U.S. Nuclear Power, Waste Issues, and Non-Proliferation Policy

There is so much going on in the "nuclear world" right now that I found it impossible to pick just a couple of articles to assign for next week. Consequently, I would like to have you read a whole bunch of articles, and I have scaled back the written questions so that they are pretty minimal (check the portal page for the pdf file with homework questions).

I hope that you'll find these topics as interesting as I do. We'll talk about these a bit at the beginning of class next week but then we will also start launching into discussions about nuclear weapons. The final article in this list is a first step in that direction, since it deals with current U.S. non-proliferation policy.

Future of Nuclear Power Plants in the U.S.:
New York Times article on our aging reactors
New York Times article on delays in the planning for new Westinghouse AP1000 reactors.

Politics of Nuclear Power in the U.S.:
A.P. article on how nuclear power is finding a way in to the debates on climate legislation

Nuclear Waste Issues, in the post-Yucca-Mountain era:
Scientific American article on nuclear waste issues
New York Times article on the Nuclear waste Technical Review Board's current activities

An Opinion Piece on Reprocessing:
L.A. Times editorial from mid-September by Frank von Hippel

U.S. Nuclear Non-Proliferation Policy
Foreign Policy article by Hilary Clinton