News & Events

Introduction
I want to tell you a story about two U.S. presidents, separated in time but joined by a common purpose.

In 1953, President Dwight Eisenhower spoke to the United Nations General Assembly about a vision he called “Atoms for Peace.”

The General Assembly was silent for the entire speech. Then, Eisenhower drew cheers with this line: “The miraculous inventiveness of man shall not be dedicated to his death, but consecrated to his life.” He was referring, of course, to moving nuclear energy technology away from weapons and to peaceful purposes.

Today, we have an American president who shares President Eisenhower’s vision. Like Eisenhower, President George W. Bush has demonstrated leadership and vision in articulating the promise—indeed, the imperative—of nuclear energy.

In the United States, we are re-launching the nuclear power industry to meet the baseload electricity needs that will exist after 2010.

Many of your countries are, like the United States, planning for the next nuclear plant construction cycle, or already embarked on it.

As we do so, we must recommit ourselves to the values upon which WANO was founded.

Today, I’m going to cover three topics that address this challenge.