"We're Fighting for Our Lives"

It's dim now, but the future of nuclear power may brighten

Even the strongest advocates of nuclear power have warned for years that it would take only one accident to cripple the U.S. atomic energy program. Just hours after that pump failed at Three Mile Island, the chief environmentalist for a New England utility predicted: "This is the end of nuclear power. From now on in, it's going to be coal city."

His prediction may have been premature. A year after the accident that drove thousands of Pennsylvanians from their homes and did even more than Jane Fonda to familiarize the American public with the hazards of atomic energy, nuclear power is still alive and managing to provide the U.S. with about 12% of its electric power. But the nuclear industry has been badly damaged. "I'll be honest," said an industry official, who prefers to stay nameless to preserve his job, "we're fighting for our lives."

The fight actually began well before Three Mile Island. The nuclear power industry, like utilities generally, was hurt by a slowing expansion in the demand for electricity as the population growth rate stabilized. Perhaps more important, the cost of building nuclear reactors has more than doubled, partly because of inflation, partly because of tighter Government regulations. Safety and environmental concerns, meanwhile, stretched the average time required to build a nuclear plant from about seven years in 1970 to twelve years today.

The result was that orders for new reactors, which hit a high of 41 in 1973, declined to two in 1978 and zero in 1979. Since the accident, five utility companies have dropped plans to build a total of nine nuclear plants. The cancellations hit hard at the reactor manufacturers. Westinghouse, which has long dominated the U.S. nuclear industry, has built 25 of the 72 nuclear plants licensed to operate in the country and has orders dating back a decade for 69 reactors, 24 of them to be built abroad. But other U.S. reactor manufacturers are faring badly. Babcock & Wilcox, which constructed the two reactors at Three Mile Island, along with seven others in the U.S., has no new orders. General Electric has received no orders since 1975.

To make matters worse, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission lost credibility because of the Three Mile Island accident and has yet to get it back. The special commission appointed by the President to investigate the accident called the NRC, in the words of Commission Chairman John Kemeny, "an agency hypnotized by equipment." This faith in technology, charged the investigators, was at least partially to blame for the lax safety procedures and lack of qualified personnel that they felt contributed to the Three Mile Island nightmare.

The industry and the watchdog NRC have responded to the recommendations of the Kemeny commission by taking steps to improve the nation's reactors and upgrade the qualifications of the people who operate them (see box). But the reforms have not been sweeping enough to impress many nuclear power critics. "It is dismaying a year later, and after the forcefulness of the Kemeny commission recommendations, to realize how little has been done," said Eric van Loon, executive director of the Union of Concerned Scientists, which has long warned of safety problems in the industry. "There is the widespread perception that whatever noises it might make, the NRC doesn't seem to implement anything."

His attitude is not entirely unfair.

Three nuclear plants were closed earlier this year when they failed to meet new NRC requirements. But 15 others, whose owners claimed that they could not get necessary equipment in time to meet the deadline, were allowed to continue operating under a dispensation from the NRC. Nor has Congress acted to put into effect the sweeping recommendations of the Kemeny commission, which urged the replacement of the NRC with an Executive Branch agency headed by a nuclear czar.

Since the accident, the active anti-nuclear movement is only slightly stronger than it was before, but the ranks of those who feel uneasy about the atom have swelled enormously. While a recent Harris poll found a majority of Americans still in favor of nuclear power, it also showed a similar majority to be opposed to the building of nuclear plants in their own communities. An attempt to limit the output of existing plants and prevent the construction of new ones was voted down in 1976 in California. Voters in six states have also defeated measures to curtail the use of atomic power, but a referendum to close Maine's only nuclear power plant could succeed. Nuclear foes there have managed to get a referendum on the ballot this fall that will seek to shut down the Maine Yankee Atomic Power Plant at Wiscasset. If approved, the campaign would be the first in the nation to close an operating nuclear plant.

The success of such an antinuclear campaign--and the decline of the U.S. nuclear industry--could prove ironic; for, they would come at a time when other countries were moving ahead with strong programs. The Soviet Union plans to expand its nuclear power facilities rapidly. It now operates 28 plants--some very small--that generate about 2% of its power. Within five years, the atom will supply 10% of the electricity. France, which has Europe's most ambitious nuclear program, has 15 reactors in operation, another 31 under construction and 22 more in various stages of planning. By 1985 the French hope to be getting 50% of their electric-energy from the atom.

The energetic programs of the French put them in an excellent position to exploit the U.S. slowdown. After conducting a four-year, $4.1 million review of U.S. energy requirements, the National Academy of Sciences and the Department of Energy predict that in the next two decades the U.S. will still need to rely on nuclear power. As demand rises, the moribund American nuclear industry may be unable to start up rapidly enough to meet the country's needs. Then, in an irony that the French, at least, are sure to savor, the nation that developed the first nuclear power plant will have to buy the equipment it needs from abroad.

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