A Stillborn Nuclear Renaissance
Chernobyl and Three Mile Island did not stop nuclear power growth. Will the Japan nuclear crisis at Fukushima delay or end the ‘nuclear renaissance’? Governments are reassessing their plans.
Popular reaction to the Fukushima nuclear crisis in Japan is causing governments the world over to reconsider plans for developing more nuclear power plants. “As media reports of workers heroically trying to head off multiple meltdowns in the smoking bowels of the stricken Fukushima Daiichi-I nuclear power plant played over scenes of thousands of evacuees fleeing radiation after Japan’s powerful earthquake and tsunami, the global nuclear power industry was facing its own public relations meltdown. Even staunch nuclear advocates on Capitol Hill are calling for a timeout on new U.S. nuclear plants in order to learn lessons from Japan’s tragedy.”
