"Shippingport and the 1953 National Security Council decision that brought it about were the first major steps towards nuclear power in the United States. But it is worth remembering that Shippingport was not the result of a stupendous technical breakthrough nor of a willingness on private industry’s part to take a risk, but a national security decision to reassert American atomic superiority during the Cold War. In their hurry to get a reactor, any reactor, pumping out electricity, the government's atomic bureaucrats seized upon the handiest reactor design available, Rickover's light water reactor. Their choice gave the light water model a head start and momentum that others were never able to match and led the industry to base its commercial future on a reactor design that some experts have subsequently suggested was economically and technically inferior." Nuclear Inc., Mark Hertsgaard