We need "energy miracles" to combat political inaction on climate change said Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates at the 2010 TED conference—a conference of inspirational speakers spreading ideas broadly related to technology, entertainment and design. Nuclear energy is touted as a large-scale solution that doesn't produce greenhouse gases in its electricity production (although its life cycle does). But while the U.S.'s 104 nuclear reactors produce 20% of the country's electricity, the expansion of nuclear power came to a halt here after nuclear accidents at Three Mile Island in Pennsylvania in 1979 and Chernobyl in the Ukraine in 1986. Safety concerns and the accumulation of highly radioactive spent nuclear fuel with no definite long-term storage plans remained seemingly insurmountable obstacles to an increased nuclear future.
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