Moreover, these reactors are designed to use existing nuclear waste as their fuel. In other words, their use would actually reduce stores of waste generated by huge reactors such as New Jersey’s Oyster Creek.

Unfortunately, all the arguments for developing and licensing small, modular nuclear reactors fell on deaf ears at the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. The commission has no immediate plans even to begin assessing traveling wave or any other small nuclear technology.

It is not as if mini-nuclear technologies are experimental and unproven. The basic science was developed and paid for by the U.S. government in the 1950s. The Navy has had about 100 small nuclear reactors operating with a perfect safety record for 50 years on its nuclear-powered submarines. Our modern aircraft carriers are all nuclear-powered. And there are about 60 low-energy reactors, mostly in American universities, that have been used in nuclear medicine for half a century.

Recent news that Gates has been meeting with the Chinese about traveling wave technology is particularly ominous. This could help put China at the forefront of a new industry and leave the United States, in nuclear terms, a banana republic.

The Chinese lack the contentious, partisan political structure that prevents some alternative technologies from growing in the United States. One is reminded of Mao’s injunction to “let a hundred flowers blossom,” which is still the Chinese government’s attitude toward technological innovation. With this approach, and no need to contend with uninformed public opinion or political bickering, China threatens to rapidly outpace America in developing tomorrow’s means of energy production.

In the 1980s, I went to China to help build factories for the manufacture of fiberglass luxury yachts. The Chinese started from absolute scratch, never having even seen a fiberglass yacht, yet in relatively short order, they were exporting million-dollar boats. If they start applying this kind of innovative energy to the construction and export of small, modular nuclear reactors, the world will cease to look to America for energy solutions. The Chinese, standing on the shoulders of half a century of American ingenuity, will inherit the leadership of the world’s most vital industry.

Even if we consider the deaths caused by the bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the number of people killed by nuclear power since the middle of the last century is only a fraction of the deaths caused by fossil fuel and the petrochemical industry. Every day we read about gas explosions, car fires, and many other accidents in which fossil fuels were at least contributors. We hardly notice the deaths from cancer and lung disease caused by pollutants from burning fossil fuels.

We have become so jaded to these deaths that we hardly associate them with fossil fuels. In the rush to exploit these fuels, we also discount the possible dangers of ground water pollution from “fracking” (as well as the problems associated with consuming vast amounts of water in drought-stricken regions that fracking requires), the potential for gas explosions, and other human and environmental risks.

Every energy source has built in dangers. Wind farms decimate migratory bird populations, corn ethanol drives up food prices around the world and consumes enormous amounts of water, and the production of solar cells also produces toxic waste. There’s no such thing as safe energy, but only relatively safe energy. And nuclear energy is relatively safe.

Events like Three Mile Island in Pennsylvania, Chernobyl in Russia, and Fukishima in Japan have been widely reported, but even these events did not cause the large number of deaths that the Bhopal accident caused in India.

We didn’t stop all chemical plants because of that. We made sure we implemented safer procedures. However, many people are still extremely afraid of nuclear power plants.

Fanning Public Fears

The media, in many cases without adequate knowledge, have helped to inflame opposition to nuclear power with scenarios that do not coincide with the technical state of the art or with safety features of new nuclear power plant designs. We all have seen movies in which a mad person takes over a nuclear plant or in which a terrorist explodes a nuclear bomb in one of our cities. While these scenarios are possible, so is an asteroid strike that would wipe out all life on earth. Possibilities aren’t all the same. You could win a power-ball lottery, but you’d be a fool to plan your life around the possibility. The logistics involved in creating one of these doomsday scenarios are extremely complex, and while we should build safeguards against their occurrence, they shouldn’t dictate our decisions about nuclear power.

More feasible terrorist scenarios are the hijacking of a dozen tanker trucks to explode in an urban area, the poisoning of a city’s water supply, or even the use of airliners to hit sky scrapers. There are “weapons of mass destruction” all around us, but they don’t excite film makers the way nuclear terrorism does. Why? Because they don’t have the fear value of nuclear disaster.
The number of recorded fossil fuel explosions (and their resulting death toll) over 120 years is too long to mention, but one terrorist scenario above happened on 9/11, and the explosive was jet fuel, not plutonium. Almost 3,000 people died when the planes hit the World Trade Center, the Pentagon, a field in Pennsylvania. The terrorists didn’t need nuclear materials to destroy their targets, just flying gas cans and box cutters.

