OPINION/COMMENTARY

Nuclear future coming together?

Representatives of the United States, Japan and Europe will sign an agreement Monday that, in a best-case scenario, will lead to a future in which nuclear power is seen as a boon to the environment and less of a risk to world security. Known as the International Forum Framework Agreement, the pact being signed at the French Embassy in Washington will encourage further technical research into the development of the next generation of reactors on which a possible renaissance in nuclear power will be based. "Nuclear technology can play a key role in the future by providing a means of supplying people all over the world with a safe, proliferation-resistant, and economic means of producing electricity -- and eventually hydrogen -- without harming the environment in which we all live and breathe," the Energy Department declared in a tidy summation of the so-called Generation IV Nuclear Energy System. Generation IV is a collection of a half-dozen designs for different types of reactors. The names will likely ring a bell with engineering types: lead-cooled fast-reactor system, molten-salt reactor, super-critical water-cooled reactor system, and so on. These designs, however, are all pointed at replacing aging reactors starting in 2030 and fostering a resurrection of an industry that has been stalled since the 1970s, even though it is capable of generating large amounts of electricity with virtually nothing in the way of emissions that can pollute the air or aggravate the problem of global warming. The 2030 timetable is not unreasonably long when considering the enormous lead time needed to complete the design work and draw-up plans for actual electricity-generating plants....