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Next week, William Tucker will visit The Heritage Foundation to discuss his book: “Terrestrial Energy: How Nuclear Power Will Lead the Green Revolution and End America’s Energy Odyssey.” For a preview of his remarks, check out this debate over at Reason where Tucker makes the case that it is government, not economics, that is preventing a nuclear renaissance.

The problem then is much less economics than politics. Both Wall Street and the utilities fear that, as soon as the first proposal comes out of the box, environmental and opposition groups will gang-tackle it, exploiting the public’s fear about safety and nuclear “waste.” Once again completion times will extend 10 years and beyond and costs will rise to $15 billion. In fact opposition groups are already challenging new proposals even before they reach the NRC licensing stage. “We’re still in a situation where pretty much everybody wants to be second,” notes Roger W. Gale, a former Energy Department official and now a utility consultant.

This is unfortunate because, as far as “nuclear waste” is concerned, the problem could readily be solved by reprocessing. Almost 100 percent of the material in a spent nuclear fuel rod can be recycled for additional fuel or industrial and medical isotopes. The problem is that America banned nuclear reprocessing in the 1970s under the illusion that it would somehow prevent nuclear weapons from proliferating around the world. Several countries have since built nuclear weaponry and it had nothing to do with plutonium from American reactors.

The French now have complete nuclear reprocessing and get one-third of their reactor fuel from spent rods. Other isotopes are extracted for commercial sale. The remaining “waste” is all stored beneath the floor of a single room in La Hague—25 years worth of producing 75 percent of France’s electricity.

The current problem with nuclear is not its underlying economics but the current political climate in the U.S. that is hostile to nuclear and doesn’t offer a level playing field. Coal is familiar and politically entrenched and so people don’t question the danger it poses. Solar and renewables are showered with subsidies and mandates because they have won popular favor even though they are very low density energy sources.