The nation’s former top environmental regulator, in Columbia to promote nuclear power as a spokeswoman for the industry, said the performance of nuclear plants in the aftermath of Japan’s earthquake will say a lot about how safe that country’s atomic energy reactors are in a natural disaster.

In an interview with The State newspaper, one-time U.S. Environmental Protection Agency chief Christine Todd Whitman said, “It’s going to be a very good lesson in how these things work,” Whitman said. “You can’t pretend (the quake) didn’t happen. You can’t pretend there aren’t nuclear reactors. We will be paying attention.’’

South Carolina, which gets much of its energy from nuclear power, has atomic energy plants at four locations in the state: York, Oconee, Darlington and Fairfield counties. All are built to withstand earthquakes. South Carolina hasn’t had a powerful earthquake since the facilities were built.

Whitman, who co-chairs the Clean and Safe Energy Coalition, said the U.S. atomic energy industry is safe. It has rarely had accidents, and in the few times they have occurred, no one has been seriously injured, she said.

“It’s safer than working in a grocery store,’’ said Whitman, who visited civic clubs and college campuses while in Columbia Thursday and Friday and also had visited Columbia in 2007.

Whitman, President George W. Bush’s first EPA administrator, said she’s trying to recruit new members to her 2,600-member organization, which is backed by the nuclear industry. Whitman said atomic power, which doesn’t emit greenhouse gases, is a clean source of energy.

Nuclear power production is controversial because it creates radioactive waste. The Obama administration recently canceled plans to open the Yucca Mountain, Nev., waste disposal site, leaving the nation with no permanent deposal area.

Here are excerpts from Whitman’s interview with The State:

Question: What’s the answer to resolving the nation’s nuclear waste problem?

Answer: … First of all, Congress has said there needs to be one repository, and we need to get moving with that, wherever they decide to locate it. The administration has a study commission to look at all these things. C’mon, we spent billions on Yucca Mountain. It’s ready to go. It could happen. It’s only (Nevada Democratic Sen.) Harry Reid stopping it. It’s not scientific stuff that’s stopping it right now.

The other part of it is going to be reprocessing. We don’t do it in this country; we haven’t been doing it. When we got out of the nuclear business in the ’70s, we kind of stopped. But France, at 80 percent nuclear, has been doing it for a long time now. Japan is doing it.

Q: What do you think the chances are of restarting Yucca Mountain?

A: I think it’s going to happen. I think the rest of the country is going to say, ‘Wait a minute; we understand you (in Nevada) don’t want it, but we have got to deal with an issue here.’

Q: With Yucca Mountain, do you think this is a partisan issue, a Republican versus Democrat issue?

A: “This is, ‘If you’re from Nevada, you’re against it.’

Q: So you feel there will be a place to take all this waste?

A: There’s going to be. Right now, it is safely stored on site. But that’s not optimum. I don’t think anybody thinks that is optimum, to have 104 (nuclear power) sites around the country (holding waste). Congress didn’t think it was optimum. That’s why they said there should be one national repository.

Q: Nuclear accidents like those that happened at Chernobyl (1986) and Three Mile Island (1979) don’t occur every day, but they were serious. What about the issue of safety?

A: First of all, Chernobyl (a nuclear plant in the former Soviet Union) was a technology that was never licensed in this country — and it wouldn’t have been. And it hasn’t been since. Everybody learned a lesson from that.

Three Mile Island (in Pennsylvania), interestingly enough, was a meltdown. … But look at what occurred. First of all, if the operators of the site had left the reactor alone, you wouldn’t have had a meltdown. They overrode the system. So that was a wakeup call for the industry on training. But, secondly, if you look at everything that was put in place to protect the workers, much less the public at large — they all worked. … Since then, (federal regulators and the industry) have been constantly upgrading the protections, upgrading the redundancy in the system, trying to make it safer and safer.

Q: There were two fires at a nuclear plant in Hartsville last year, and the NRC has increased the level of scrutiny there because of concerns about the plant operator’s response. Is that what you’re talking about?

A: Yeah. Anytime you have humans involved in something or something complicated, the chances are something can go wrong, some place. But I look at it and I think, ‘I wish you had half this amount of oversight in the chemical industry.’ That worries me far more right now than nuclear.

Q: Numerous nuclear plants across the country are seeking new licenses or licenses to build new reactors. How do you see the issue of regulation? Is there over-regulation of plants applying for new licenses, or is the level proper?

A: I think it’s proper. China can get one of these utilities up, a nuclear reactor up, in three years, from beginning to end. I don’t think we want to be there. I recognize that time is money, and I recognize it’s costly. But you want to be darned sure these things are safe, that they’re done the right way and they have the proper oversight.