The Economist Magazine Reports on "Nuclear's Next Generation"

There is considerable interest stretching from China to the United Kingdom and nearly everywhere in between about new nuclear power plants. A special report in this week's Economist magazine ("Nuclear's Next Generation," Dec. 12, 2009) provides an excellent overview of six new concepts for building nuclear power stations. In addition to describing the new concepts the report also compares how the new concepts differ from today's typical nuclear reactors.

There are, of course, positives and negatives that have to be weighed in the decision about whether to build almost any type of energy generating system. Nuclear, to be sure, has its own range of positives and negatives. But to the extent that the world embraces a carbon constrained economy (and it's still too early to know for sure), nuclear is going to play a role. For example, just ask left of center U.K. Prime Minister Gordon Brown who recently has enthusiastically embraced nuclear power.