????美國核協會（American Nuclear Society）的夏季會議原本可能是場覺醒。

????過去幾年的“核能復興運動”堪稱如火如荼。截至2009年，美國核能管理委員會（U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission）已收到了20座核電廠的興建申請。然而，隨著福島核事故的噩夢襲來，這場復興戛然而止。夏季會議中有兩場小組會議（而非一場）都專門用來討論這場浩劫的慘痛教訓。此前數周，美國8個州的立法機關分別制定了相關規定，給這個行業帶來不同程度的沖擊。同時，全球最大核能供應商的股價在災后遭遇大幅跳水，至今一直未恢復元氣。即便是會議舉辦地佛羅里達州的一派奢華海邊度假勝地景象，也無法掩蓋核能產業此時的失落。

????不過，盡管福島核災難讓世人痛心，但卻未泯滅核能技術專家、供應商和生產商的希望。事實上，這可能甚至會促使該行業徹底拋棄過去數十年勉強運行的技術，提前推出最先進的核反應堆。一些人甚至將福島核事故隱喻為導致恐龍滅絕和更高級物種興起的小行星撞擊地球事件。

????事實是，自從1979年三哩島核電站事故后，美國前總統吉米?卡特終止了克林奇河增值反應堆計劃，此后，美國新型反應堆的研究和開發就一直止步不前。到二十世紀八十年代，核動力創新在實質上陷入了停滯狀態。目前，核電廠的約85%發電量來自與福島核電廠類似設計的裝置。過去十年間，人們對核能的興趣和需求再次高漲，核能供應商積極兜售它們認為公用事業部門將會買單的新設計。與此同時，核能運營商通過所謂的“提高額定值”方式，即提高原定的發電量，延長核設施原定的運行時間，不斷壓榨舊反應堆的剩余價值。

????直到最終災難爆發。Flibe Energy創始人科克?索倫森稱：“福島事故標志著傳統輕水反應堆的消亡。”Flibe Energy位于美國阿拉巴馬州亨茨維爾，是一家備受推崇的核技術初創企業。他并不是唯一一個持有這種觀點的人。美國核未來藍絲帶委員會（Blue Ribbon Commission on America's Nuclear Future）下屬的反應堆及燃料循環技術分委員會（Reactor and Fuel Cycle Technology Subcommittee）發布了一篇有關未來可行反應堆的報告草案。報告介紹了有望得到政府批準的下一代反應堆。委員會主席、加州大學伯克利分校（UC Berkeley）物理學家派爾?彼得森稱：“福島事故提供了一個強大的誘因，將促使公共部門購買更先進技術的。”

????泰拉能源公司（Terrapower）首席執行官約翰?吉蘭德稱：“福島事故實際上使得我們在其他國家商討業務時所受到的重視程度有所提高。”泰拉能源公司是一家得到智力風險投資公司（Intellectual Ventures）支持的先進反應堆技術初創企業，而智力風險投資公司則是由微軟（Microsoft，MSFT）前首席技術官納森?梅爾沃德成立的技術孵化企業。

????該行業現正將希望寄托在所謂的第三代設計上，這種小型模塊式反應堆的設計旨在隔絕電力故障的影響，從而避免福島核反應堆出現的過熱險情。從理論上說，這種反應堆的建造成本更低，因此按每千瓦造價來衡量，較傳統反應堆更高效。【西屋公司（Westinghouse）的第三代設計AP1000的最終每千瓦發電能力造價有望低于2,000美元，遠低于其他新建核反應堆的5,000多美元預計造價。】它們產生的、需永久性深埋的有毒廢物更少，一些甚至可以幫助清除當前過時的反應堆留下來的廢物。

????目前，生意已經上門。今夏，田納西河流域管理局（Tennessee Valley Authority）與核能承包商Babcock & Wilcox簽署了一項協議，在田納西州克林奇河上建造六個小型模塊式反應堆，標志著這種設計首次被用于商業發電。法國近80%發電量來自核能，該國政府最近宣布投資9億歐元，用于核能研究和開發。在美國佐治亞州和南加利福尼亞州，兩座基于類似設計的工廠也已經啟動了前期建設工作。

????但這并不意味著一切都已經明朗。拖累核能復興腳步的不是人們對類似福島事故的恐懼，而是老生常談的經濟問題。全球經濟復蘇步伐停滯不前，加上債務憂慮，導致需求滯后。現任能源部顧問、曾長期擔任Burns and Roe工程公司首席核能工程師的查爾斯?赫斯抱怨道：“（電力）負荷增長停滯，甚至出現負增長，核電業主們都決定推遲新的建造計劃。”這意味著，暫時不會出現飛躍式的發展。

????The summer meeting of the American Nuclear Society could have been a wake.