We have grown so accustomed to the great threats of fossil fuel products, both as energy sources and as the base of our petrochemical industry, that we no longer see them as a threat to our lives the same way we see nuclear power. This reminds me of the fear that many people have of traveling by airplane when the statistics show us that we have a better chance of dying from a car accident. We over estimate the risks of the unusual and underestimate the risks of the commonplace.

The Benefits of Fossil Fuels

Let’s be clear, there is a place in our future for fossil fuels and petrochemicals. However, we should concentrate in using this limited resource in the production of durable goods and also implement a complete system of reuse and recycle. You can use “plastic lumber” to resurface a balcony in your home and after ten years it will look the same as the day you installed it. Burning or burying a resource that is limited does not make sense in a smart society. We already know of techniques to extend the benefit of fossil fuels and petrochemicals in ways that are smarter and kinder to Mother Earth and safer to us mortals.

So what are the real draw backs of nuclear plants? Beside the inflated fear of a nuclear disaster, most of the opposition to nuclear power comes from the disposal of used nuclear fuel. Serious discussions about the subject always end up with the question, “So what do we do with the spent fuel?”

Breeder Reactors As A Solution?

The one solution most scientists appear to agree on is the use of breeder reactors. However, there exists a number of challenges to this approach, and with the opposition to all things nuclear, many have put research of this option on the backburner. China is seriously looking at this option as a solution to its energy needs of the future. Theoretically, breeder reactors could produce significantly less waste than traditional reactors.

Until a permanent solution is realized, we should depend on current techniques of disposal of nuclear materials such as the facility at Yucca Mountain in Nevada. Singling out a site like this is no different from, and probably much more environmentally benign, the hundreds of thousands of sites around the world where we have deposited the waste from the fossil fuels and petrochemical industries.

In fact it is easy to realize that our landfills today are full of plastics and other components of the fossil fuels and petrochemical wastes from our modern (disposable) way of life. How many times have you seen on TV that in 600 years one thing we can look forward to is the degradation of the first plastic bottle? Sad, but true.

Mario Salazar, the 21st Century Pacifist, is a bleeding heart liberal, agnostic, exercise fanatic, Redskin fan, technophile, civil engineer, combatinfantry veteran, jewelry maker, amateur computer programmer, environmental engineer, Colombian-born, free thinker, and, not surprisingly, pacifist. You can find his articles – ranging from politics to cooking a mean brisket – in 21st Century Pacifist

If you are a nuclear power believer, these sturdy old machines proved their mettle. They withstood all that nature could throw at them; although terrible damage resulted from the loss of external power and the swamping of the emergency diesel generators. The result was core melting and trouble in the used fuel storage pools.

If you are doubtful about nuclear power, or you are simply a political opportunist, this event was the final nail in the coffin, the proof that the end had arrived. For you, it provided more evidence that nuclear power is inherently unsafe and that its use, as American scientist Alvin Weinberg once said, is a Faustian bargain. (It was a remark that Weinberg wished he had not made and which his staff and supporters tried to justify by explaining that in the German legend, Faust finally gets his soul back, having foolishly pledged it to the devil.)

Such nonsense aside, the extraordinary thing about Fukushima is that although almost 25,000 Japanese died as the result of the earthquake and tsunami, no one died directly from the nuclear accident or from the release of radioactivity. The buildings and containment structures survived as they were designed to 40 years ago. This, despite a wall of water 45 feet high with incalculable force.

Each year, thousands of people are killed in coal mine accidents around the world. In 2010, 2,433 people were killed in China’s mines, the world’s deadliest.

Yet it was nuclear that had the world holding its breath. As with all accidents or even incidents, nuclear is held to a standard of safety orders of magnitude stricter than is applied to any other industrial activity, including other big energy undertakings, like oil refining, chemical production and transportation, and aviation.

The suspicion that falls upon nuclear technology is not only unfair – it is uneven.

The peace has been kept for five decades by the U.S. nuclear navy. In home waters and ports, nuclear ships and submarines sail without criticism.

Even the two organizations which appear to make their livings from relentless attacks on nuclear, the Union of Concerned Scientists and the Nuclear Information and Resource Service, have not dared to attack the nuclear navy. They do not protest, say, the USS Enterprise, when the great aircraft carrier sails blithely into domestic ports with eight reactors at work.

