1970s. [[High-level radioactive waste management|Highly radioactive materials]] may overheat and escape from the reactor building. Nuclear waste ([[spent nuclear fuel]]) needs to be regularly removed from the reactors and disposed of safely for up to a million years, so that it does not pollute the environment. Recycling of nuclear waste has been discussed, but it creates [[plutonium]] which can be used in weapons, and in any case still leaves much unwanted waste to be stored and disposed of. Large, [[geologic repository|purpose-built facilities]] for long-term disposal of nuclear waste have been difficult to site.<ref>Congressional Research report, [https://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/misc/R42853.pdf Nuclear Energy: Overview of Congressional Issues], CRS Report, 2015.</ref>

By the late 1970s, nuclear power suffered a remarkable international destabilization, as it was faced with economic difficulties and widespread [[anti-nuclear movement|public opposition]], coming to a head with the [[Three Mile Island accident]] in 1979 and the [[Chernobyl disaster]] in 1986, both of which adversely affected the nuclear power industry for decades thereafter. A cover story in the 11 February 1985 issue of ''[[Forbes]]'' magazine addresses the overall management of the nuclear power program in the United States:
<blockquote>
The failure of the U.S. nuclear power program ranks as the largest managerial disaster in business history, a disaster on a monumental scale ... only the blind, or the biased, can now think that the money has been well spent. It is a defeat for the U.S. consumer and for the competitiveness of U.S. industry, for the utilities that undertook the program and for the private enterprise system that made it possible.<ref>"Nuclear Follies", a February 11, 1985, cover story in ''[[Forbes (magazine)|Forbes]]'' magazine.</ref>
</blockquote>

In a period just over 30 years, the early dramatic rise of nuclear power went into equally meteoric reverse. With no other energy technology has there been a conjunction of such rapid and revolutionary international emergence, followed so quickly by equally transformative demise.<ref>{{cite journal |title=Transforming power |volume=1 |pages=83–95 |author=Andy Stirling |date=2014 |journal=Energy Research and Social Science |doi=10.1016/j.erss.2014.02.001|author-link=Andy Stirling |doi-access=free }}</ref>