Nuclear energy between light, shadow, and forgotten echoes of the past

In the middle of the 20th century, humanity discovered the key to unlocking almost unlimited energy: that contained in the very nucleus of matter. Nuclear energy, born of scientific genius and ambition, changed the face of history and continues to divide public opinion between fear and hope.

Between power and danger: the nuclear paradox

Nuclear energy is one of the most controversial technologies ever developed. Capable of powering entire cities with near-zero carbon emissions, it is also responsible for epochal disasters and indelible memories.

Advantages:

• Low greenhouse gas emissions during operation

• High energy density: one gram of uranium can generate as much energy as tons of coal

• Continuous production, unlike intermittent renewables

Disadvantages:

• Risk of serious accidents (Three Mile Island, Chernobyl, Fukushima)

• High cost and long construction times

• The unresolved issue of radioactive waste, which remains dangerous for tens of thousands of years

• Vulnerability to extreme natural disasters, an often underestimated risk

Although modern plants are designed to withstand earthquakes and floods, an extreme global natural event could compromise the safety of dozens or hundreds of reactors at the same time, potentially rendering entire areas of the planet uninhabitable.

The existential risk of cataclysms: Younger Dryas and the impact that wiped out the dinosaurs

Around 12,800 years ago, our planet experienced a dramatic event known as the Younger Dryas, a sudden global cooling caused—according to the most widely discussed theory—by the impact of cometary fragments or a meteorite in the North American ice sheet (Firestone et al., PNAS, 2007).

This event, perhaps underestimated in public debate, shows that the Earth is not immune to natural phenomena of global magnitude, capable of changing the climate, triggering tsunamis, earthquakes, and continental fires. In a modern scenario, hundreds of nuclear plants exposed to a similar event would pose an unprecedented risk, due to the difficulty of ensuring the stability of structures and the cooling of fuel in the absence of electricity or functioning logistics.

The same applies to the asteroid that wiped out the dinosaurs 66 million years ago, whose crater was found on the Yucatán Peninsula. These events are not impossible, only rare — and geological time reminds us that ‘rare’ does not mean ‘never’.

Mahabharata: war of the gods or memory of a technological past?

If there is scientific evidence of ancient cataclysms, some sacred and mythological texts seem to preserve echoes of a pre-catastrophic humanity, endowed with knowledge that is incomprehensible today.

The Indian epic poem Mahabharata describes, in a surprisingly technical way, a battle where weapons capable of destroying entire armies in an instant were used:

“A single projectile charged with all the power of the universe... a glowing column of smoke and flame as bright as ten thousand suns...”

And again:

“Bodies were burned, hair and nails fell out, food seemed poisoned... birds went mad.”

Many authors, including David Hatcher Childress and Erich von Däniken, speculate that these passages are not mere spiritual metaphors, but distorted memories of historical and technological events, such as the use of nuclear weapons or high-intensity energy.

The text also mentions vimanas, flying vehicles described with technical details and flight dynamics—literary Out of Place Artifacts that stimulate the imagination and raise questions.

The Bible, archetypes, and sacred technologies

Similar elements also appear in the Hebrew-Christian scriptures:

• Sodom and Gomorrah, cities destroyed by “fire raining down from heaven,” comparable to a thermonuclear explosion

• The Ark of the Covenant, a container capable of generating death, radioactivity, and power, described almost as a mobile energy capacitor

Authors such as Joseph P. Farrell and Paul LaViolette have analyzed these texts through alternative lenses, hypothesizing that sacred history may contain traces of lost technologies or technologies hidden behind symbols.

The present and the challenges of the future

In a world thirsty for energy and grappling with the climate crisis, nuclear power presents itself as a partial solution. But are we sure we want to entrust our survival to a technology that creates waste for millennia and could turn into a weapon against ourselves in the event of a global disaster?

Towards new sources: between science and imagination

Alternatives exist and deserve attention and investment:

• Solar energy and advanced photovoltaics, currently undergoing rapid development with flexible, transparent panels that can be integrated into urban architecture

• Zero Point Energy: the exploitation of quantum fluctuations in the vacuum, currently being studied in military and academic circles (e.g., Harold E. Puthoff, 1998)

• Electrogravitational propulsion and advanced energy conversion systems, discussed by scientists such as Eric W. Davis and Hal Puthoff in documents for the DIA (Defense Intelligence Agency), recently made public

In recent years, the debate on UAPs (Unidentified Aerial Phenomena) has given new life to these hypotheses. According to authoritative sources (such as David Grusch, former US Air Force officer, whistleblower, and former intelligence official), some non-terrestrial technologies have already been studied in secret laboratories. However, this knowledge may have been concealed from the public and even from governments themselves, in hyper-secret compartments managed by private contractors.

Conclusion: reawakening memories, innovating the future

Nuclear energy is a perfect symbol of our age: powerful yet fragile, illuminating yet dangerous, technologically brilliant yet ethically ambiguous. And perhaps we are not even the first to have discovered it.

If advanced civilizations really did exist before ours, perhaps they followed a similar path—and perhaps, like Prometheus, they paid a very high price for stealing the fire of the gods.

The real challenge today is to combine technology and awareness, progress and harmony with nature, exploring new paths and rekindling that spark of universal knowledge that has always accompanied us.

Only in this way can we avoid the fate of forgotten civilizations and build a future that honors memory and life itself.

Fabio Caratto