Earlier development of atomic energy.

With a PoD that is reasonable(no "Hellenistic Scientists scale up steam toy and suddenly it's zepplinpunk in 1500") speed up the development of atomic energy and research.) Assuming development sped to a reasonable but noticable degree what consequences result? Do we see changes in disease rates, or different procedures for atomic waste containment? Does this affect the use of oil or other fuels, and what consequences does that have? I'm curious both about the economic effects of oil becoming less important, or used primarily for automotive transport, as well as peripheral uses(does radiation therapy become common earlier, and what public health effects does it have. I'd also be curious about the effects on Africa and other places with important uranium and similar deposits. Do said African areas gain geopolitical importance? I'd be curious if this affects colonization or possibly decolonization. I would be curious as well about similar questions applied to other areas with similar resources.
 

Perkeo

Banned
I think the OTL development of atomic energy is pretty fast, already far beyond what I'd call reasonable speed if it hadn't been OTL:
  • Until 1896, not even the most basic theories and the most basic experimental methods existed.
  • In 1934, Fermi discovered the possibility of induced nuclear reactions.
  • Nuclear fission was discovered in 1938
  • First nuclear bomb in 1945
  • First commercial nuclear power plant in 1956.
So you have less than a lifetime between not knowing anything about even the scientific discipline and less than a decade after the besic research to the military use, one further decade until civilian commercial use. What more do you want?
 
The absolute least one could wish is for Niépce de Saint-Victor's OTL discovery to be followed up:

Near-discovery of radioactivity (That actually happend in our timeline)

In 1804 the German chemist Adolph Ferdinand Gehlen (1775-1815) had noticed that when a solution of uranium chloride in ether was exposed to sunlight, it quickly changed color (from bright yellow to green) and precipitated.[2] In the 1850s, Niépce de Saint-Victor was trying to develop color photography, using light-sensitive metal salts. Beginning in 1857, long before Henri Becquerel's famous serendipitous discovery of radioactivity in 1896, Niépce de Saint-Victor observed that, even in complete darkness, certain salts could expose photographic emulsions.[3][4] He soon realized that uranium salts were responsible for this anomalous phenomenon.[5] Niépce recognized that the “light” that was exposing his photographic plates was neither conventional phosphorescence nor fluorescence: the salts could expose photographic plates long after the salts had last been exposed to sunlight. Niépce's superior, Michel Eugène Chevreul, recognized the phenomenon as a fundamental discovery ("une découverte capitale"), pointing out that uranium salts retained their power to expose photographic plates even after six months in the dark ("encore actif six mois après son insolation").[6] By 1861, Niépce stated frankly that uranium salts emitted some sort of radiation that was invisible to the human eye

Now for intruments to study radioactivity there was already mentioned photographic plates as well as the gold-leaf electroscope was developed in 1787 by British clergyman and physicist Abraham Bennet.

Now if you really want an advanced understanding of atom behavior have the cloud chamber be invented earlier. Nothing particularity difficult about this. People sometimes really underestimate how absolutely technologically retarded our own timeline is.
 
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I doubt Africa would have much importance because of uranium for a while. Europe has significant quantities which OTL supplied the Soviet Union's massive needs. North America has a significant amount of uranium (once the indigenous people are subdued of course), to say nothing about Australia.

I just wonder if peaceful uses would come first, or if the only way to get those peaceful uses is because all the empires are funding nuclear research to build some crazy science fiction-esque "atomic bomb" as in WWII. If peaceful uses come first, then nuclear power could take off much more easily. Probably also you could see nuclear-powered battleships/battlecruisers/carriers much earlier.

But I'm not sure to what degree nuclear plants would replace other sorts of power plants. At least some would get replaced, no doubt.
 
The question are whether without the potential use of nuclear waste products, we would see the use of more common materials like thorium instead of uranium?
 
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