Look at history. The US developed fission power in conjunction with the weapons programs. This led to the reactors using enriched uranium for fuel, and I guess they must have assumed they'd make bombs forever or something. The Canadians, however, developed the CANDU reactor in the same timeframe as the BWR and it uses uranium in its naturally occurring abundances. This requires them to moderate using heavy water, which is very expensive, but obviously it's a one-time cost since it circulates in a closed loop. Also, the lack of understanding about the health effects of radiation exposure should have been reason to delay the implementation of the technology (It went from the drawing board to breaking ground in the beginning, with no standard plant design).

Drawing on all of this, for any new source, the proper steps would be maybe some press coverage, followed by R&D carried out SEPARATE from weapons research, and only after a plan for smooth implementation has been developed should those in charge proceed to unleash this new source of energy on civilian infrastructure. Had this occurred before, energy would be a great deal cheaper and there would be a lot less misinformation about nuclear energy and radiation.

TL;DR - It ends better for everyone if a new source of energy is harnessed properly and not simply unleashed.