This is the seventh in a series.

One of the interesting benefits of studying history is it can trigger lively “what if” debates, such as what if Lincoln hadn’t gone to Ford’s Theatre or Truman had not ordered the A-bomb to be dropped.

So what if, as you stood at the Ship Bottom municipal building 50 years ago, experts would have told you that by the early 1980s there would be six operating nuclear reactors within 15 miles of that spot – two floating reactors off Holgate, two more off Harvey Cedars and two land-based at Forked…