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Daniel Stout the Director for the Nuclear Fuel Recycling Center with the Department of Energy made the case for nuclear energy in the coming years this morning at the Heritage Foundation. Currently, coal accounts for roughly 50 percent of the energy production in the United States with nuclear energy accounting for far less with 20 percent. Stout said, “If you are to address global climate change you have to account for nuclear energy.”

Stout said that a concern for him and others in the nuclear energy community has been the management of used nuclear fuel. As it stands now there is no national storage facility for nuclear spent fuel. The current proposal at Yucca Mountain in Nevada has been viewed as controversial and not a permanent solution to the issue of spent nuclear waste. Stout argued that the nation needs to look more into commercial recycling facilities where there are less environmental repercussions as well as being cost effective. He said this needs to happen by 2010 a high goal considering the tumultuous political environment on the issue of national energy policy.