I don't read the New York Times much any more (i'd say I don't read them at all unless someone else links to them, but I do occasionally read them via AvantGo on my handheld, without anyone linking to them). And I did come across this article (login required, bugmenot has it) because Jim Miller linked to it. But it is an interesting article nonetheless.

It tells of a small town in Alaska that currently gets their power from a diesel-fired plant, having to barge in the fuel to run it every year. Toshiba is trying to give the town a nuclear reactor (the town will pay the cost of operation). The reactor will operate as a proof-of-concept for small reactors.

The two major hurdles are the NRC's approval, and local resistance to anything NOOOOCLEAR!!!! There's apparently a tribe in the area that wants to try and ban shipment of nuclear materiel on the Yukon river. My first response to this is that running a bargeload of diesel up the river every year is far more potentially hazardous to the environment than is a approved shipping container of enriched uranium once every couple of decades. (Howard Tayler of Schlock Mercenary fame had an article on his blog about how he wants a pro-nuke party. I agree with him, and so did most of his posters. We are no longer at the state of the art that held in Hanford WA at the end of WWII. We are incomparably advanced over the state of the art that held at Chernobyl. Nuke plants are safe, reliable, and necessary. See this comment from the Livejournal entry above