The article discusses the need to increase the amount of energy that is generated from nuclear power. In the U.S. and around the globe, nuclear safety and efficiency have improved significantly since 1990. In 1998, unit capacity factor for operating reactors reached record levels. The average U.S. capacity factor in 1998 was 80 percent for about 100 reactors, compared to 58 percent in 1980 and 66 percent in 1990. Despite a reduction in the number of power plants, the U.S. nuclear industry generated nine percent more nuclear electricity in 1999 than in 1998. Average production costs for nuclear energy are now just 1.9 cents per kilowatt-hour (kwh), while electricity produced from gas costs 3.4 cents per kwh. Because major, complex technologies take more than half a century to spread around the world, natural gas will share the lead in power generation with nuclear power over the next hundred years. The great advantage of nuclear power is its ability to wrest enormous energy from a small volume of fuel. Nuclear fission, transforming matter directly into energy, is several million times as energetic as chemical burning, which merely breaks chemical bonds.