SAN DIEGO - William K. Reilly, the former Environmental Protection Agency administrator who served when President Bush's father was in the White House, said Thursday that nuclear power has a bright future in a world increasingly concerned with climate change.

"I think it definitely has a future," Reilly said, adding that nuclear plants have the potential to supply large amounts of power to the country while sharply reducing utilities' emissions of greenhouse gases.

Many scientists say evidence is mounting that industrial and automotive emissions of gases such as carbon dioxide are having a profound effect on the world's climate, while a small minority attribute the changes to natural causes.

Reilly made the comments during a keynote address to a business conference in downtown San Diego organized by Enviance, a Carlsbad firm. With 60 employees nationwide, half of them locally, the North County company provides an Internet service that helps utilities, chemical firms, oil companies and others track their air and water emissions.

Michele Hinks, Enviance vice president of marketing and sales, said the service was set up so that "they will realize when something is about to go amiss and they'll fix it before it goes into violation status." Hinks said the system generally has reduced clients' emissions violations by one-third.

Reilly, in his address, said the biggest obstacle to nuclear power is the widespread concern about how to dispose of the spent radioactive fuel. But he said the country can and ultimately will solve that problem.

"The country has got to get beyond it," Reilly said. "In my view, nuclear waste disposal is a political issue, but not a technologically unsolvable issue."

At the same time, the nation's officials are going to have to be careful to avoid losing the roughly 100 nuclear plants now in operation. Each of the reactors' licenses will expire during the next three decades and, if they are not renewed, many will be replaced with coal-fired plants that emit large amounts of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases, he said.

Currently, two plants are in operation in California: San Onofre in North County and Diablo Canyon near San Luis Obispo. Combined with Arizona's Palo Verde plant west of Phoenix, the nuclear generators deliver about 13 percent of California's electricity. Like other plants, San Onofre is storing spent fuel rods on site while the nation grapples with the issue of long-term disposal.

Besides nuclear power, there is a bright future for clean coal, Reilly said.

As senior adviser for Fort Worth, Texas-based TPG, a private equity firm that bought the largest electric utility in Texas (TXU) for $45 billion on Feb. 25, Reilly is helping to open the door to that future.

Under a highly publicized plan announced with the buyout, TXU decided to scrap eight of 11 planned traditional coal-fired plants while move forward with plans for three conventional generators in Texas totaling 2,200 megawatts. That's about half the electricity San Diego County uses on a hot summer day.

After those three are completed, sometime during the next five years, the utility will pursue the emerging technology that converts coal to gas and captures carbon dioxide, he said.

"We committed to never again building a power plant with existing coal technology," said Reilly. "We have raised expectations. The bar has been set higher for coal-fired power plants in America."

Reilly said TXU also is expanding the capacity of any existing nuclear plant in Texas.

About 150 people attended the conference, held at Westgate Hotel. Attendees were from such companies as Chevron, Dupont, San Diego Gas & Electric.

Enviance was founded in 1999 in Sorrento Valley. In 2002, the company moved its headquarters to Carlsbad.

- Contact staff writer Dave Downey at (760) 740-5442 or ddowney@nctimes.com.