This is CBS I on the world with John Bachelor.

Here's John Bachelor.

I welcome Henry Sikalski, the Executive Director of the Non-proliferation Policy Education Center,

to take us around the world in the present thinking at the US government level and at the private commercial enterprise

level about nuclear power in the 21st century in a war zone in a potential

war zone near large population centers.

Henry a very good evening to you.

I go immediately to an item that you have educated me on.

This is about a French company, Arano, building an enrichment plant in the US.

I was unaware that we needed French help.

They do run a great amount of their electricity grid on nuclear power.

So it makes sense that the French company would be good at enrichment. Do we need this?

Have we got inadequate sources for enriched uranium for our reactors?

Good evening to you, Henry.

Good evening. It's always a pleasure to be on your program.

The short answer is if you listen to the Department of Energy, we need nuclear power around the clock for all sorts of things all the time.

And this has something to do with their desire to expand or maintain their budget,

which is a pretty hefty figure, 40 or more billion dollars per year.

They need big projects. They like spending money to expand in

Richmond. They've got a 2.7 billion dollar kitty to give out money. The French are not stupid. If someone's giving out

money, there's no risk to build a plan. So they're going to build a plant in Tennessee,

see how much they can get of that $2.7 billion kitty.

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