103 places of danger and toxic waste for 20% ?
http://thenation.com/doc.mhtml?i=20040405&s=hertsgaardThree Mile Island
On the morning of September 11, 2001, after the second plane hit the World Trade Center and it was clear that the nation was under attack, US authorities issued an emergency alert, grounding air traffic and ordering nuclear power stations and other potential terrorist targets to go to their highest level of security. At the Three Mile Island nuclear plant in Pennsylvania, security guards sprang into action but soon ran into trouble: A gate designed to keep attackers out of the plant refused to close. Two hours later the guards were still struggling to shut it.
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But the legacy of September 11 may thwart these plans. The fourth plane hijacked that day crashed a mere 120 miles from Three Mile Island, highlighting the vulnerability of nuclear plants to terrorist attack. The industry rushed out a claim that government tests had shown nuclear plants withstanding a direct hit from a 757 jet. But the scientists at the Sandia National Laboratory who conducted those tests disavowed that conclusion. Meanwhile, other government tests had found that security forces at nuclear plants had failed to repel mock terrorist attacks more than 50 percent of the time--even though the forces knew well in advance exactly what day the "terrorists" were coming. Such shortcomings will surely raise concerns among any state or local public officials considering approval of new nuclear plants.
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So, twenty-five years after Three Mile Island, nuclear power is still not dead in the United States. As the industry pushes for a revival, it has two advantages: US electricity demand is growing steadily as the Internet revolution advances; and, although most environmentalists won't admit it, the industry has a point about the deadly effects of today's dominant source of electricity production, coal. Coal smoke has killed millions of people over the past three centuries, including today, while its carbon content has pushed the climate toward a potentially catastrophic instability. Nuclear power may kill millions of people someday, but it hasn't yet, and the longer the industry goes without another major accident, the more attractive nuclear will look--assuming, of course, that its costs are reduced. Better than either coal or nuclear would be a wholesale shift to a less centralized energy system based on solar and other renewables, using improved energy efficiency as the bridge to get there. But all these are political choices. The nuclear option will stay alive as long as the government keeps subsidizing it, and that seems likely as long as George W. Bush is President.
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