Since the nuclear disaster at Fukushima, a majority of people across the world have become skeptical of atomic energy. But politicians and experts who recently gathered for an International Atomic Energy Agency conference in Vienna are pursuing a strategy of business as usual.

Yukiya Amano, the slender Japanese director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), isn't known for his pithy prose. It was thus astonishing when, at the opening of the IAEA Ministerial Conference on Nuclear Safety last Monday in Vienna, Amano told his audience that in the wake of Fukushima, there was nothing less at stake than the very future of nuclear energy.

Amano said that many things needed improvement, including regulatory agencies, disaster prevention and information policy. He called for mandatory IAEA inspections at power plants worldwide, and he proposed that one-tenth of the world's 440 reactors be selected at random for unannounced inspections over the new three years. In addition, Amano said, plant operators should be held more accountable in the case of future accidents. "Business as usual is not an option," Amano told the delegates sitting in their United Nations-blue seats.

They, though, knew how to correctly interpret Amano's words. "In reality, the message is: Please, continue with business as usual," one delegate said derisively. Nuclear experts and politicians from about 150 countries had assembled in Vienna. And they almost all agreed that the lessons learned from Fukushima had only made nuclear energy safer.