Global warming heats up a nuclear energy renaissance

Now, three decades later, Mr. Grecheck is overseeing plans to finally add a third reactor at Dominion Energy Inc.'s North Anna plant that could power up to 375,000 Virginia homes. The company is one of more than a dozen nationwide seeking licenses from the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission to build and operate 22 new reactors. "This point" is the nuclear renaissance that Dominion, and the industry as a whole, seems to be enjoying. Global warming has energized the quest for clean, carbon-free energy that won't add to the greenhouse effect; and the BP oil spill has added to the distaste for fossil-fuel dependence. Public and political acceptance of nuclear power as a logical large-scale alternative to fossil fuel is higher than it has been in a generation. Once mainly associated with mishaps like Three Mile Island and Chernobyl – not to mention bumbling nuclear plant worker Homer Simpson – the energy source now has support from 62 percent of Americans, a Gallup Poll found in March. That's the highest since Gallup began asking about the topic in 1994. Even former foes like Stewart Brand, founder of the Whole Earth Catalog and an alternative-energy crusader, and Mark Udall, a member of the Udall family Democratic political dynasty that has stewarded natural resources, are rethinking the nuclear energy option...more