A return to nuclear energy? Some in NJ are pushing for it as others say not so fast.

All it took were stingingly high electric bills to get New Jersey — a net importer of power — to begin to look to resurrect the long-shunned nuclear generating industry.

"On April 8, Governor Mikie Sherrill signed landmark legislation to officially end a 40-year de facto moratorium on the construction of new nuclear power plants in New Jersey," reporter Jeff Pillets of The Jersey Vindicator wrote last week. "That previous ban reflected a bipartisan view in Trenton that the state should not accept the growing stockpile of dangerous reactor waste without a permanent national disposal plan. No such solution has emerged. New Jersey is now home to an estimated 7 million pounds of radioactive waste, much of it stored in flood-prone coastal areas."

Pillets sought out an anti-nuclear perspective and got it from Tim Judson, executive director of the Maryland-based Nuclear Information and Resource Service.

>> Read Pillets' deep Q-and-A with Judson here.