Nuclear power plants smaller than a garden shed and able to power 20,000 homes will be on sale within five years, say scientists at Los Alamos, the US government laboratory which developed the first atomic bomb.

After three decades without starting a single new plant, the American nuclear power industry is getting ready to build again. According to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, 21 companies say they will seek permission to build 34 power plants, from New York to Texas.

Daniel Botkin argues that nuclear power is inadequate to secure energy independence or to help realistically combat global warming.

Nuclear power could provide up to four times more electricity by midcentury than now if the industry can soothe concerns about its safety and the disposal of radioactive waste, according to a research group for the industry.

Growth in the construction of new nuclear plants worldwide is at risk because of the global financial crisis, U.S. Energy Secretary Samuel Bodman said Wednesday, adding that short-term projects like oil drilling are more likely to go ahead.

The U.S. Senate has approved a historic agreement that opens up nuclear trade with India for the first time since New Delhi conducted a nuclear test three decades ago, giving the Bush administration a significant foreign policy achievement in its final months.

The international community must agree on a common set of security standards to ensure that plans to expand the use of nuclear power do not increase opportunities for terrorists or rogue nations to acquire sensitive materials, according to Thomas D’Agostino, head of the National Nuclear Security Administration.

A U.S. program to promote nuclear energy around the world without increasing the threat of proliferation would instead raise the likelihood that additional nations or terrorists might acquire a devastating weapon according to nonproliferation experts.

Companies are racing to provide radioactive fuel for America's nuclear renaissance, and are powering debate along the way. Even as the government continues to oppose Iran's efforts to enrich uranium for power plants, projects to do just that are under way in the U.S.

The Bush administration's plan for a "renaissance" in nuclear power may be crimped by tightening world-wide supplies of uranium and a lack of enrichment facilities to turn the uranium into fuel for power plants.