Environment: The Struggle over Nuclear Power

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Horror Tale. All four cited the same basic reasons for their resignations: inadequate protection of the public from nuclear hazards. The public, said the San Jose Three in a statement to the Congressional Joint Committee on Atomic Energy, "has a right to know that an electrical appliance, such as a toaster or hair dryer, has more stringent safety checks than the electrical instruments that control a nuclear plant."

What concerns these nuclear engineers—and many of their fellow protesters—is not any possibility that a conventional nuclear plant will blow up in a mushroom cloud and wipe out a city. All but a few ignorant hysterics recognize that that is impossible. What they do fear, however, is a "meltdown," which can occur if a reactor loses the water used to control the temperature of its uranium core. The four claim that safety systems designed to prevent accidents have not undergone enough testing. If they failed in a crisis, say the four, the results could be disastrous.

They could indeed. An uncooled core would build up heat, melt and drop to the bottom of its container (see diagram). Its heat would vaporize whatever water remained and the pressure of the resulting steam could burst the containment vessel and rupture the outer reactor container as well. This could release a radioactive cloud that would drift wherever the wind blew it. Depending on the location of the plant, such an accident could result in numerous immediate deaths from radiation and even more later from radiation-induced cancers. Far from being a horror tale, insists the nuclear opposition, such a mishap could well occur if nuclear plants are allowed to proliferate.

Nuclear power opponents are jubilant over the resignations and the safety issues thus spotlighted. The anti-nuclear movement has been searching for just such an event to convert the public. The resignations, said Richard Sextro, the Sierra Club's coordinator for passage of Proposition 15, "renewed people's concern that individuals and companies in technology are split."

Just what effect the resignations will have on the California initiative is uncertain. Project Survival President James Burch, who helped arrange the defection of the three GE engineers, is not overly optimistic about the impact on the initiative. But others feel that the resignations, with a few more expected, can only help the anti-nuclear movement in California and other states.

Old Questions. In public at least, nuclear industry officials have tended to play down the political effect of the resignations. "Speaking in radiation terms, how long a half-life will the issue have?" asked one GE spokesman. "I doubt it will last significantly for the next four months." Some of the San Jose Three's quondam colleagues have attempted to portray them as unrealistic idealists because they are members of a self-improvement group called the Creative Initiative Foundation. Others are trying to offset the resignations with strongly pro-nuclear statements.