Word: chernobyls
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...that was not involved in the 1979 accident there. In New Hampshire and on New York's Long Island, antinuclear forces stepped up their campaigns against licensing of the Seabrook and Shoreham plants, arguing that what happened north of Kiev could just as easily happen there. "The accident at Chernobyl makes it clear," said Ellyn Weiss, general counsel of the Cambridge, Mass.-based Union of Concerned Schentists. "Nuclear power is inherently dangerous." Maurice Barbash is a builder who heads a Long Island citizens' group opposed to Shoreham. Last week he was more determined than ever to stop the project. Said...
...Chernobyl accident, though, had little immediate effect on American views of nuclear power. For the past several years, network news polls have shown about 60% of the public opposed to building any new plants. Similar surveys taken after the Soviet disaster did not reveal any marked increase in the number of opponents...
Nonetheless, Chernobyl cannot help having an impact on the beleaguered U.S. nuclear industry. Even before the accident at Three Mile Island melted down the credibility of pronuclear organizations, the industry was in trouble. Caught between climbing construction costs, high interest rates and unexpectedly slow growth in the demand for electricity, American utilities stopped ordering new nuclear plants in 1978. After the accident at Three Mile Island, some reactor salesmen tossed away their order books entirely...
These blows left nuclear power moribund, like a patient who needs a respirator in order to survive. Now many fear that the accident at Chernobyl could prove to be the event that pulls the plug. "We're in trouble," conceded Carl Walske, the president of the Bethesda, Md.-based Atomic Industrial Forum, the lobbying group that speaks for the industry. "Before the accident, we could visualize the resumption of orders within about five years. We are still hoping that this will occur, but we expect that there will be some negative effect from a setback like this. If the calls...
There were lessons for the U.S. nuclear industry to learn from the Chernobyl accident. An important one was that authorities must be able to evacuate people living near nuclear plants, quickly moving them out of the path of any radioactive releases. Soviet officials had to clear out four communities with very little warning. It is hard to imagine how people living around some American nuclear facilities, including Indian Point, Zion and Limerick, which are located near the major population centers of New York City, Chicago and Philadelphia respectively, could be quickly evacuated...