Nation: Nuclear Freeze

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Longer ban on new plants

Since the accident at Three Mile Island in March, there has been a temporary ban on new nuclear plants in the U.S. Last week the Nuclear Regulatory Commission announced that the freeze will continue for at least six months and possibly for as long as two years.

During the moratorium, the NRC will establish more stringent safety regulations for the 72 nuclear plants that now generate 11.5% of the nation's electricity as well as for the 92 plants still under construction. The new rules will include two of the most urgent recommendations of the presidential commission, which was headed by Dartmouth President John Kemeny. One was for stiffer training of plant operators. The other was for emergency evacuation plans for people living within a ten-mile radius of nuclear plants.

The freeze will affect four plants that would have been ready for licensing next month: Sequoyah 1 reactor in Daisy, Tenn.; Salem 2 in Lower Alloways Creek Township, N.J.; North Anna 2 near Mineral, Va.; and Diablo Canyon 1 near San Luis Obispo, Calif. If the licensing ban continues throughout 1980, at least seven more plants will be delayed.

In addition, NRC Chairman Joseph Hendrie told the House Subcommittee on Energy and Power that some existing nukes may be unable to meet the new safety rules and therefore may have to reduce their generating output. He also disclosed that the NRC is considering ordering a shutdown of some plants now operating in heavily populated areas. Said Hendrie: "In some of the older sites, the population density is such that evacuation might not be entirely successful in the worst kinds of accidents." He refused to specify which plants he had in mind, but two possibilities are the ones at Indian Point, 36 miles north of New York City, and Zion, Ill., 41 miles north of Chicago.

Industry spokesmen denounced the moratorium. Said Carl Walske, president of the Atomic Industrial Forum: "The nation can ill afford an indefinite hold on nuclear licensing or one that is subject to politically inspired delays."

At week's end the NRC staff took another strong stand on safety by recommending that the commission fine the Consumers Power Co. of Jackson, Mich., $450,000 for having left valves open in its reactor containment building from April 1978 until last September. If there had been an accident during those 18 months, radioactive materials could have spewed out of the building. The fine would be the largest penalty ever imposed on a U.S. nuclear power company, nearly three times more than the fine levied against the operators of the Three Mile Island plant.