| > what came to my surprise is that Poland, Turkey, Scandinavian countries, Africa have literally 1 to none nuclear stations. Also, Austria: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_power_in_Austria Short timeline: - 1972: started building its first nuclear power plant - 1978: parliament decides to ban nuclear power for 20 years - 1997: ban is made permanent Note that the initial decision for the ban was even before Chernobyl (the event that greatly boosted anti-nuclear sentiment in Europe). What's important to keep in mind is that fuel from nuclear power plants can also be used for developing nuclear weapons, so historically only states "trustworthy" to the US or the former USSR were allowed access to the technology (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_proliferation#Dual-Use...). |
It's difficult to disentangle civilian power from nuclear weapons concerns. This is particularly important if you want to get a good historical understanding of the opposition to nuclear reactors.
- until the end of the cold war, many people considered the risk of nuclear war to be potentially imminent, while global warming was a comparatively distant threat. This is still a somewhat live political issue around Iran, and Israel/US security services devote a lot of effort to sabotaging the Iranian nuclear weapons industry
- until environmental campaigners won, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ocean_disposal_of_radioactive_... was common
- American commentators really underestimate the impact of Chernobyl on European agriculture, and how long it took to dissipate