Hundreds of nuclear reactors have been constructed worldwide since 1942, when a University of Chicago team led by Italian-born physicist Enrico Fermi built the first reactor to achieve a self-sustaining energy release. Fermi was one of the pioneers of nuclear science and his reactor paved the way for the development of both the atomic bomb and the nuclear power industry. Because this was during World War II, the United States not surprisingly concentrated on building the atomic bomb. The world's first nuclear power plant did not begin to generate electricity for the Russian city of Obninsk until June 1954.

The nuclear power industry has taken off in the mean- time. France depends upon nuclear power for about 75 percent of its electricity, and Japan, South Korea, Switzerland, and a few other countries for more than one-third. At least a dozen countries, particularly China, Japan, and...