The recommendation of a moratorium on the construction of new nuclear electricity plants is directed toward elimination of a serious hazard to the human species. Of course, it is wise to avert any disaster once it is apparent. But it is relevant to ask why we must approach the brink of disaster so often, in the applications of technology.
Nuclear electricity is only one case in point, though a profoundly important and dangerous one.
The public has every reason to ask why the nuclear electricity industry developed this far before there was a widespread appreciation of the hazards. The answers lie in the very nature of large-scale technology. One of its major characteristics is the careful exclusion of the public from all the considerations and decisions. The experts , for several obvious reasons, will surely bring society to its doom, unless certain corrective measures are urgently introduced. Technologies such as nuclear electricity generation are highly financed enterprises, usually involving hundreds of millions, or even billions, of dollars.