The civil use of nuclear energy has been contentious since it began in the 1950s. Rightly or wrongly it was associated with production of plutonium for the military and with providing reactors to propel submarines.
Although the first civil nuclear power programme was launched in Britain, the main push for development was driven by the politics of the Cold War and spearheaded in the West by the US Atomic Energy Commission (AEC). The US President and Congress gave the Commission absolute decision-making power within the US on military and civil nuclear matters. This was based on the presumption – perhaps understandable at that time – that nuclear energy is so complex that only the experts in that organisation could adequately understand the issues.