No one raises issues of waste, terrorist attacks or the consequences of military action. Those who make a living out of opposing nuclear power do not have the temerity to go after nuclear propulsion in warships. The public would not tolerate the disarmament that that would entail.

So the opponents go after nuclear’s soft underbelly: civilian power. It is hard to imagine that it is more dangerous to operate a nuclear facility built to be safe on land than one built for war-fighting on the high seas and in ports and harbors.

There are times in history when triumph is recorded as failure. The British and the Prussians finished off Napoleon in the Belgian town of Waterloo. But in the English Language, “Waterloo” — a British victory – is a synonym for catastrophic defeat. Americans believe the Tet Offensive was the turning point in the Vietnam War, even though the combined forces of the Viet Cong and North Vietnamese Army were roundly defeated by U.S. and South Vietnamese forces.

Fukushima, a once-in-history accident, was a victory of design and construction for its time. Even the radiation releases are now found to be lower than expected, even those in the exclusion zone are surprisingly low. Despite eager attempts to find a surge in new cancers around the plant, none has shown up.

The lessons are to incorporate more passive features, better power supply and to protect the emergency generators. Newer designs already incorporate some of these features — and all will going forward. The industry has reacted with unusual alacrity in the past to new lessons, something uncommon across the broad range of industrial endeavor from aircraft to automobiles. As with aviation, nuclear safety is always a work in progress, a striving.

To my mind, after 40 years of chronicling nuclear power, the industry makes a mistake in rushing to advertise the safety of nuclear power plants. That way the seeds of doubt are sown.

Aircraft makers learned that lesson back in the 1930s. They learned that the trick was to shut up and do better.

If nuclear plants are unsafe, they should be closed down. Now. Today.

If not, their virtues should be trumpeted. Now. Today. Where are the trumpets? – For the Hearst-New York Times Syndicate

Georgia, South Carolina, Alabama, Tennessee and Virginia are among the states that are expanding the role of nuclear in their energy portfolios to provide a stable power supply that powers economic growth.

As the former governor of a state that relies on nuclear energy for nearly half of its electricity, I can attest to these benefits. Nuclear energy is both a reliable, carbon-free source of electricity as well as a job-creating industry with the potential to reinvigorate local economies. With growing populations and unemployment rates that teeter at double digits, states should include nuclear energy in their electricity mix.

Today the U.S. nuclear energy industry supports more than 100,000 jobs, and electric utilities are planning to build eight or more nuclear energy facilities over the next 15 years. If these plans are realized, the construction and operation of new facilities will require thousands of skilled workers.

New reactors create 2,400 jobs during the construction phase and 400 to 700 permanent positions once they are in operation, providing $40 million in total labor income. On average, a 1,000 megawatt nuclear energy facility produces $470 million in economic activity a year.

The positive impact of the nuclear energy industry on Virginia’s economy was one of the themes at Gov. Bob McDonnell’s recent energy conference. At this gathering of business, government and non-profit energy leaders, I was encouraged by the number of discussions that focused on the future of nuclear energy, in Virginia and across the United States.

“Virginia’s efforts to become the Energy Capital of the East Coast include support for investment in clean and safe nuclear energy,” said McDonnell, and it seems these investments are paying off. With four commercial reactors and robust manufacturing, engineering and testing facilities, Virginia’s nuclear energy industry generated $1.25 billion in sales of materials, services and fuel in 2009, the most recent year for which data are available.

Those numbers might help explain why a recent Quinnipiac University poll showed that 71 percent of Virginia voters approve of using nuclear energy to produce electricity, and 60 percent support the construction of new nuclear energy facilities in the state.

In Georgia, the construction of two new reactors near Augusta will be the largest construction project in the state’s history. Southern Co. has begun pre-construction activities and already created 1,500 jobs in preparation for two new reactors in Burke County. The construction phase alone is estimated to provide several billion dollars to the local economy.

This expansion is expected to create 3,500 jobs at peak construction, along with up to 800 full-time positions once the reactors are producing electricity for nearly 1.6 million Georgia homes.

Existing nuclear energy facilities are also generating jobs. Over the next five years almost 40 percent of the nuclear energy work force will be eligible to retire, leaving the industry with as many as 25,000 jobs to fill over a broad range of disciplines.

Of course, nuclear energy doesn’t just create jobs – it keeps the lights on and powers our high-tech society. Virginia relies on nuclear energy more than any other source, with 36 percent of the state’s electricity produced at the North Anna and Surry facilities. In states like Illinois, Vermont and South Carolina, nuclear energy facilities reliably meet about half or more of the states’ electricity needs.

