Setting the stage for dialogue about the future of nuclear power

I am very honored to have been asked to write the first guest blog for ANS’s newest venture—the Nuclear Cafe. This effort is a valuable new opportunity for ANS to provide a platform for credible, fact-based discussions of important nuclear issues, and I look forward to seeing it become an influential voice of reason on the Internet.
In searching for an appropriate theme for this essay, I faced a peculiar difficulty. While I hope many guest blogs in the future will focus on specific areas where a rational discussion is needed, I felt that the first such essay should be broader.

After much thought, it occurred to me that some of my own recent work holds messages that would be very appropriate to discuss in setting the stage for the dialogue that I hope the ANS blog will foster. I have just finished writing a book—Nuclear Firsts: Milestones on the Road to Nuclear Power Development—to be published by ANS next month (see ANS Store to pre-order) that chronicles the history of nuclear power through the stories of the milestones in the development and deployment of the technology. Sometimes looking backward can illuminate the path forward as well, and some of the messages that I took from my review of history that may be relevant to our on-going discussions about the future of nuclear power include the following: