The Demise of Nuclear Power: What Comes Next?
The U.S. nuclear industry, hurting from a decade of bad news, got no comfort in the early months of 1984. In January the Marble Hill plants in Indianaon which $2.5 billion had been spentwere canceled, and the Cincinnati Gas and Electric Company gave up hope of finishing the Zimmer plant, supposedly 97 percent complete. Battles raged over who would pay for the canceled "Whoops" plants in Washington State; and in New Hampshire the $9-billion Seabrook reactors threatened to bankrupt the Public Service Company of New Hampshire. It is easy to forget that the 1980s were supposed to be a boom decade for the nuclear power industry around the world. This has not been the case in most countries, but nowhere has the failure been so devastating as in the United States. Since the mid-1970s, U.S. utilities have canceled more than ninety nuclear projects, with a net loss in future generating capacity sufficient to meet the total power needs of any nation on earth except the Soviet Union or the United States. Well after the accident at Three Mile Island, U.S. opinion polls show public confidence in nuclear power continuing to decline; a majority now opposes its further expansion. Poor operating records and a series of small accidents have produced new opposition, and waste disposal and the proliferation of nuclear weapons remain important issues. But nuclear power's most fundamental problem today is economic. Years of cost overruns have destroyed the financial underpinnings of the U.S. nuclear power program. At a time of high interest rates and only moderate growth in the demand for power, these massive costs have priced nuclear power out of the market and may foreshadow major changes in the utility industry. It has been more than a decade since a U.S. utility ordered a nuclear plant that was not subsequently canceled. About forty plants are under construction this yeara figure that could drop to near zero by the end of the 1980s. The country that led the world into the nuclear age may well lead the way out.