The energy proposal released by congressional Republicans the other day doesn’t have a snowball’s chance of passage. But that very fact has liberated the GOP from having to muddy the waters with compromise and horse-trading. Unlike the ridiculously complex and regulation-heavy Waxman-Markey cap-and-trade bill, or the pie-in-the-sky fantasies of the Obama administration, the GOP proposal contains realistic, practical ideas for improving the nation’s production of energy. It would increase oil and gas production offshore, where vast reserves may lie. It would open the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to drilling that would do no more harm than drilling has done in Prudhoe Bay. And—most important—it would spur the construction of a hundred new nuclear power plants over the next two decades.

A recent story in The Times-Dispatch on nuclear power [“Schools Restart Nuclear Programs”] is yet another powerful indicator of the resurgence of nuclear energy in our country’s schools as well as in the civilian power industry.

Nuclear engineering studies is making a comeback in Virginia. Some of the state’s universities have added programs, are planning to do so or are considering it because of renewed interest in the nuclear industry.