Well, you know, after WW II, and with the new research and development in nuclear energy, it 'appeared' that that was the way to go. It turned out to be wrong, wrong, wrong. But I ask you, if YOU were running things, what would you do? I do a lot of online research and these days it appears that a distributed, renewables base is best, but who knows what things will be like in 25 years time. 

It's easy to criticize, and difficult to make well informed, accurate decisions.