My wife and I were the last generation truly afraid of nuclear holocaust. She and I watched the Berlin wall come down and that was the begging of the end of worrying about waking up to nuclear winter. It lends a certain perspective on realizing how less massively catastrophic nuclear technology is likely to be.

Through the politics and honest debate about climate, energy, and the future I've adopted a test. I've decided that anyone serious about reducing greenhouse gases had to be a supporter or reluctant supporter of nuclear electrical generation.

I had heard that this was true, but its excellent to see Patrick Moore who co-founded Green Peace come out in the WaPo editorializing in support of Nuclear energy.

One of the things I would really like to see is that the western world gets serious around a design that is off the shelf for any country that wants it and is purchasable from a host of neutrals or variously aligned countries like Japan that will allow NATO and others to call, for example, Iran's bluff. Lets sell everyone cheap and easy nuclear power plants and keep the uranium enrichment being the Canary in the nuclear weapon coal mine.

There's at least one "off-the-shelf" design now approved by the US NRC, with more pending.

You might be nterested to know that Stewart Brand, the founder of The Whole Earth Catalog mentioned in the linked article above, has also endorsed a techno-thriller novel of nuclear power by a longtime industry insider (me). This story serves as a lay person's guide to the good and the bad of this power source. (There's plenty of both). The book is available at no cost to readers at http://RadDecision.blogspot.com - and they seem to like it, judging from their comments on the homepage.