Even with conservation efforts, Americans will continue to increase their use of electricity, and we all want it to be affordable and clean. By 2035, America will need 24 percent more electricity than it consumes today. Electricity produced at nuclear energy facilities costs less per kilowatt-hour than all other major sources of electricity, making it an attractive energy option for state and consumer budgets alike.

There is no other source that generates as much electricity, as reliably, while producing no greenhouse gases. Nuclear energy provides 70 percent of America’s clean air electricity.

And while renewable energy sources such as wind and solar offer tremendous clean air benefits, they aren’t reliable enough yet to provide power when we need it the most and are not practical options for states where these resources are limited. Wind and solar power systems will best meet our clean energy needs in combination with baseload 24/7 sources, such as nuclear energy and natural gas.

State leaders should reflect on the examples set by states that are creating and keeping jobs in America and meeting the need for clean, baseload power by including nuclear energy in their clean energy portfolios.

ABOUT THE WRITER

Christine Todd Whitman is the former administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency and former New Jersey governor. She co-chairs the industry-funded Clean and Safe Energy Coalition, a national grass-roots coalition that promotes the economic and environmental benefits of nuclear power as part of a sustainable clean energy portfolio.

Through the decades, U.S. nuclear power plants have been struck by hurricanes, tornadoes, earthquakes and floods. Without exception, all have performed as designed to protect the health and safety of the public and the environment. This past August, for example, Hurricane Irene caused massive flooding and damage along the East Coast. Of the 24 nuclear facilities in Irene’s path, 18 remained at full power, four temporarily reduced electric output, one temporarily shut down as a precaution, and one automatically shut down when storm debris struck an external electrical transformer. After the storm, the plants provided much-needed electricity for the recovery.

Another recent example is the North Anna nuclear facility in Virginia that was shaken by an earthquake stronger than was anticipated when the plant was built. Both reactors at the site automatically shut down and safety equipment functioned as designed to cool both reactors. Although the ground motion exceeded the plant’s design parameters, there was no significant damage to either facility because of the large added margin of safety designed and built into every plant.

While U.S. nuclear facilities have handled natural challenges extraordinarily well, it would be foolish to miss the larger lesson: We must always evaluate the 104 reactors here in America to make sure they can withstand severe conditions regardless of the cause. The industry must apply the lessons of Fukushima, review seismic protection and continue to prevent damage caused by sudden flooding.

The U.S. industry responded similarly after the terror attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, improving security at U.S. reactor sites while confirming that our reactors can sustain the impact of a deliberate airline crash without releasing radiation that would harm the public. Looking forward, we have to use our imagination for the worst possible case and plan for it. In other words, we expect the unexpected.

The U.S. nuclear industry’s high level of safety is greatly driven by the lessons learned from the accident at Three Mile Island here in Pennsylvania in 1979. The TMI accident was a game-changer for the industry. Following the accident investigation, many actions were taken to permanently improve and strengthen industry safety measures, including codifying its “defense-in-depth” strategy, forming a tough watchdog organization called the Institute of Nuclear Power Operations, strengthening NRC powers and using full-scale control room simulators for operator and emergency training at every plant. The plants also have the gold standard in industrial security and emergency preparedness programs, and an industry-wide safety culture program encourages workers at all levels to take an active role in plant safety and freely report safety concerns.

American commercial reactors have been generating electricity for more than half-a-century and collectively have operated more than 3,600 years. During that entire time, including the accident at Three Mile Island, no member of the public has ever been harmed. Besides being one of the safest industries in U.S. history, the nation’s nuclear facilities produce 20 percent of the country’s total electricity and 70 percent of the electricity from low-carbon sources, including renewables. On average, U.S. facilities operate 24/7 at excellent efficiency, making nuclear energy the nation’s most reliable source of electricity.

Over the past two decades, plant operators have invested nearly $80 billion to keep the plants in top condition. That investment in safety will continue and certainly broaden to include the changes needed in response to Japan.

Nuclear energy facilities in the United States are safe and secure. Advanced design nuclear plants that are being built in Georgia and South Carolina have features that take safety to an even higher level. Given the industry’s firm commitment to continuous learning and innovation, you can rest assured that the nation’s nuclear plants will continue to be held to the highest standards to ensure safety.

