The nuclear energy industry knows all about the vagaries of fashion. When the first nuclear reactors were built in the 1950s, they were lauded as heralding an age of cheap, abundant energy. But problems with safety and nuclear waste soon became apparent, tarnishing their image. The accidents at Three Mile Island in Pennsylvania, US, in 1979 and then at Chernobyl, Ukraine, in 1986 were the final straw, leading many countries, such as the US, to stop building new nuclear power stations. But the threat of global warming is now holding out the promise of a come-back for nuclear energy. It is becoming increasingly clear that nuclear energy is the only technology that can generate carbon-free electricity on a large scale. Nuclear reactors currently generate around 17% of the world’s electricity, and renewable energy technologies, such as solar power and wind farms, are simply not yet ready to take their place. The industry has worked hard to improve the safety of its nuclear reactors, introducing a number of ‘passive’ safety measures, such as automatically flooding the reactor core with water if it gets too hot. Unfortunately, the more intractable problem of how to deal with nuclear waste, particularly the highly radioactive spent fuel, remains. Recent experiences with North Korea and Iran have also highlighted the risk of nuclear fuel being used to produce nuclear weapons. At the moment, most spent nuclear fuel is simply stored in water-filled ponds or concrete casks located at nuclear facilities…

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