Abstract

Three Mile Island

The author argues that twenty-five years after Three Mile Island accident, the nuclear power industry is attempting to stage a comeback in the United States with the help of the government. Twenty-five years ago, TMI suffered the most serious nuclear power accident in US history. In the pre-dawn darkness of Wednesday, March 28, 1979, the cooling system of TMI's Unit Two reactor malfunctioned, sending temperatures inside soaring. For the next four days, the nation and the world watched with bated breath to see whether a full-scale core meltdown would follow. The [nuclear power] industry had no intention of giving up. Convinced of their technology's historical inevitability, they would prepare for a comeback, redoubling safety efforts and launching a public relations campaign arguing that in the face of uncertain global energy supplies and the threat of climate change, nuclear power was actually the most secure and environmentally benign source of electricity available. That timetable has proven optimistic--there have been no new orders yet--but the industry is still here, still planning on a bright future and doing well enough financially in the meantime that it can afford to wait. The biggest obstacle today, as it was before the accident, is economics. Coal, natural gas and improved energy efficiency are much less expensive. But if Wall Street has turned its back on nuclear power, the industry's longtime backers in Washington have not. The initial Bush-Cheney energy plan proposed building 1,000 new nuclear power plants by 2020--an average of one a week.