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Addressing Global Climate Change
Nuclear Energy
The Department of Energy has taken steps to encourage nuclear power as a clean, reliable, and
affordable source of electricity in the coming decades by: (1) supporting deployment of new,
Generation III nuclear power plants by the end of the decade; (2) demonstrating the Nuclear
Regulatory Commission’s new licensing processes to site, build, and operate new nuclear power plants
and developing advanced nuclear power technology; (3) launching research on advanced, proliferationresistant
nuclear fuel cycles, including technologies that would dramatically reduce the time during
which nuclear waste remains toxic; (4) leading an international effort to develop safer, more reliable and
more proliferation-resistant “Generation IV” nuclear reactors to be deployed commercially by 2030;
and (5) continuing preparation to obtain the Nuclear Regulatory Commission license for the
construction of the Yucca Mountain nuclear waste repository, as directed by legislation President Bush
signed in July 2002. Nuclear energy now provides 20 percent of our electricity supply without
producing any air pollutants or greenhouse gases.
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