Road to the White House: The Future of Nuclear Power in the US Energy Supply

There are three obstacles to the future development of nuclear power: Safety, waste disposal, and weapons proliferation. The current US administration has a mixed record regarding nuclear power: On one hand it has been promoting nuclear power as a means to producing energy without greenhouse gas emissions; on the other hand, it has stopped the development nuclear waste repository at Yucca Mountain in Nevada calling into question a solution that seemed to be in reach. The accident at the Fukushima nuclear power plant in Japan has again raised the concerns about safety risks of nuclear power plants and Iran continues to create headlines about nuclear proliferation. In this presentation, I will first put the long term future of nuclear power into a global context, then home in on the US energy future. We will reflect on the obstacles to further expansion of nuclear power in the US and end with some observations on the seeming silence by all current political players about the issue in the current political debate.