Nuclear processes - fission, fusion, and decay of radioactive materials - are the ultimate source of all energy.

Fusion of small atoms such as deuterium and tritium to create larger atoms and produce energy requires temperatures of 50 million degrees. These temperatures are found only in stars, nuclear explosions and instantaneous laboratory experiments or similar applications. Sustained, controlled fusion for usable energy requires containment forces equal to the gravity of stars - forces far beyond those found on Earth. Moreover, the frequent occurrence of solar flares - huge bursts of energy extending out hundreds of thousands of miles from the Sun’s surface, is an indication that containment will be difficult, and safety virtually impossible to ensure. Energy on Earth from nuclear fusion will almost certainly be limited to that from the Sun - for wind, solar and hydro power, and most important, for purifying and distributing water.

Heat from radioactive decay of nuclear materials within the Earth provides the energy that keeps our planet warm. Heat from the Sun during the day partially offsets heat lost from the surface of the Earth at night.

Energy from the Sun and radioactive decay of nuclear materials - mostly uranium and thorium - has sustained life on this planet for a billion years. In so doing, it has produced fossil fuels - coal, oil and natural gas - that we are using at rates up to millions of times faster than they were produced.

With the discovery of nuclear fission sixty-four years ago, scientists recognized that small amounts of uranium and thorium could be used to supply enormous amounts of electricity - which is needed to light, heat and cool our homes, hospitals, churches, schools and offices; fuel our factories and rail-based transportation systems; operate medical equipment, computers, television sets and other electronic devices; and provide other benefits that are the foundation of civilization. Nuclear fission can also be used to produce hydrogen for fuel cells and other systems being considered for future transportation needs.

Use of nuclear materials for energy avoids the atmospheric pollutants that cause acid rain, smog and human respiratory problems, and the greenhouse gases that threaten global warming. Almost 75 percent of the emission-free generation of electricity in the United States is in nuclear power plants. Because the nuclear fission process provides millions of times the energy per unit of mass compared to fossil fuels, amounts of nuclear waste are millions of times less.

All of the used fuel - so-called nuclear waste - from U.S. nuclear power plants could be stored on a football field in a stack fifteen feet high. Moreover, by efficient use of nuclear materials for energy production, which destroys the long-lived fissionable materials in used fuel, disposal of nuclear wastes becomes a solvable task.

Use of light-water nuclear power plants to produce electricity is one of humankind’s safest endeavors. It has been made even safer as a result of coordinating efforts by the Atlanta-based Institute of Nuclear Power Operations. INPO was formed after the Three Mile Island nuclear power plant accident to promote the highest levels of safety and reliability - to promote excellence - in the operation of nuclear electric generating stations. A companion organization, the World Association of Nuclear Operators, formed after the Chernobyl accident, coordinates safety efforts for all of the world’s nuclear power plants.

Efforts of the INPO and WANO, working closely with the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission and similar regulatory organizations in other nations, ensure that best ideas for safety and protection of workers and offsite populations from radiation are used by all reactor operators. They also ensure that any safety problem is known and avoided by all operators.

Efforts of the INPO also have led to increased productivity of U.S. nuclear power plants, which has permitted reduced use of fossil fuels - and reduced greenhouse gas emissions equal to more than one-half of U.S. reduction targets of the Kyoto Accord on Climate.

The use of nuclear materials for nuclear power provides the foundation for the international safeguards regime, which provides best assurances to nations that their neighbors are not using nuclear materials for weapons of mass destruction. But that regime, administered by the International Atomic Energy Agency, a component of the United Nations, must be strengthened - as must be the resolve of the United Nations for response to violations of safeguards agreements or efforts to limit inspections of suspect facilities. President George W. Bush’s efforts to strengthen this resolve, coupled with support of these efforts by leaders of the IAEA, are most important and long overdue.

Strong, well-conceived diplomatic efforts are also needed to limit threats from nuclear weapons’ proliferation. But these efforts must recognize the value of President Dwight D. Eisenhower’s “Atoms for Peace” - and the increased need for nuclear power, worldwide. Specifically, the United States should support completion by Russia of six nuclear power plants for Iran, and return of used fuel from those plants to Russia. Russia’s nuclear assistance should include efforts to ensure that nuclear materials and technology are not diverted to weapons applications, avoiding the mistakes made earlier by the United States and Canada in so-called peaceful nuclear exports to India. The nuclear power plants in Iran were originally to be supplied by US vendors, but the orders were cancelled by Iran in 1972 because the United States would not accept return of used fuel nor provide technology for its appropriate disposition and efficient use.

Unlike nations of the Middle East, North Korea is not threatened by nuclear weapons of its neighbors. Diplomacy, multinational cooperation for free enterprise in North Korea and speaking more softly should resolve problems there.

Threats of nuclear weapons proliferation exist because of the existence of nuclear materials and nuclear technology. The best way to reduce these threats is through deployment of well-conceived, well-designed, well-managed and well-safeguarded nuclear facilities and technology for peaceful uses. Facilities with sensitive nuclear technology, such as reprocessing and uranium enrichment, should be located only in nations with large nuclear power programs, or under multinational control.

The rugged, high integrity containment and well-trained security forces make U.S. type nuclear power plants and stored nuclear fuel among the least vulnerable targets of a possible terrorist attack.

