Al Gore, photographed for Time, earlier this year.

In Earth In The Balance, 1992, Plume Publishing, New York, Gore wrote:

“Almost every discussion of substitutes for fossil fuels includes an argument over the role of nuclear power in our energy future. In fact, some opponents of positive action to save the environment try to cut short discussions of global warming with a dismissive reference to the political difficulties involved in building new nuclear reactors and expressions of exaggerated frustration with envrionmentalists, who, they imply are the principal obstacles to adopting nuclear power as the obvious subsitute for coal and oil.

“Of course, uncertainties about future projections of energy demand and economic problems like cost overruns were the major causes of the cancellation of reactors by utilities, well before accidents like those at Three Mile Island and Chernobyl heightened public apprehension. Growing concern about our capacity to accept responsibility for the safety of storing nuclear waste products with extremely long lifetimes also adds to the resistance many feel to a dramatic increase in the use of nuclear power.

“In my own view, the present generation of nuclear technology, light water-pressureized reactors, seems now rather obviously at a technological dead end. The research and development of alternative approaches should focus on discovering, first, how to build a passively safe design (whose safety does not depend on the constant attention of bleary-eyed technicians) that eliminates the many risks of current reactors, and second, whether there is a scientifically and politically acceptable means for disposing of – in fact, isolating – nuclear waste.

“In any event, the proportion of world energy use that could practically be derived from nuclear is fairly small and is likely to remain so.”