Exploring Our Nuclear Potential

With the 35th anniversary of Earth Day recently passed, memories of slogans and bumper stickers like “spilt wood, not atoms” come to mind. Yet as we ponder rising energy costs and growing concerns over global warming, we soon face major choices.

When I was a Berkeley student in the 1960s, I was interested in nuclear power and took a course in nuclear engineering. I was surprised to find that the field was no longer “cutting edge” — and came away with the impression that all the really hard problems had been solved.

We fully understood the basics of nuclear physics. What remained were incremental improvements and some concerns about the long-term effects of radiation on material strength and stability. This did not sound very exciting to me, and as a consequence I chose not to pursue nuclear engineering as a career, but rather completed my Ph.D. in astrophysics.

This turned out to be a good career choice — but not for the reasons that I expected. The nuclear industry, at least in the U.S., has had a difficult history. The growth anticipated in the 1960s did not materialize. In fact, a new nuclear power plant has not been built in the U.S. in more than 25 years.

by Richard Wolff

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