A comparison of the Three Mile Island and Chernobyl accidents shows important advantages of U.S. type nuclear power plant designs, and problems inherent in the bureaucratic, top-down manageme

nt style of the former Soviet Union. Both accidents were initiated by loss of water coolant. At Three Mile Island, the reactor shut down, because water is also the moderator, which is essential for the nuclear fission process. At Chernobyl, graphite is the moderator, and loss of coolant increased reactivity under then existing conditions. Reactor power increased to 100 times normal maximum. The resulting steam explosion blew the 1000 ton reactor vessel cover thirty feet into the air. The nuclear reaction in the molten mass of uranium and graphite lessened, but continued for nine days until sufficient graphite had burned to stop the reaction. Huge amounts of intensely radioactive iodine-131, highly radioactive cesium-137 and other radioactive materials were released.

The accident could have been avoided if information known by engineers at the Kurchatov Institute in Moscow and reported to Soviet authorities had been known by operators at Chernobyl. Even with the terrible accident, most of the lives lost and resulting thyroid cancers could have been avoided by not sending firefighters to extinguish a fire that could not be extinguished, and ensuring that no one drank milk from cows that ate grass contaminated with the intensely radioactive iodine.

Leaders of the Russian Ministry for Atomic Energy and Russian Nuclear Workers Union agreed to form partnerships between workers and managers to ensure that safety concerns such as those of Kurchatov engineers are resolved prior to the start of construction or operation of nuclear facilities.

At Three Mile Island, cesium and iodine were released from melted fuel, but reacted to form cesium iodide, a solid that would probably not have been released to the atmosphere even if rugged containment had not been available. Maximum radiation exposure to nearby residents was less than that from the additional natural radiation to those who evacuated to higher ground surrounding Three Mile Island. Any that evacuated to Rocky Mountain States would have received about three times as much radiation. But residents there have much lower incidences of cancer.

Existing light water nuclear power plants recover less than 1 percent of the energy available in uranium. Their use began with full expectation that used fuels would be reprocessed, nuclear materials recycled into existing and advanced nuclear power plants, and nuclear wastes - unwanted, highly radioactive but short-lived fission products - permanently disposed of by isolation from the biosphere in engineered or geologic repositories for a few hundred years for full decay of the highly radioactive material. Safeguards for these wastes would not have been required since essentially all of the potentially weapon usable material would have been removed for destruction through beneficial use to produce electricity.

Successful reprocessing experiences of The DuPont Company for the Atomic Energy Commission at the Savannah River Plant and lessons learned from those experiences gave full assurances that commercial fuel reprocessing and waste disposal in the US would be successful, and that used fuels in the United States and other nations could be recycled without significant threats of nuclear proliferation.

The initial AEC program for use and export of nuclear power - U.S. Atoms for Peace - was based on return of used fuel from nuclear power plants in the United States and other nations to the Savannah River Plant for reprocessing in large, heavily reinforced concrete “Canyon” type facilities. These facilities were configured for safe, remote, high capacity operation and maintenance by remote, rapid replacement of failed equipment.

Unfortunately, this program was cancelled in 1962 when the AEC exported and supported use of a low cost, national laboratory concept in which maintenance was done by humans inside the process cells. This technology was unsuitable for power fuel reprocessing, but usable for a small nuclear weapons program - as India demonstrated in 1974.

Peak production of oil in the United States was in 1970. Leaders of the United States and other nations recognized the need for transition from overdependence on oil. President Richard Nixon declared a national commitment to efficient use of nuclear resources. The AEC started a review of reprocessing, which culminated in a decision for DuPont to manage U.S. programs for nuclear-fuel reprocessing and recycling.

Unfortunately, by the time DuPont had completed designs for fuel recycle facilities that would have resolved problems and concerns, experienced AEC leaders had been replaced by inexperienced political appointees of the Department of Energy, who refocused efforts on laboratory concepts. They did not understand and thus were unable to explain to U.S. political leaders the differences between reprocessing-facility designs that had led to proliferation and failure, and the success-based designs of DuPont. Fuel recycling and efficient use of nuclear resources were deferred, which in turn hampered the ability to dispose of nuclear wastes.

David Freeman, a fellow Georgia Tech Alumnus and Energy Czar of California, says that he “agrees with Jimmy Carter that it will go down in history that we were barbaric to burn up all this natural gas just to make electricity.” But as head of the Tennessee Valley Authority, he shut down eight nuclear power plants. Virtually all of the electric generating plants built in the US during the past twenty-five years burn natural gas. As head of the Sacramento (California) Municipal Utility District, he shut down the 850-megawatt Rancho Seco nuclear power plant, which was replaced by a two-megawatt solar electric generating station. The photoelectric cells cover an area the size of two football fields and produce two megawatts only at high noon on a cloudless day in late June. The average generation for a year - assuming 100% availability of equipment - is about two-tenths of a megawatt. California’s energy crisis last year resulted from a shortage of about 600 megawatts of electricity. California officials blame El Paso Natural Gas Company for the shortage.

The U.S. Department of Energy was created in 1977 to facilitate transition from overdependence on oil. Now, 25 years and a half trillion dollars later, the US with 3 percent of the world’s population is consuming more than 25 percent of the world’s oil production - most of it imported. We are drifting toward an indefinite energy, economic and national security crisis. Remember Pearl Harbor? Japan attacked because of oil. Remember our great victory in World War II? We had plenty of oil. Germany and Japan did not.

At present usage, proven reserves of oil will be exhausted in thirty years. Despite extensive exploration, no new major deposits have been discovered in twenty-five years. Peak production of oil in Saudi Arabia will occur in 2011. Peak production in the world will occur in 2007, less than five years from now.

Conservation, efficient use of all energy resources, full reliance on nuclear energy, and disincentives to discourage wasteful uses are essential. Organizations to carry out programs, institutions to ensure continuity of sound policies, and strengthened cooperative efforts with other nations are also needed. Planning should begin now.