Mike Fox, in an article for Hawaii Reporter, reports on former President Jimmy Carter's recent endorsement of nuclear power and where the industry is headed.
It's a testimonial to just how far nuclear power has come back politically in the United States that when former President Jimmy Carter recently visited a nuclear power plant in Michigan, he declared that the future holds "great opportunity for nuclear." This view came from a president that once described nuclear power as "a last resort." The impact of his statement was so great locally that there was immediate "buzz" in the press about the possibility of building a new nuclear plant in Michigan.
Carter's endorsement of nuclear power was the second by a former or current resident of the White House within one week. Earlier President Bush visited a nuclear plant in Maryland, calling for an expansion of nuclear power to improve the nation's energy security. But Carter's visit was the more striking of the two - it was of profound interest to those of us who have watched nuclear power slide for years in the United States, despite its unique benefits.
Carter was last at a nuclear plant in 1979, when he visited Three Mile Island in Pennsylvania shortly after the reactor underwent a partial core meltdown, the most serious nuclear accident in U.S. history.
That accident cast a pall over nuclear power in this country, and there hasn't been an order for a nuclear plant since then. Never mind that the Three Mile Island reactor's containment worked as designed and that no member of the public was injured as a result of the accident. Leave aside the fact that U.S. nuclear power plants overall have a stellar safety record, which is no less impressive than that of the U.S. nuclear submarine fleet.
The fact is, the 103 U.S. nuclear power plants generate 20 percent of the nation's electricity, safely and reliably, without polluting the air or emitting greenhouse gases. Even a number of environmental leaders now recognize nuclear power's importance in battling what they view as the greatest threat facing humankind: global climate change.
It's a testimonial to just how far nuclear power has come back politically in the United States that when former President Jimmy Carter recently visited a nuclear power plant in Michigan, he declared that the future holds "great opportunity for nuclear." This view came from a president that once described nuclear power as "a last resort." The impact of his statement was so great locally that there was immediate "buzz" in the press about the possibility of building a new nuclear plant in Michigan.
Carter's endorsement of nuclear power was the second by a former or current resident of the White House within one week. Earlier President Bush visited a nuclear plant in Maryland, calling for an expansion of nuclear power to improve the nation's energy security. But Carter's visit was the more striking of the two - it was of profound interest to those of us who have watched nuclear power slide for years in the United States, despite its unique benefits.
Carter was last at a nuclear plant in 1979, when he visited Three Mile Island in Pennsylvania shortly after the reactor underwent a partial core meltdown, the most serious nuclear accident in U.S. history.
That accident cast a pall over nuclear power in this country, and there hasn't been an order for a nuclear plant since then. Never mind that the Three Mile Island reactor's containment worked as designed and that no member of the public was injured as a result of the accident. Leave aside the fact that U.S. nuclear power plants overall have a stellar safety record, which is no less impressive than that of the U.S. nuclear submarine fleet.
The fact is, the 103 U.S. nuclear power plants generate 20 percent of the nation's electricity, safely and reliably, without polluting the air or emitting greenhouse gases. Even a number of environmental leaders now recognize nuclear power's importance in battling what they view as the greatest threat facing humankind: global climate change.
