A generation ago, when crowds condemned nuclear power, I was disappointed but felt that it was ahead of its time. We had coal for electrical generation and petroleum seemed plentiful for transportation. Now we are dependent on foreign shipments of natural gas and petroleum for fuel.

We also use petroleum as a raw material to make everything from flak jackets to fly rods, including nylon, Dacron, Neoprene, latex, vinyl, Kevlar, polyethylene and on and on. We disallow drilling for more oil. We shut down Maine Yankee. We worry about global warming. And we increase the population.

Our American saga – the ever improving good life for all – has been possible because we have always had, since Jamestown and Plymouth, an abundance of both food and fuel. Food may be a problem someday if we don’t soon stop expanding the population, but we are not short of fuel. “Present data suggests the required resources base [uranium] will be available at an affordable cost for a very long time.” (“The future of nuclearoenergy,”web.mit.edu/nuclearpower.2003). Reprocessing and breeder reactors would expand the resource base by many orders of magnitude.

Nuclear power may be the only way to fuel the worldwide industrial economy in a populous future while avoiding climate changes, interruptions in foreign fuel supplies, and burning of petroleum that is too valuable to burn.

In Maine, nuclear power is an industrial opportunity. Producing large quantities of electric power is an industry that could sustain large and increasing numbers of employees for the foreseeable future. Production of hydrogen for transportation would eventually be done in reactors.

Presently, it seems likely that anyplace that hosts such an enterprise will find abundant financial and technical support.

Nuclear power parks are huge taxable investments.

Dr. Rodney J. Davis

Bangor