Quick Study: The Facts on Nuclear Energy
In the era of $4-a-gallon gas, nuclear energy is getting new scrutiny. Depending on which side you listen to, nuclear power is either the fresh, young, can-do face of the future or the tired, old, ticking time bomb of the past. Although the United States gets almost 20 percent of its energy from nuclear power plants, no new reactors have been built since the meltdown at Three Mile Island, near Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, in 1979. After three decades of exile-during which Europe and Asia left U.S. nuclear technology in the coal dust-nuclear plants are applying for permits to build new reactors (nine permits are in the pipeline), pushing for a national nuclear-waste dump, and forging international partnerships that make the once unattainable goal of recycling spent nuclear fuel look inevitable. Given the spate of brownouts and blackouts, perhaps it’s not surprising that 63 percent of Americans favor nuclear energy as one way to provide electricity.
