Another look at nuclear energy: nuclear energy is on the go, helping countries in Europe and other parts of the world solve their energy woes economically and safely. Will America get back on board?(Cover story)

The site of what is arguably the world's leading research program in nuclear energy lies just a short drive from the city of Marseille through the picturesque and romantic countryside of southern France. At Cadarache, the Commissariat a l'energie atomique, the French atomic energy agency, operates a complex of research facilities that is soon to be the home of ITER, the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor, which will be the most advanced and powerful Tokamak fusion reactor ever built. This reactor is being funded by the EU, China, Russia, the United States, and others.

Though famous as the future site of ITER, Cadarache is also soon to be home to one of the world's most advanced fission reactors. On March 21, engineers began building the advanced Jules Horowitz Reactor (JHR), to be used to test and evaluate advanced technologies. It is expected to operate for 50 years.

Work on the JHR is just one more sign of French dominance in the nuclear energy industry. In the United States, where nuclear energy technology was invented, only 19.4 percent of electricity is supplied by nuclear power plants. In France, by comparison, 78.5 percent of electricity is generated by nuclear power. The situation is much the same in other European nations. Lithuania, Slovakia, and Belgium all generate more than half of their electricity using nuclear power. Other nations producing more than 40 percent of their electricity using nuclear power include Ukraine, Sweden, Bulgaria, Armenia, and Ed Hiserodt is the author of Under-Exposed: What If Radiation Is Really Good for You? Slovenia. Meanwhile, a growing list of nations, including Russia, China, South Korea, Taiwan, and India, have nuclear power plants under construction.

Notably absent from that list is the United States. Hamstrung by irrational fears, miles of red tape, and onerous bureaucratic regulatory obstacles, no new domestic nuclear power plants have been ordered and built in America for over 30 years, even though the United States has the largest per capita demand for energy. The resulting lack of new nuclear capacity in the face of rising energy demand brings on short-term and long-term consequences. Short-term problems caused by a lack of electrical capacity include rolling blackouts, disruptions in daily life like stopped elevators, non-working traffic signals, loss of refrigerated products, etc. Among long-term problems we face rising electrical costs, termination of marginal industries, and no industrial expansion, among many, many others. Those consequences are entirely unnecessary because nuclear power provides an economical and safe method of producing abundant electricity.

Energy Options

Though alternative energy options like solar and wind power continue to get favorable press, their large drawbacks limit their practicality. Both are ...