Harrisburg, Pa. - It has taken a lot of energy to clean up the image of nuclear power since the 1979 accident at Three Mile Island. Even those who despise it can't deny we need it. Thirty-five percent of the power Pennsylvanians use comes from nuclear power plants.

Even Democratic politicians, once the enemy of all things nuclear, are warming to it. "I do believe a well thought out, well-reasoned, energy policy for the country has to include the careful expansion of nuclear power," Gov. Ed Rendell said.

While politicians give it an awkward and uncomfortable handshake, many scientists enthusiastically embrace nuclear power. "I think it's a very safe, emission-free source of electric power. It's reliable, it's inexpensive," said Jack Brenizer, chairman of the Nuclear Engineering Department at Penn State University.

Penn State is home to the nation's first nuclear reactor. Brenizer, who is from the Harrisburg suburbs who fished on Three Mile Island before the plant existed, calls nuclear power safe and calls the TMI accident proof of its safety. "That was a pretty significant accident, yet the engineered safety systems worked very well in protecting the public and containing the radioactive materials," he said.

China has gotten beyond the China Syndrome. They've gone nuke in a big way. So has Japan. India's headed there. And nearly 80 percent of France's electricity is provided by nuclear power.

In the U.S., no new plants have been ordered or built since the 1979 accident. Other countries are now beating America at our own technology.

"As we procrastinate our decisions here in the United States, I personally worry about where we will be in that cue for energy," Brenizer said.

There have been defections. Greenpeace co-founder Patrick Moore, a longtime anti-nuke protester, now says he was wrong. Nuclear power doesn't spew poisons into the air like coal, oil and gas. But there are still critics and they're pushing alternative energy.

"You don't have to bury an alternative energy plant after it's finished operating. You don't have to have the National Guard guarding a wind turbine. You don't have to worry about terrorists coming in and blowing up a wind turbine or solar plant," said Eric Epstein of the group Three Mile Island Alert.

The wind and the sun, however, can't keep up with what Americans consume.

"We are in favor of wind and solar, but you cannot have a single wind or solar plant that can generate as much power as we do here," TMI spokesman Ralph DeSantis said.

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