Nuclear energy is news again. It has always been an issue for some people -- environmental activists and energy industry groups -- but nuclear power has largely faded from public consciousness, despite periodic incidents that highlighted fears of a catastrophic mishap at a nuclear power plant. The luxury of indifference is about to end, however. New political and economic pressures will force countries to make some hard choices about nuclear energy. The contradictions between government policy and public sentiment are going to become more salient in the decades ahead.
Those contradictions were made plain in two recent developments on opposite ends of the globe. Last month, the U.S. administration of President George W. Bush announced the findings of its energy task force. That panel, headed by Vice President Dick Cheney, called for a higher profile for nuclear energy in U.S. power generation. The prospect of rising energy prices, increasing dependence on foreign energy sources and the embarrassment created by the rolling blackouts in California prompted the panel to reverse long-standing national policy that put a low priority on nuclear power.
A few weeks later, Japanese voters in the village of Kariwa rejected Tokyo Electric Power Co. plans -- and those of the Tokyo government -- to use MOX fuel, a mixture of plutonium and uranium, in nuclear reactors. Although the referendum was nonbinding, it sent a clear signal of public unease about nuclear energy and the use of recycled fuel in nuclear power generation. To its credit, TEPCO acknowledged that message and suspended its plan to go ahead with MOX use -- at least temporarily.