Critics, Supporters of Nuclear Power See It Nearing a Point of No Return

Ten years after the Three Mile Island reactor accident in Pennsylvania, nuclear power in America is approaching a critical crossroads.

Critics say reliance on light-water reactors should be ended in the 1990s to avoid unnecessary financial and safety risks. Supporters say the industry must be rejuvenated to preserve an alternative to dependence on fossil fuels such as oil.

Increasingly, people on both sides are suggesting that unless a comeback is started soon, the nuclear power industry will degenerate to a point of no return. Suppliers of nuclear plant components already are dropping out of the business and the pool of university-trained nuclear engineers is shrinking.

“It does atrophy, and it is more serious than it might seem,” said Larry Hobart, executive director of the American Public Power Assn., a Washington-based trade group representing publicly owned utilities, many of which rely on nuclear power.

Small Contribution Seen

Whatever the long-range outcome, few believe atomic power will contribute much, if anything, to the added generating capacity that experts say will be needed over the next decade to meet the growing appetite for electricity.

No new nuclear plants have been ordered since 1978. All those ordered after 1974 have been canceled, and experts say more cancellations are almost certain.

The question now is: Will another nuclear plant ever be built in this country?

“The major barriers are still there,” said Alan T. Crane, who directed an Office of Technology Assessment report on nuclear power that said major changes in technology, utility management and public acceptance of nuclear power were needed before the industry could expect to expand in the 21st Century.

Some Encouragement

A ripple of encouragement is spreading through the industry as more public attention is focused on environmental problems associated with the burning of fossil fuels. Gases from burning oil and coal create a “greenhouse effect” that some scientists say is causing a dangerous warming of the Earth’s atmosphere.

Industry officials say nuclear energy is more environmentally sound than fossil fuels and can reduce the U.S. reliance on foreign oil.

Nuclear foes respond, however, that relatively few power plants run on oil. They say it would be wiser to improve efficiency, step up conservation, pursue ways to burn coal more cleanly and use more renewable resources such as solar and hydro-electric power.

President Bush says a national energy policy must include reliance on nuclear power, and his support is reflected in the choice of James D. Watkins as energy secretary. Watkins had extensive experience in the Navy’s nuclear reactor program.

“We need nuclear power,” Bush said at Watkins’ swearing-in March 9.

Industry Points to Safety

In seeking to win public favor for renewed nuclear activity, the industry asserts that since the partial meltdown of a reactor at Three Mile Island on March 28, 1979, nuclear plants have been made less hazardous and more efficient. They note that last year, for the first time, nuclear plants supplied 20% of the nation’s electricity, and say the average dose of radiation absorbed by a plant worker has decreased.

There have been many accidental releases of minor amounts of radioactivity since Three Mile Island, but it is not just reactor flaws that have hurt the industry’s image. In another of the most troubling incidents, the Peach Bottom plant near Delta, Pa., was shut down by the government in March, 1987, because control room workers were caught sleeping on the job.

Industry officials insist the country is better off with a network of reactors that can help meet electricity needs throughout the 1990s, but even the biggest boosters acknowledge the future outlook is clouded.

Expects No Orders

“I don’t anticipate that we will order any new nuclear plants in this century, and in my judgment, nobody else will either,” said William W. Berry, chairman of Virginia Power, an electric utility that runs four nuclear plants.

Virginia Power canceled four planned nuclear reactors, starting in 1977, initially because of doubts about the need for the additional power capacity. But recently, with electricity demand rising rapidly in its service area, the utility faced a choice: build some new plants or buy power from other suppliers. In a move that may point to a trend, it decided to take the latter path.

Berry and other industry executives, as well as government regulators, environmentalists and independent analysts, said in interviews that the reasons for the nuclear downfall are simple: too costly, too risky, too little public acceptance.

Industry leaders say federal regulators also are to blame, although others disagree.

Trouble Starts Earlier

The Three Mile Island emergency, which was caused in part by human error, galvanized public concern about the risks of nuclear power. The seeds of trouble, however, were sown earlier in the decade as the demand for power began to level off.

Building plans were canceled as utilities realized their plans were too ambitious for an era in which consumers were learning to get by with less electricity. Since the first cancellation in 1972, the scratch list has grown to 108--exactly equal to the number of plants now licensed to operate at full power.

When the tide of energy demand began turning in the mid-1980s and utilities foresaw a need to expand their generating capacity, it became apparent that public fears about nuclear accidents--not just economics--were a major obstacle.

“The American people still don’t have any trust in the safety of nuclear power,” Sen. Dale Bumpers (D-Ark.) said at a recent conference of state energy officials.

Chernobyl Explosion

Though public trust began eroding after the Three Mile Island incident, many experts believe the reactor explosion and fire at Chernobyl in the Soviet Ukraine, in which 31 people were killed by radiation exposure, was even more devastating.

Lester R. Brown, president of the Washington-based Worldwatch Institute, wrote in a report in February that Chernobyl “did what hundreds of studies assessing nuclear technology could never have done: It made the dangers of nuclear power real.”

U.S. industry officials say a catastrophe on the scale of Chernobyl could not happen in this country because American reactors are designed much differently. Critics say the Soviet accident points up the unpredictability of nuclear power.

An Associated Press-Media General poll conducted in January found support for continued use of nuclear plants now operating, but only a third of those queried supported building more. One-half said a serious nuclear accident was likely in the future, and 79% said nuclear safety rules should be more tightly enforced.

Reactors Decommissioned

Some opponents of nuclear power have pronounced the industry dead. They say that once the current generation of light-water reactors is retired, the nuclear-fission era in the United States will draw to a close. A few reactors already are being decommissioned.

Michael Mariotte, director of the Nuclear Information and Resource Service, a sharp critic of the industry, said nuclear power could be revived in the next century if the government helped develop reactors with extra safety features.

Another big problem for the industry is waste storage. Sen. J. Bennett Johnston (D-La.) recently said the government’s effort to find a burial site for the 1,700 tons of highly radioactive waste that accumulates each year at power stations was in a shambles.

Yucca Mountain, Nev., was chosen in 1987 as the site for a permanent nuclear waste dump, but the project has been beset by a wide variety of woes, including doubts about whether the area’s geology is suitable. There is growing doubt the site will be ready by 2003, as planned.