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Within four months, the number of dead at least doubled. The explosion and heat generated by the first bomb completely destroyed 4.4 square miles (11.4 sq. km) around the epicenter in Hiroshima. The one dropped on Nagasaki leveled 1.8 square miles (4.7 sq. km). The land remained contami- nated for decades. And the long-term effects of radiation sickness were felt into the 2000s, as the last of the survi- vors were still living.

A specialist spraying a sheep with DDT to control ticks and other insects in Benton County, Oregon.

The dawning of the Atomic Age, beginning with the dropping of the bombs on Japan, would become a major feature of the Cold War. As tensions between the United States and the Soviet Union mounted, the threat of nuclear war, and even annihilation , became real. The nuclear competition between the two superpowers would lead to all sorts of environmental destruction. Radioactive waste from the Hanford Site, established during the war, was dumped into the Columbia River in Washington State. Lake Karachay, a nuclear disposal site in central Russia used by the Soviets, is now one of the most radioactive sites on the planet. Nuclear tests conducted in Nevada, in the Pacific on Bikini and Enewetak Atolls, and in the Arctic Ocean caused unknown and untold contamination and destruction. As the decades wore on, the power of the atom would be used in the production of energy. Many would feel that nuclear energy was benign and the answer for many coun- tries without enough access to other forms of energy. But its potential danger concerned people across the world. Not only did the possibility for accidents alarm the public, but the concern about the safe disposal of nuclear waste vexed technologists as well as policy makers. Many wondered whether nuclear power could ever be made completely

safe for humanity or the planet we live on.

A nuclear waste storage facility being built at Onkalo, on the west coast of Finland. Spent nuclear fuel will be deposited deep underground, in the granite bedrock, accessed through tunnels such as this.