Word: reactor
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...released this month, shows a sudden upsurge in support for nuclear power following a decade of rejection. As the world worries about global warming and acid rain, even some environmentalists are looking a bit more kindly on the largest power source that doesn't worsen either problem: nuclear. New reactor designs would make accidents like Chernobyl and Three Mile Island impossible, or so the engineers say, and while much of the public is skeptical, some scientists are persuaded...
...process further, the Administration wants Westinghouse, General Electric and other suppliers of nuclear plants to build them to a standard design that would be relatively simple to repair and maintain. France, which generates 75% of its electricity from the atom -- more than any other nation -- has used a standard reactor since the mid-1970s, enabling any nuclear engineer or plant operator to work on 52 of the country's 55 plants at a moment's notice. By contrast, each of the 112 U.S. nuclear plants, which produce 21% of the nation's electricity, was custom built at its site...
...nuclear power. "We have no plans to build a nuclear plant," says Pam Chapman, a spokeswoman for Indiana's PSI Energy. The troubled company is still reeling from the financial crisis that sandbagged it in 1984, when it wrote off $2.7 billion in construction costs for a half-built reactor. Concurs Gary Neale, president of nearby Northern Indiana Public Service Co., which scrubbed a barely started nuclear plant in 1981: "We're not antinuclear, but given the size of our company, I just don't think it ever would be practical...
...nuclear power currently practical for any other firms in America, Wall Street experts argue. "The first utility that announces plans to build a new nuclear reactor will see its stock dumped," warns Leonard Hyman, who watches electric companies for Merrill Lynch. Hyman estimates that abandoned U.S. nuclear projects have generated some $10 billion of losses for the utilities' stockholders. "Investors are not quite ready to warm up to nuclear power just yet," says Hyman. "They're still recovering from their first chilling experience -- and it was very chilling." He adds, "There is no demand for new plants, because...
...federally run Tennessee Valley Authority could be another deep-pocketed customer for the first new reactor. TVA chairman Marvin Runyon says he may order a nuclear plant by the end of the decade. TVA also plans to restart one of three nuclear reactors at its Browns Ferry plant, near Athens, Ala., this summer. The facility had a serious fire in the mid-1970s and shut down in 1985 to correct safety problems. Runyon likes atomic energy because it is clean, but he lists four conditions that must be met if nukes are to regain the public's trust: "One-step...