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There would be a technological fix for the world’s problems. There could be prosperity for all through exploiting nature more intelligently, largely through “our new capability to use the power of the atom to meet human needs.” He declared,

It appears that the long promised day of economical nuclear power is close at hand. In the past several months we have achieved an economic breakthrough in the use of larger-scale reactors for commercial power. And as a result of this rapid progress we are years ahead of our planned progress. This new technology, now being applied in the United States, will be available to the world.

Through the magic black box of science, nuclear energy would be transformed into American soft power throughout the world. Johnson concluded his thoughts on nuclear energy by stating,

The development of the large-scale reactor offers a dramatic prospect of transforming sea water into water suitable for human consumption and industrial use. Large-scale nuclear reactors and desalting plants offer, in combination, economical electric power and useable water in areas of need. We are engaged in research and development to transform this scientists’ concept into reality.4

With unlimited power and water, all the world could be a Monticello—open for life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Wealth would not have to be redistributed because there would be enough for everyone to live an American lifestyle even if, as Johnson noted, that would require producing natural resources at one hundred times their production levels.

As in the original Dwight D. Eisenhower “Atoms for Peace” speech, the specter of nuclear destruction—which, like it or not, was an American invention—was redeemed by the utopian visions of a perfect power. “We now can join knowledge to faith and science to belief to realize in our time the ancient hope of a world which is a fit home for all,” Johnson concluded. “The New Testament enjoins us to ‘Go ye therefore and teach all nations.’”5

Thus, nuclear power, long-supported by the American government with subsidies, was officially enshrined as the American energy technology of the future. The reactor was a cheap, clean, necessary answer to the problem of the bomb and the opportunity of the future.

Or so Johnson’s story went. It was a grand American narrative: Science! Technology! Progress! Economic growth! Unlimited everything! What’s not to love? It’s more than a bit like the one we are telling ourselves about green technology.

Unfortunately, the kernel on which it was built—the “economic breakthrough” of nuclear power—was more truthy than true. That did not make it any less effective. Nuclear power had been in the offing for more than a decade, but in the five years following his speech was when it became a reality. Nuclear power generates about 20 percent of America’s electricity, greatly reducing the carbon intensity of the energy system.6

Beginning in the early 1970s environmentalists tended to look at the negative aspects of this rise in power.7 They criticized the subsidies that the industry received or its close connections with the military. They questioned the costs of building new nuclear reactors. They called out nuclear engineers and scientists for bias against solar energy. They brought up the specter of meltdowns and nuclear proliferation.8 Likewise, many nuclear advocates like Edward Teller or Atomic Energy Commissioners like Gorman Smith pooh-poohed the efforts of solar pioneers. Solar energy was too diffuse, too land intensive, and not suitable as the basis for an advanced civilization.9

Alvin Weinberg, former head of Oak Ridge National Laboratory and longtime deep thinker about energy, once wrote that the ultimate energy battle is between uranium and the sun.10 When all the fossil fuels are gone or otherwise unavailable, those are the two energy sources that will be left to support whatever humans are around. And during the 1970s the more extreme supporters of the two technological paths took to the ramparts a little too early.

There is, however,