US Antinuclear Movement Resurges

The past few weeks have seen one of the worst disasters in recent history, with the earthquake that hit Japan. This natural disaster not only destroyed much of the country while killing thousands of citizens, it also destabilized the nuclear reactors in the country. This destabilization has greatly increased the chance of a nuclear explosion of devastating proportions. This threat looms large enough to have influenced policy around the world. In the United States, the nuclear threat present in Japan has reintroduced some difficult questions into the political sphere, namely, whether nuclear power is too unsafe to pursue.

In 1973, President Richard Nixon revealed plans to increase American reliance upon nuclear power by having 1,000 nuclear reactors by the year 2000. This promise, however, never came to pass as 2011 America has only 104 operating reactors. The cause of this shortage was the strong anti-nuclear movements that dominated the conversation in the 1970’s and early 1980’s. This movement, combined with increased regulation of the industry, served to seriously dampen growth.

In the months before the crisis in Japan, however, President Obama had been making a strong push to increase nuclear power plants within the United States. This was in an effort to decrease greenhouse gas emissions by moving away from the burning of fossil fuels for energy. While this initiative had earned bipartisan support, the situation in Japan is sure to alter this. It is even probable that a renewed anti-nuclear movement will sprout from the disaster, thereby halting the construction nuclear reactors for another couple of decades.

Mark Cherry

Article: Japan Crisis Could Rekindle US Antinuclear Movement

Photo: Scientific American