Slowly, the forces of public policy are waking up to the reality that if the United States wants abundant electricity, it has to rediscover nuclear as a low-impact form of electric generation. The crushing demands of the U.S. economy point to the need for a reliable electric base that will extend 50 years into the future. Even the environmental community is beginning to realize that if you want a lot of electricity from known sources, nuclear stands out as domestic and reliable, and adds nothing to global warming.
With abundant electricity, the human prospect improves. Without it, only the rich could hope for lives of comfort. Aside from clean water, it has no peer in the realm of human well-being. Most railroads still await electrification. There is a glimmer of its possibility for automobiles, and cities need to rediscover trolleys and trams. Now we talk a lot about nanotechnology. But if we are already using the components of matter - atoms - we should also have the moral courage to split them for electric power.