The Future of Nuclear Energy
As technology improves, it tends to shrink. Computers have gone from filling entire rooms to slipping into backpacks. Smartphones now replace cameras, alarm clocks, and dozens of other gadgets in one slim casing.
Likewise, data storage is migrating to cloud computing. Hard-drive afficionados can, for a few bucks, buy a flash drive that fits neatly in the palm of the hand, weighs less than one ounce, and stores two terabytes of information. That’s 400,000 times the capacity of the first computer hard drive, which could store a mere five megabytes on 50 disks enclosed in a case larger than your refrigerator. According to IT management company Solarwind, IBM leased the colossus for $3,200 per month.
About the time that hulk lumbered onto the scene, the United States first began using nuclear power to generate electricity for commercial, non-military applications. On December 18, 1957, Pennsylvania’s Shippingport Atomic Power Station went online. But nuclear did not seem to follow in the footsteps of shrinking technology.
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