It is a real shame that the first exposure of atomic energy, to most people,
was the atomic bomb. If most people had their first exposure to gasoline via
the Molotov cocktail, we would be still using horses.
Hmm? I wonder. The early automobiles that used gasoline caught fire,
or caught other things on fire, rather frequently.
I think their adoption was a matter of expense, and convenience.
A horse costs you daily in terms of its care and feeding.. and yet most people
didn't need to hitch up the horses and go somewhere daily... hence the development
of the livery stable in small towns, where horses could be rented and shared.
The automobile cost you only when you used it. It didn't get tired
on long trips, and it moved substantially faster than a horse.
The supposed evils of carbon, relative to Global Warming, might just be the
catalyst for bringing nuke back into the fold.
After all, if something as noisy, dangerous and unreliable as the early
automobiles could win the hearts of the world... Nuke, which at last count
killed fewer people in Japan, than the automobile has killed in the US,
should be a shoe-in.
-Chuck
