Is there a sustainable future for nuclear power?

This paper focuses on nuclear power's application to electricity generation, noting that its military and foreign policy implications cannot be ignored and thus must be considered. We first set out a sustainability framework for assessing electricity industry design options and discuss the key issues for nuclear power in this context. We then review nuclear power's troubled past and contested present. Nuclear power's uncertain future is explored through three general scenarios of how nuclear power might fare, broadly classified as decline, business as usual, and renaissance. Finally, we discuss how societies might make decisions about the future of nuclear power as well as the role of the engineering profession in that process