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To quote Charles Dickens, “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times….”³⁴ Nuclear technology has progressed in the past 60 or so years. The growth of nuclear power in Asian countries and the proliferation of Asian suppliers of nuclear power technology have been immense. However, safety, fuel-cycle, nonproliferation, and economic hurdles remain and may become more burdensome, particularly if out-of-the-box innovations to the current state of the art in reactor technology do not reach the marketplace within the next two decades. In the opinion of the authors, passive safety features should be the new standard for all reactor designs going forward. However, the determining factor in establishing future nuclear energy parameters will likely be who wants to invest and where.

ENDNOTES

34. “It was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to heaven, we were all going direct the other way—in short, the period was so far like the present period, that some of its noisiest authorities insisted on its being received, for good or for evil.”