In the wake of the announcement that Entergy will be closing the Vermont Yankee nuclear power plant over the next year or so, I sat back and mused on the missed opportunities that decision represents.
I've been studying - and occasionally covering - nuclear power since the 1970s, so I've had a ringside seat for the dramatic history of this technology.
First, a bit of history. Back in the Eisenhower administration, the government determined that this terrible genie they'd let out of the bottle during World War II needed to be tamed and turned to peaceful purposes.
After all, nuclear fission represented the first new energy source humankind had discovered since the discovery of the usefulness of coal and oil as a heat source in the early days of the Industrial Revolution.