At this week’s G-8 summit meeting in St. Petersburg, Russia, U.S. President George W. Bush and Russian President Vladimir Putin agreed on the need for an increased role for nuclear energy worldwide.
The residents of Kara Agach, a mountain village in western Kyrgystan, are receiving radiation doses as much as 40 times the internationally recognized safety limit, according to a new study cited in the June 10 issue of New Scientist.
In the 10 years since the nuclear accident at Chernobyl, the number of nuclear power plants under construction has dropped from 160 to only 34. (Many of these are in energy-starved developing countries; in the United States, it has been 18 years since a construction order was placed for a nuclear plant.) Nuclear power is still being promoted aggressively by the United Nations International Atomic Energy Agency, by some governments, and by the industry itself. But Lenssen and Flavin argue that despite this industrial inertia, nuclear power is no longer a viable energy strategy anywhere in the world. The demise of the nuclear option is a tremendous opportunity for renewable energy technologies, such as wind and solar. Even in the face of continued heavy subsidies for nuclear, renewables are booming. The challenge now is to bring government investment priorities into line with the new energy reality.
The disposal of nuclear waste has become a dangerous international shell game, with no safe solution in sight—yet the producers are eager to make more.
At this week’s G-8 summit meeting in St. Petersburg, Russia, U.S. President George W. Bush and Russian President Vladimir Putin agreed on the need for an increased role for nuclear energy worldwide. 
The residents of Kara Agach, a mountain village in western Kyrgystan, are receiving radiation doses as much as 40 times the internationally recognized safety limit, according to a new study cited in the June 10 issue of New Scientist. 