It might seem as if the Obama administration is stonewalling on nuclear, but there are indications that its attitude might be changing.

Last Sunday in a little noted speech in New Orleans, President Obama made the following remarks:

There’s no reason why technologically we can’t employ nuclear energy in a safe and effective way. Japan does it and France doesn’t and it doesn’t have greenhouse gas emissions, so it would be stupid for us not to do that in a much more effective way.

Now true, there are the usual hedges in there. What does “an effective way” mean? Does that mean we have to reinvent the technology once again, instead of using what we’ve got? But something is happening in the administration. According to Bloomberg, Secretary of Energy Steven Chu told environmental ministers preparing for Copenhagen last week that the U.S. is “working aggressively to restart the nuclear industry. I believe the nuclear waste problem is solvable on a scientific level and a political level.”

Good rhetoric, at least — rather like the faint and indistinct noises the president made about tort reform as one way to restrain health-care costs. Now it would be nice to see the speechmaking translate into something concrete — such as the containment structure around a brand-new, real-life, up-and-running nuclear reactor.

– William Tucker is author of Terrestrial Energy: How Nuclear Power Will Lead the Green Revolution and End America’s Energy Odyssey.