In light of the nuclear crisis in Japan, should the world abandon nuclear power for safety reasons? Dr. Kelvin Kemm, a nuclear physicist, says no, and here explains why: “The Fukushima nuclear plants are forty years old and use an outdated boiling water reactor design. To prevent a core meltdown they require cooling even after an emergency shutdown to remove the residual heat. Fortunately, a new nuclear reactor design, called the pebble bed modular reactor, is meltdown-proof because the uranium is housed inside graphite balls that cannot melt. They are literally ‘walk away safe’ which means that in the event of an emergency the reactor will just cool itself down even if all the operators go to lunch.”