Nuclear power looking better as other energy concerns rise

WASHINGTON - Nuclear power is making a comeback two decades after the Three Mile Island reactor accident.

Soaring natural gas prices, concerns about climate change and fear that California blackouts will spread have made electricity from the atom more attractive, though critics still worry about safety and what to do with radioactive waste.

For the first time in decades, there is serious talk about building a new nuclear power plant in the United States. At least one utility has suggested it may submit a license application to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission within a few years.

This stirring of interest for a new reactor "would have been unthinkable even a year ago," says the commission chairman, Richard Meserve, who has directed a task force to examine how to handle a new license application.

Not since 1973 has an American utility sought to license and gone on to open a new nuclear power plant. Only a few years ago, industry analysts predicted scores of electric power reactors would be shuttered under the economic pressures of electricity deregulation.

Instead, the country's 103 commercial reactors are churning out power at unprecedented efficiency, safety indictors have improved steadily, reactors put up for sale are attracting eager bidders, and the line of applications for 20-year license renewals is growing.

Nuclear power was stunned almost into submission 22 years ago by the Three Mile Island reactor meltdown near Harrisburg, Pa., and was pummeled further a few years later by the Russian disaster at Chernobyl.

Without a serious accident in years, nuclear power also is gaining acceptance at the grass roots. Half the people queried in a new Associated Press poll support using reactors to produce electricity, compared with 45 percent just two years ago. And 56 percent of the supporters say they would not mind a nuclear plant within 10 miles of their home.