Word: reactor
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Last week the federal Nuclear Regulatory Commission opened the debate to the public for the first time. Its concern was anything but academic, since it has to decide whether to approve a license to export 12,261 kg. of Government-owned enriched uranium to fuel a reactor in India. In 1974 Indian scientists used fissionable materials, taken from a Canadian reactor, to build what they called a "peaceful nuclear device." After the bomb was exploded, Canada shut off nuclear aid to India. To keep the U.S. from following suit, the Indian government pledged to use American materials exclusively...
...their dependence on Middle Eastern oil. At the same time, the U.S.'s share of an expanding world nuclear market has fallen from 85% in 1972 to 40% today. Federal policymakers' concerns about proliferation problems have not helped. While U.S. agencies have held up American companies' reactor sales abroad, other competitors have moved aggressively. Just last June, a French consortium won a $1 billion contract to build two reactors in South Africa'. West Germany earlier this year captured a $5 billion nuclear job in Brazil and another worth $7 billion in Iran. Between...
...currently providing 54 Iranians with nuclear power reactor training under a similar program paid for by the Iranian government. That program has not yet come under fire...
Even that sort of growth seemed unlikely early this year, when the very restrictive Proposition 15 held a lead in California public opinion polls. The proposition would have banned all new atomic power plants and even forced the gradual shutdown of the three reactors now producing electricity in California unless two conditions were met. First, utilities and reactor manufacturers had to accept unlimited liability for damage claims that might arise out of a nuclear accident (at present, federal law limits their liability to $560 million per accident). Second, both houses of the California legislature had to certify...
...consumerists and some scientists, enlisted Singer John Denver to raise money by giving rock concerts. Movie Star Robert Redford also joined their cause. The anti-nukes sent up to 5,000 young people a weekend on doorbell-ringing visits throughout the state. They harped on the idea that a reactor meltdown could release a cloud of radioactivity that, in the words of one pamphlet, "could contaminate hundreds of square miles, forcing you to abandon your home, bankrupting your employer and giving thousands of children thyroid cancers." Toward the end, the anti-nuclear forces tried to portray the vote...