In the truest sense of the phrase, ‘an existential conflict’ - between humankind’s current pattern of behavior and the very global environment, we have been presented with a challenge of the highest possible historic importance.

While its time for society everywhere to recognize that the nuclear industry represents the ‘magic bullet’ to cope with a global emergency that has no borders, the old debate about whether to build nuclear energy reactors is again in full swing. The array of measures that have been put in place since Chernobyl to balance the possibility of a severe accident, these risks can never be brought to zero and which continues to weigh heavily on public perceptions is however, leaving behind the bleak memories of the nuclear accident. We’re referring; of course, to the new generation of nuclear energy activism that is taking place in the South-East Asian countries.

The world’s surging demand for energy coupled with the urgent need to mitigate the impact of climate change has pressed many nations to explore clean energy alternatives and while synchronizing with adequate source of energy along with creationism for sustaining human progress, an actual war is taking place in which science is trailing at an alarming rate.

As the nuclear renaissance unfolds, once again the stewards of this technology are spreading the dogma-driven environmentalist propaganda bringing back to mind the famous saying that ‘Atoms for peace and atoms for war are Siamese twins,’ knowing all the while that the clock is ticking for nuclear energy. A joint report by Greenpeace and The European Renewable Energy Council warned off ASEAN regarding hazardous aspect of nuclear power proposals due to the inherent risks nuclear power poses in addition to Asean’s geologically unstable areas and governance problems.

The kind of quiet hum associated with the world’s most modern nuclear facilities does not necessarily mean that the threats have also been hummed but is it time to come to grips with threat?

Today the human saga is filled with conflicts between people of different nationalities, ideologies, and religious beliefs but we face a conflict even more daunting in its dangers and scale, a challenge unlike any previously faced by humanity in any age. We are standing at a point where either we choose for clean forms of energy with better science and technology if catastrophe is to be averted or continue with our dogmatic approach to let the crisis emerge. However, it’s better to light a candle for international security than to curse the darkness.

The Stone Age did not end because there were no more stones left in the world. Similarly, the ‘oil age’ would not end because all oil would be exhausted but because renewables would make much more sense due to the innovations done by human beings.

It is time for nuclear professionals to speak with conviction, it is time for citizens everywhere to recognize that the nuclear industry represents a mature and immensely valuable technology, and it is time for political leaders to support the rapidly expanded use of this technology if we are to cope with a global emergency of gigantic magnitude.