Nuclear power and promise | Science

Nuclear power and promise | Science: ![Figure][1]

Less than a year after the Fukushima nuclear accident in Japan, physicist Gregory B. Jaczko tried to break the “first commandment” of nuclear regulation: Thou shalt not deny a license to operate a reactor. As chairman of the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC), he knew that the tradition was to encourage doomed applications to be withdrawn. But when one company refused, Jaczko dug in his heels and opposed the license. It turned out to be a futile gesture that the other commissioners opposed. But it was one of many examples, he contends, of the weaknesses in the nation's top nuclear regulatory body and an exemplar of its obeisance to the nuclear power industry.

Confessions of a Rogue Nuclear Regulator is one part engrossing memoir and another part seething diatribe, depicting a government agency that routinely caves to industry pressure. The book cannot help but also feel like a rationalization of Jaczko's own actions during his conflict-ridden tenure as chairman, a position offered to him in 2009 by President Barack Obama.

Jaczko first came to the commission in 2005, after working for Nevada senator Harry Reid fighting the project to store the nation's hi