- Tom Kauffman, a life-long resident of Pennsylvania, resides in York County near the Three Mile Island nuclear facility where he worked from 1977 to 2000. Kauffman is a senior manager for the Nuclear Energy Institute, the policy organization for the U.S. nuclear energy industry.

Limerick is a benefit to the local and surrounding community in many ways, including to the economy and the environment. The Limerick Generating Station contributes $113 million annually in direct contributions to the economy through expenditures made by Limerick to maintain and operate the facility, including $75 million in employee wages and salaries, $35 million in purchases of goods and services from other Pennsylvania businesses and $2.9 million in property tax payments. Limerick also contributes generously to its neighbors, such as the $600,000 donated to community organizations in 2010.

Environmentally, Limerick reduces the need to generate electricity from coal and natural gas, thereby reducing emissions and making these resources available for chemical production, heating, and transportation. Limerick produces enough electricity to supply two million homes. If it were retired from service, replacing the electricity it currently produces would require increased natural gas-fired or coal-fired generation. Without Limerick, it is estimated that emissions would increase by the equivalent of 2.5 million cars. To replace Limerick with solar energy, you would need to cover twice the area of Limerick Township with solar panels at an installed cost of $23 billion. For wind power, you would have to install 3,048 wind turbines like the ones at Bear Creek at a cost of $11 billion.

I strongly urge the public in the communities surrounding Limerick to support the renewal of its license. Not only because it is a safe, cost-effective, and reliable source of power, but also because it provides jobs for its neighbors and benefits the environment in which we all live.

“We need it,” Maria van der Hoeven, the agency’s executive director, said in an interview in her Paris office days after taking the helm of the adviser to 28 energy-consuming nations. “Nuclear power is necessary for our energy future.”

The share of atomic power globally will increase from 6 percent in 2008 to 8 percent in 2035, the agency forecast in its 2010 WorldEnergy Outlook, published in November before Japan’s Fukushima Dai-Ichi nuclear plant was devastated by a March 11 earthquake and subsequent tsunami. Demand for electricity is expected to grow faster than any other form of energy, with a tripling in China over the period, the report said.

The Japanese crisis triggered public protests in Europe against atomic power and prompted Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany, one of 14 European Union nations that generate nuclear energy, to decide to permanently halt all reactors by 2022. Switzerland, a non-EU member, also decided to phase out atomic power and Italy scrapped a project to develop reactors.

The IEA’s upcoming outlook, to be published in November, will examine the effects of a “low-nuclear scenario,” according to Van der Hoeven. “It will show what will happen if nuclear is not going to be part of the energy mix anymore.”

“What we see in Germany is that there will be greater coal and gas and imports from France of nuclear energy,” said the former Dutch economy minister, who will be based in a country that relies on nuclear output from 58 reactors for more than three-quarters of its needs.

France has criticized the German decision. French ministers and lawmakers have said the resulting lower generating capacity will make Germany more reliant on French nuclear power, possibly putting strain on European power markets.

Could a similar catastrophe happen here? Are nuclear plants safe? Do we really need nuclear energy? What about the used fuel that becomes nuclear waste? What are industry and government doing to keep us safe?

For each of these questions, there are rational answers based on the laws of physics, thousands of peer-reviewed scientific and academic studies, and decades of successful operating experience. Moreover, the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission and the independent scientific communityhave been thoughtfully conducting thorough reviews of U.S. nuclear plants to ensure that we harvest legitimate lessons learned from these recent events. Yet in the wake of Fukushima, some traditional nuclear power opponents have been cherry-picking information and scaring people to advance their agenda.

As a former nuclear reactor engineer and deputy administrator of the U.S. National Nuclear Security Administration, I have seen, touched and experienced nuclear technology – up close – for the better part of my professional life. I have worked with and around the smartest, most technically proficient scientists and engineers in the nuclear industry. And while they might have a lot to say on these topics, unfortunately, these are not typically the people we see holding press conferences or appearing as talking heads on television or in public forums.

As we continue to learn about and understand the implications of the Fukushima event, here are five realities that are sometimes lost in the debate:

Eliminating nuclear energy is not realistic if we want to maintain our quality of life.

About 20 percent of the electricity that powers American homes comes from nuclear energy, while about 68 percent comes from greenhouse gas-emitting fossil fuels like coal. Nuclear plants continuously produce large amounts of electricity and make up about 70 percent of America’s emissions-free generation. Wind and solar make up 8 percent and .01 percent, respectively.Solar, wind and nuclear energy all play a valuable role in our energy mix, but currently, nuclear plants are the only large sources of emissions-free generation that can provide the amount of power we need to keep our homes and businesses running 24 hours per day.

Nuclear energy also helps keep electricity costs low. Including the costs of operations, maintenance and fuel, nuclear energy has the lowest production cost of any major energy source. For the past 15 years, the cost of nuclear fuel has remained steadily lower than oil, natural gas and even coal. Of course, these savings, and the benefits of being non-emitting, arerealized by utility customers.

Day-to-day activities present a greater health threat than a local nuclear plant.

The anti-nuclear activists often invoke perceived “dangers” associated with nuclear plants. A review of the facts, however, tells a vastly different story regarding actual risk.

In 2010, almost 34,000 people in the United States died in auto accidents. That’s about one death every 15 minutes. In the past 60 years, while nuclear energy supplied American electricity, annual fatalities from aircraft crashes ranged from a high of 3,214 deaths in 1972 to a low of 771deaths in 2004.

Yet in the entire history of the nuclear industry, there have been three major reactor accidents: Three Mile Island in Pennsylvania,Chernobyl in Russia and Fukushima. And apart from Chernobyl – which was caused by a flawed reactor design that is not employed anywhere in the United States – no nuclear workers or members of the public have ever died as a result of exposure to radiation from a commercial nuclear plant. This fact is attributable to sound designs, strong construction, a culture in which safety always comes first, a highly trained, conscientious workforce, and rigorousgovernment oversight.

Nuclear power plants are constantly upgraded.

Unlike cars or appliances that are typically run until they break down, U.S. nuclear plants have a proactive aging-management program that replaces equipment well before it has the opportunity to malfunction. Using the car analogy, think of it this way: While the body of the car may have been manufactured years ago, its engine and safety systems are upgraded and rebuilt continuously with state-of-the-art components over time.

In 2009 alone, the U.S. nuclear industry invested approximately $6.5 billion to upgrade plant systems with the latest technology. Continuous upgrades have always been the standard for U.S. nuclear plants for many reasons – most importantly protecting the health and safely of the public and workers. This industry considers continuous improvement to be a necessary investment rather than “optional” expense.

The amount of spent fuel is small and can be managed safely.

In many cases, the issue of storing used fuel is discussed without proper context.

Used nuclear fuel is in the form of solid pellets about the size of a pencil eraser. The fact is, the total amount of waste generated by the entire U.S. nuclear industry over more than 60 years of operation would fit in the area of one football field. For this entire time, we have safely andsecurely stored this fuel on-site in specially-designed pools and in strongly-engineered dry storage containers.

Nobody would argue that the on-site storage of used fuel is ideal. But it is a responsible option for now, since the relative amount ofused fuel is so small; because multiple levels of safety and security protection have proven to be effective; more than 50 years of scientific research, engineering and experience proves that it can be stored with little environmental impact; and on-site storage is the only option utilities haveuntil the federal government fulfills its responsibility to identify a long-term disposal solution.

Moreover, only a small percentage of the available energy has been harvested from this fuel at the point when regulations require it to be stored on-site. This fuel should be recycled and re-used, as other countries have successfully concluded. But until political barriers in this country allow for this logical path, it must be stored on-site.

Nuclear plants have more government oversight than any other industry.
The rigor and comprehensiveness of nuclear safety oversight in the United States is extraordinary. Our licensing and regulatory process is studied and emulated worldwide.

Every nuclear power plant in the United States has multiple government inspectors on-site, year-round. They are top experts in the field and have unrestricted access to all vital areas of the plant, including plant records. In addition to these daily oversight activities, each plant frequently undergoes multiple evaluations and inspections that include detailed reviews of security, emergency planning, environmental protection, industrial safety, critical plant systems, plant culture and safety processes – all of which are aimed at ensuring the continued safe operation of these facilities.

Honest questioning from concerned citizens regarding nuclear energy is understandable. A thinking society should continuously strive foraccurate, credible validation of its technologies. As to the safety and security of U.S. nuclear plants, the facts are reassuring. I firmly believethat these – and other facts – should be the basis for any discussion on the future of nuclear energy here in America.

Former state Rep. Jerry Paul served as principal deputy administrator of the U.S. National Nuclear Security Administration, and worked as a control room reactor engineer.