News & Events

It began around four o’clock on a hot Thursday afternoon, last August. First the lights flickered. Then within three minutes, power plants began shutting down. Ohio, Pennsylvania, New York. Trains stopped running. Elevators stopped between floors. Airports closed.

In New York City, people walked miles in the dark to get home. In New Jersey about 1.5 million people couldn’t cook, read, or work.

Was it the “blaster” computer virus? Was it lightning? Nobody knew. All the public knew was that the power was out.

Now we know a lot more about what caused the cascading blackout that disrupted lives for millions of Americans from New York to Detroit. But we also know something else. For those days in August showed Americans that we have become a nation whose lifeblood is electricity.

As we begin this Nuclear Energy Assembly, it is with the knowledge that while no one person is indispensable, our industry is.

Last year we celebrated our 50th Anniversary. But on this day, we’ll focus on the future.

Because in the not-too-distant future, we’ll have another celebration. We’ll have new plants . . . and proven way to dispose of our used nuclear fuel. A new generation will look back past the disputes, the doubts, the delays to assess what we did.

I predict that they’ll marvel—as we did last year. They’ll see that we were able to remain the stewards of clean, safe and reliable power. They’ll see an industry . . . with its incredible ability to spark the economy and preserve the environment.