Timing is all.

Tina Brown, the newly installed buzzmistress of the combined death rattle that is Newsweek and The Daily Beast (one can only imagine the imprecations Evelyn Waugh would hurl were he alive), has been congratulating herself (as she did at her previous editorial failures) for being on top of the zeitgeist.

Exhibit A: Earlier this morning a huge explosion was filmed at one of the crippled Japanese nuclear reactors.

Newsbeasts' big story?

Nuclear Powerhouse

France’s most powerful businesswoman believes now is the time for the next atomic boom.

Brian Smale

Anne Lauvergeon

The Middle East is in turmoil, oil prices have skyrocketed, the cost of gas is through the roof. All of which is good news—if you’re Anne Lauvergeon.

Lauvergeon may be the world’s most effective proselytizer for nuclear energy. “Atomic Anne,” as she’s known, heads France’s Areva, the largest builder of nuclear reactors on the planet. The 51-year-old executive, a perennial member of the Forbesmost-powerful-women list (recently outranking Melinda Gates, Meg Whitman, and Queen Elizabeth, though trailing Lady Gaga), has been the guiding force behind her country’s massive push into nuclear energy, which today fuels 75 percent of all its electricity. And now, she believes, nuclear’s next big global moment has arrived. “The cheap price of oil and gas is over for the future,” she tells NEWSWEEK. “Nuclear isn’t the only solution, but it is part of the solution.”