Nuclear energy and the freedom of the West

The author in expressing his opinion about the development of nuclear power says that the basic reason for anti-nuclear campaigning is ignorance. He finds that the concern of man for preservation of his environment is misdirected. The development of nuclear technology has proceeded with much greater attention on the problems of safety techniques and preservation of the environment than the development of such branches of technology as metallurgy, coke chemistry, mining, chemical industry, coal power stations, modern transportation, chemicalization of agriculture, etc. Therefore, the present situation in nuclear power is relatively good from the point of view of safety and possible effects on the environment. It is difficult to explain to a non-specialist (though it is actually true) that the nuclear reactor of a nuclear power station is nothing like an atomic bomb that the power station burning coal or oil offers much greater danger and harm to the environment as well as a biological threat to people than does a nuclear station or breeder reactor of the same capacity rating. The author also sees nuclear energy as the only economically feasible method available in the next few decades as an alternative to oil. This applies to countries--developed and developing--who do not have oil. What is involved is not just comfort, or preservation of quality of life, but the much more fundamental problem of economic and political independence, Mr. Sakharov concludes