The Carter-Reagan transition marked a major shift in energy policy. Politics matters, and less than catastrophic technology failures can make people back way away from a particular technology solution.

I was moaning to someone the other day that we have had three well-known nuclear power disasters. If the record was clean, then environmental activists would be unconcerned, we would not need as much regulation, construction lead-times would fall dramatically, nuclear would become cheaper than coal and the global warming issue would vanish completely once electric cars become practical.