Solutions, through careful research, for clean coal and for nuclear waste storage address key risk areas for these two electricity sources. Interest in our nuclear plants is increasing along with dramatically increased confidence in their ability to contribute to our energy needs. Interest in re-licensing plants, to extend their lifetime beyond the originally planned 40 years, has greatly expanded. The NRC has now approved re-licensing for 5 reactors, and over 30 other reactors have begun the renewal process. Industry experts now expect virtually all operating plants to apply for license extension.
Nuclear energy is essentially emission free.
We avoided the emission of 167 million tons of carbon last year or more than 2 billion tons since the 1970's. In 1999, nuclear power plants provided about half of the total carbon reductions achieved by U.S. industry under the federal voluntary reporting program. The inescapable fact is that nuclear energy is making an immense contribution to the environmental health of our nation. But unfortunately, when it comes to nuclear energy, we re living on our past global leadership. Most of the technologies that drive the world s nuclear energy systems originated here.