Word: plante
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...plumbing goes, nuclear power plants exceed Rube Goldberg's wildest fantasies. The basic idea sounds simple-unstable heavy atoms, like those of uranium 235, break up (fission). Scattered in all directions are electrically neutral particles called neutrons as well as fission products such as shortlived radioactive xenon, krypton and iodine. The neutrons hit still other atoms like errant billiard balls in a chain reaction that produces heat. But obtaining useful energy from this process can be extremely complex. Pennsylvania's Three Mile Island nuclear plant has two pressurized water reactors. Such reactors are based on a design pioneered...
...such consumer products as microwave ovens and TV sets and production of nuclear power. Radiation sickness is almost certain at exposures of around 50,000 millirems. The Government has set a permissible annual level of radiation exposure for the general public of 500 millirems and for nuclear power plant workers 5,000 millirems. But these standards have been sharply questioned by radiation biologists, physicians and other scientists, and the Government is now reviewing its policy...
...possible to avoid radiation, you should do so. But the Pennsylvania doses being talked about are so low that they could not induce cancer in man. Even children and fetuses would be unaffected." Also, the Environmental Protection Agency says that the emissions from the Three Mile Island plant involved only the inert gases krypton and xenon, which are thought to cause little damage to tissue, and not particles of radioactive iodine and strontium, both of which can enter the food chain. Radiation Biologist and Pediatrician Robert Brent of Philadelphia's Jefferson Medical College agrees that the health risks...
...produce electricity so abundantly and cheaply that it would not have to be metered: the American people could just pay a low monthly charge and use as much as they wished. That naive optimism has long since vanished in the wake of zooming construction costs, endless delays in getting plants built and growing public opposition. In 22 years of commercial operation, nuclear power has won only a modest role in the nation's total energy picture. Now, in the shock of the Three Mile Island nightmare, the question arises whether reactors will ever be able-or be allowed...
...reason is that electric power demand is growing much more slowly than it had been in the 1960s and early 1970s. Another is that nuclear construction costs have risen to about $1,000 a kilowatt, from $100 in the 1960s. This compares with $700 for a coal-fired plant. The two main causes are general inflation and the long delays in getting a plant built because of legal challenges by opponents. Says Charles Cicchetti, chairman of the Wisconsin public service commission: "It's time to jump off the nuclear bandwagon." Nonetheless, the industry contends that nuclear plants...