Good morning. Thank you, Art, and congratulations to the organizers of this Conference on Nuclear Training and Education (CONTE). I also want to take a moment to recognize Gil Brown and Andy Klein, who will receive the Training Excellence award tomorrow for the many contributions they have made to this industry.

There has never been a more exciting time for the nuclear energy industry than today. And I must say that there has never been a more personally gratifying time for me as well.

I was involved in the building of a number of first generation commercial nuclear power plants. To be sure, that was a special time. We spoke then of how economical it is to generate electricity using nuclear energy. We spoke of the environmental benefits of an energy source that produces no air emissions. And we spoke of energy diversity as we shifted from oil to nuclear for power generation.

But today’s world provides a context more urgent, and a scope more profound. Petroleum is no longer simply an import—it is a political ransom. Natural gas—once used only for peaking power and home heating—now often is deployed for baseload generation. Due to unsustainable demand pressure, it is no longer cheap, and it has punishing price volatility. The evidence for climate change grows more alarming—and countries and utilities around the world are turning to new nuclear plants as part of the solution.

The role that energy security plays in national security has never been more evident. And nuclear energy’s role as one of the primary energy sources for our nation has never been more essential. In fact, it is a national imperative.

Today there is a strong bipartisan majority in the public and in the Congress who support nuclear energy and agree that new plants should be added to the generation mix.