ATOMIC ENERGY: Roadblock to Progress

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A major roadblock to the nation's private atomic power program was raised last week by the U.S. Court of Appeals. In a 2-to-1 opinion, the court ruled that the Atomic Energy Commission must sus pend a "provisional" construction permit for an $83 million, 100,000-kw. nuclear power plant near Monroe, Mich, because "it has not been positively established" that the plant can be operated safely. The AEC license to the Power Reactor De velopment Co. — a combine of Detroit Edison Co., 17 other utilities and seven manufacturing firms — was challenged by a group of unions led by Walter Reuther's United Auto Workers. While they raised the issue of safety, their more important aim was to push the cause of public atomic power. Private-powermen say the unions want to force the plant to be shifted to a remoter area, where industry could not afford to build it, thus force the Government to do so.

The plant, on which AEC is spending only $4,500,000 of the cost, has been un der construction since 1956 and is sched uled to be completed this fall. It would be the first big U.S. plant with a fast-breeder reactor, the type most likely to produce competitively cheap atomic power, since it produces more atom fuel than it consumes. At AEC hearings, a group of top scientists, led by Professor Hans A. Bethe of Cornell, testified that the plant could be operated without undue risk to the public. City officials of Monroe said they welcomed the plant. AEC is expected to appeal the three-man court's decision to a nine-man court of appeals or the U.S. Supreme Court.