Recently, the issue of nuclear power has come back into the forefront with the election of President Obama. The US is the largest producer of nuclear power with 104 reactors producing more than 20% of the entire electrical output in America. http://www.world-nuclear.org/info/inf41.html In reality, nuclear power has only come back to the forefront because for the most part no new reactors have been built during the last 30 years. However, it is now widely expected that 4 to 8 new nuclear reactors will be built by 2018.

The US Nuclear Energy Regulatory Commission (NRC) is a commission appointed by the President and confirmed by the Senate for 5 years. http://www.nrc.gov/about-nrc/organization/commfuncdesc.html

It is more than common knowledge that the biggest controversy surrounding nuclear power is the safety of the reactors and their effect on the communities surrounding them. Yet the commission appointed by the government to regulate these issues has passed off some of the more important industry decisions to the Nuclear Energy Institute (NEI), which is essentially a global industry appointed governance. Their website boasts of 48 board members and includes representatives from 26 of the nation’s nuclear facilities. http://www.nei.org/aboutnei/governanceandleadership/

There are many industries that are regulated by government but maintain an internal commission to ensure the industry standards are beyond that requested by the people through government laws. It’s the NRC’s failure to hold companies responsible for unmonitored leaks and passing that responsibility off to the NEI that forced President Obama to introduce the Nuclear Release Notice Act http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/z?c109:S.2348.RS: in an attempt to force the NRC to take a stronger stand in 2006. Unfortunately the bill never became law and now Obama is tackling the national issue of power conservation knowing the solution is nuclear power but unable to promise the American people that radiation will not contaminate their communities.

I don’t think there are many people anymore who argue that nuclear power is the energy of the future but its history is littered with terrible stories of the years of pain it has caused. What makes it worse is that all of these terrible stories are usually linked to mistakes that could have been prevented or minimized if reported. There have been a dozen or so operators that have voluntarily reported contamination since the national attention the industry received in 2006 but just like with steroids in baseball, I don’t think anyone believes everyone has come clean. If we are to really be able to move forward with nuclear energy the NRC needs regulate with a firmer hand and minimize the mistakes of the industry.

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