Western Europe's need to develop atomic energy for peaceful uses is more urgent than the U.S.'s. Within the next three years, some European nations will be facing power shortages; within the next 30 years, Western Europe will be running out of coal and will have expanded hydroelectric capacity to the limit. But though the U.S. has some 50 research and power reactors under way, Western Europe has only 14.
One reason for Europe's slow atomic progress is its political fission. Even in trying to get together, Europe has almost as many international atomic-energy committees as it does atomic-power plants.
One of...