The federal government has, historically, licensed nuclear power plants for a period of 40 years – long enough for investors to make money, and utilities have designed reactors that could last at least that long. And at a time when the world is increasingly worried about pollution from burning of coal, gas and oil, nuclear energy is sitting pretty. Houston Wood is a professor of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering at the University of Virginia. “Many people are worried about climate change, global warming, worried about the atmosphere, and the carbon fuels cause a lot of...