The Atomic Fire: The Age It Was Called the Energy of Dreams

Up to now, we have watched humanity dam its rivers, string up the grid, and bind the forces of nature on a national scale. Yet hydropower and thermal power both had their limits. From the tiniest amount of matter, an energy on an utterly different order—said to be millions of times that of coal—could be drawn. In the middle of the 20th century, physics opened the door to such an extraordinary force: the energy of nuclear fission, born from splitting the nucleus of the atom. It first appeared in the world as the most horrific weapon in human history. Yet that same force eventually turned its course toward peaceful use, ushering in the age when it was called the energy of dreams. In this chapter, we trace the era when the atomic fire was welcomed with hope, neutrally, setting both the case for promotion and the case for caution side by side.

From Weapon to Power Plant: The Turn Toward Peaceful Use

The history of nuclear power bears a deep shadow at its very starting point. Nuclear fission first appeared in the world as a great force at the end of the Second World War, as a weapon that incinerated cities in an instant. The power of the atom was, before all else, remembered as a tool of destruction unlike any humanity had held before.

After the war, how to handle this fearsome force became a heavy question for the world. As nuclear weapons swelled under the Cold War, in 1953 U.S. President Eisenhower delivered a speech at the United Nations titled ‘Atoms for Peace.’ Turn the technology of the nucleus not toward destruction, but toward peaceful aims such as power generation and medicine—so he called out to the world. This speech is said to have spurred the building of international frameworks for the peaceful use of nuclear power across nations, leading to the establishment of an international body to advance its peaceful use.

That said, it is worth writing down that this peaceful use was not born purely out of good will. Some early reactors are said to have carried, alongside generation, the aim of producing material for use in weapons. Behind the words of hope, the maneuvering of the Cold War cast its shadow. Even so, the very fact that humanity tried to redirect the force of destruction in another direction can be called a great turning point.

The Energy of Dreams: Nuclear Power Spreads Across the World

Once the door to peaceful use opened, nuclear power spread across the world at a startling speed. The first nuclear power plant to supply electricity to a grid is said to have begun operating in Obninsk in the Soviet Union in 1954; though its output was small, it announced the dawn of an age when homes were lit by the power of the atom. Following it, practical-scale nuclear plants began running one after another in Britain and the United States as well. In Japan too, in 1966, the Tokai Nuclear Power Plant in Ibaraki Prefecture entered commercial operation as the country’s first commercial nuclear plant, stepping into the nuclear age.

In this era, nuclear power was spoken of as nothing less than the ‘energy of dreams.’ From a tiny amount of fuel, vast electricity could be drawn, with no soot belching from a chimney. Even nations poor in resources came to regard it as a technology of hope that could secure their own energy. In some quarters, even optimistic visions of the future were voiced—that one day electricity would become so cheap it would hardly be worth metering. An exhilaration characteristic of the age, the belief that science and technology would lead humanity to abundance, lit the atomic fire brightly.

The Push from the Oil Crisis: Between the Case for Promotion and the Case for Caution

An event that decisively strengthened the wave of nuclear promotion occurred in the 1970s. Against the backdrop of the situation in the Middle East came an instability in oil supply—the so-called oil shock. The price of crude oil surged, and the economies of nations that had leaned entirely on oil were violently shaken. For resource-poor nations in particular, this was a grave warning. As long as energy was held by a handful of oil-producing regions, a nation’s economy and daily life would be tossed about at their convenience—that sense of crisis pushed expectations of nuclear power, which could generate electricity on one’s own, even higher. Many nations accelerated the construction of nuclear plants as a pillar of energy security.

Those who promoted it argued thus. Nuclear power can supply large amounts of electricity stably from little fuel, without depending on particular resource nations. It gives off almost no carbon dioxide during operation and does not foul the air. Refine the technology and carry out management thoroughly, and that force can become a foundation that supports human prosperity for a long time to come. A realistic option that reconciles energy independence with care for the environment—that was the core of the case for promotion.

On the other hand, a cautious view existed from the start. The case for caution asks thus. If a reactor should cause a grave accident, would not its harm reach incomparably wider and longer than that of any other form of generation? Can the radioactive waste produced by operation be safely managed for the long span of tens of thousands of years? Would this not amount to pushing the cost and the responsibility onto future generations? It was a warning that behind the immediate advantages of cheapness and efficiency, there might lie a price not easily borne.

Born as a weapon, the power of the atom turned its course toward peaceful use and, with the oil crisis as a tailwind, spread across the world as the energy of dreams. The case for promotion entrusted the future to that force, and the case for caution sounded the alarm at its shadow, while the age of nuclear power did indeed press forward. Yet the system of control that human beings had built was not perfect. In time, the dream would be tested in the form of real accidents. Next time, we move to the moments when the atomic fire bared its fangs at humanity three times—the story of Three Mile Island, Chernobyl, and Fukushima, told with respect for those who suffered.