ABSTRACT
The nuclear industry has been deeply committed to recycling and the use of plutonium as fuel. Domestic nuclear markets in the industrial countries are growing slowly and exports of nuclear technology have become increasingly important in sustaining the technical base, even though the potential export market is small and competition for it is fierce. The sense in Europe and Japan that their nuclear choices make little difference to what happens in the rest of the world, and that what happens elsewhere has little effect on the security of Europe and Japan, could change. The distinction between making nuclear power safer and banning it altogether is likely to emerge more clearly in the future, abroad as well as in the United States. A state of nuclear tension would not be promising for the continued development of civilian nuclear power. Popular opposition would seem tame by comparison with what could develop.