????The exuberant "nuclear renaissance" of the past few years -- by 2009, the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission had received applications for 20 new plants -- fizzled in the wake of the Fukushima nightmare. Not one, but two conference sessions were entirely devoted to the painful lessons of that catastrophe. In the weeks before, eight separate state legislatures had dealt the industry blows of varying severity. And, the stock prices of the world's largest nuclear suppliers had yet to recover from a drastic post-disaster dive. Not even the posh seaside resort in Florida where the conference was held could mask what a lousy time it was to be in the nuclear business.

????But as harrowing as the Fukushima debacle has been, it hasn't dimmed the hopes of nuclear technologists, suppliers and manufacturers. It may, in fact, even allow the industry to move beyond the creaking technology of the past few decades, selling state of the art reactors much sooner than it might have otherwise. Some even quietly liken Fukushima to the devastating asteroid strike that doomed the dinosaurs and gave rise to more advanced species.

????The fact is new reactor research and development has long been stalled in the United States, since President Jimmy Carter killed the Clinch River breeder reactor program in the wake of the 1979 Three Mile Island accident. By the 1980s, innovation in nuclear power essentially ground to a halt. Today, some 85% of the electricity generated by nuclear plants comes from facilities of a similar design as Fukushima. As renewed interest and demand began taking off over the past decade, firms eagerly peddled evolutionary designs they assumed utilities would buy. Nuclear operators, meanwhile, squeezed new life out of old reactors through so-called "uprating" -- running plants longer and at higher power outputs than originally intended.

????Until disaster struck. "Fukushima marked the death of conventional light-water reactors," says Kirk Sorensen, founder of Flibe Energy, a highly regarded nuclear technology startup based in Huntsville, Alabama. He's not the only one who thinks so. In June, the Reactor and Fuel Cycle Technology Subcommittee, a branch of the vaunted Blue Ribbon Commission on America's Nuclear Future, released the draft version of its report on possible future reactors. It gave the next generation of reactors as close to a government endorsement as the industry has gotten in years. "What Fukushima has done is create a much larger incentive for utilities to purchase more advanced technologies," says the committee's chair, UC Berkeley physicist Per Peterson.

????"For us Fukushima actually raised our priority level somewhat in discussions in other countries," says John Gilleland, CEO of TerraPower, the advanced-reactor startup backed by Intellectual Ventures, the technology incubator founded by former Microsoft (MSFT) CTO Nathan Myhrvold.

????The industry is betting its future on so-called Gen III designs, small modular reactors designed to be impervious to the kind of electrical failures that allowed the Fukushima reactors to overheat uncontrollably. They're theoretically cheaper to build and thus more efficient on a cost-per-kilowatt basis than conventional reactors. (Westinghouse's Gen III design, the AP1000, promises an eventual construction cost of under $2000 per kilowatt of capacity -- well below the $5000-plus per-kilowatt estimates of other new nuclear builds.) They produce less toxic waste to be stored indefinitely, and some can even consume waste left over from current, outmoded reactors.

????Customers have bitten. This summer, the Tennessee Valley Authority signed an agreement with nuclear contractor Babcock & Wilcox to build six small, modular reactors on the Clinch River in Tennessee, marking the first such developments for commercial power generation. The government of France, a country that already gets nearly 80% of its electricity from nuclear, just announced plans to invest €900 million in nuclear power research and development. Pre-construction work has already begun on two plants in Georgia and South Carolina based on similar designs.

????But that doesn't mean everything is in the clear. What's slowing down the nuclear renaissance is not fear of another Fuskushima; it's plain old economics. Depressed by the halting global recovery and by debt fears, demand is lagging. "With [electricity] load growth being flat or negative the owners are deciding to delay new construction projects," Charles Hess, the longtime chief nuclear engineer at Burns and Roe who is now a consultant to the Department of Energy, laments. And that means, big leaps forward may yet have to wait.