The space program was the first to witness this phenomenon. Man goes to the moon., it gets derided as a "militaristic" and "flag planting" exercise that is not truly for the benefit of mankind but is nationalistic and imperialist in nature. The schools and sub-par intelligentsia (who always seem to suffer from insecurity complexes) lash out at the programs as a waste of money, when the (insert your favorite: poor, foreign nation, needy race, uninsured, incurable disease) could much more wisely use the "huge" money spent on space.

Naturally when the schools fail to instill value in it - just how many graduates with degrees in aerospace, much less "hard space science" do you think get turned out?

Nuclear power is in the exact same boat. There is a dearth of nuclear scientists, thanks to decades of anti-nuclear propaganda beginning after 3-mile island. Sure there are real problems - huge problems - with storage of spent control rods. But nothing is solved by channeling as many of the next generation into "wind farmers" and such. It's horribly sad that Samuel Glasstone's Controlled Thermonuclear Reactions, Sourcebook of Atomic Energy, The Elements of Nuclear Reactor Theory, Principles of Nuclear Reactor Engineering are still the seminal books for nuclear scientists and these books date to the mid 1950's and before.

Why? Because the next generations have been diverted. The TV watching took its toll too. The "brilliant" inventors of nuclear power were dedicated men whose hours were not swallowed up by films or television - much less cable TV, DVDs or an internet to consume every spare moment. Where are today's Einsteins and Teslas? Where, even, are the Samuel Glasstones?

The average scientist of today has read a fraction of the books of his predecessors, he/she is a watered down facsimile of the real McCoy. As a result, the storage problem is not worked on by scientists - but by politicians.

The recycling and neutralizing of waste requires extremely intelligent scientific research - not politics. Understanding why there are variations in decay rates, and more work on understanding just exactly what is the true source of this radiation is what is desperately needed. Someday the right engineered environment will speed up decay rates, the control rods will be able to be processed, stabilized and not only have much longer usable lives but will be able to be more safely contained or disposed of when there service life is over.

None of this will happen if we just ignore nuclear energy and walk away from it.