Donn reports that there was a time, not too long ago, that the U.S. nuclear industry was probably the most important, and viable, in the world. Today, the remaining nuclear adversaries still beat the warning drums, but why?
In the mid 1960s, GE bet the company by making huge investments in three strategic businesses - mainframe computers, jet engines, and nuclear power. GE believed that nuclear power would be a large growth business. In 1979, the partial meltdown at Three Mile Island was followed, in 1986, by the Chernobyl disaster. These two accidents, though Chernobyl could hardly be called an accident because it resulted from unauthorized testing at low power levels in a poorly designed reactor, gave those opposed to nuclear power leverage in the PR war. The China Syndrome movie epitomized the inaccurate picture of the dangers of nuclear power, and Jane Fonda, Jack Lemmon and Michael Douglas brought star power to the anti-nuclear campaign in pandering to the American people.
The organizations opposing nuclear power now had a rallying cry - Radiation kills, and a meltdown would result in radiation exposure to millions. The premise of the movie, The China Syndrome, was that a reactor meltdown would result in tons of molten radioactive material burrowing through the bottom of the reactor building, and exploding as it encountered the groundwater below into a radioactive cloud, which, as the Fonda character says, could render an area the size of Pennsylvania permanently uninhabitable. All of which was pure nonsense. While totally inaccurate, these groups were able to instill fear of radiation into the minds of many Americans via WWII A-bomb fear.
Though this fear was irrational, and completely unwarranted by the facts, it was a powerful force in the anti-nuclear campaign. However, now excellent books and papers show that radiation is nothing to be feared, but the constant drum beat by anti-nuclear groups continues today. Not so fast. Rationality may prevail yet.
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