For nuclear power, 1979 was the year when the worst finally happened—or almost happened. The accident at the Three Mile Island reactor in the spring of the year was both better and worse than what many had feared would happen if the safety systems on its nuclear reactor broke down. The good news was that the reactor did not melt down, and indeed, very little of the inventory of fission products escaped into the environment. The bad news was that so many different things went wrong —especially human errors, compounded by instrument failures. And no one had ever anticipated the appearance of a large and potentially dangerous bubble of hydrogen. The question a year later is whether we have learned anything from the experience.
The accident sparked a full-fledged investigation by a commission headed by John G. Kemeny, president of Dartmouth College. The Commission's report, which came out in the fall, is perhaps more notable for what it did not say than for what it did.
What was said. The report criticized operator training and qualifications criteria, other aspects of human failure, and the design of controls in the reactor control room. Obviously, the on-again, off-again drama about whether to evacuate Harrisburg had left its mark: the Kemeny Commission had a good deal to say about emergency planning, or the lack thereof. The states, which were supposed to have made emergency plans for their nuclear reactors long ago, will finally get them if the Commission's recommendations are followed. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) was also urged to review safety at all nuclear plants, and to delay licensing until the review was completed. Finally, the NRC as an institution was given a negative vote of confidence in several Kemeny Commission recommendations—in particular, one that suggested that the five-member commission should he replaced by a single administrator.
The recommendations could be taken as reassuring and useful, if implementing them would measurably improve nuclear safety: unfortunately, there are grave doubts that the recommended changes would help significantly. Remote siting is at best an inadequate answer to the nuclear problem, because no one actually knows where a radioactive cloud will go from one minute to the next. Our customary assessments depend on statistical analyses of weather conditions, but the behavior of radioactivity in any given accident is unpredictable. Emergency planning schemes can be mandated, but whether they will actually work in this age of congestion and vehicle dominance is arguable. Even if evacuation could work in theory, organizational difficulties might get in the way. The division of responsibility between states and the federal government that existed before will still exist under new guidelines and can be expected to continue to hamper efforts to make practical evaluations possible.
The outlook might be more promising for improving human performance, both in operating the reactors and inside the NRC. For one thing, the biggest obstacle to coping with a first accident is that nobody believes that it can really happen. Indeed, the shock wave that ran through the nuclear industry was probably the result of an implicit assumption that there never really would be an accident. This complacency has now ended. Utilities and regulators will be on the alert. Operators will probably be better trained and more careful.
As for institutional changes, veterans of the NRC might question whether changing that organization can accomplish anything useful. Faces can change, organizational charts can be redrawn, but regulation is a difficult business, in nuclear safety as well as in interstate transportation tariffs.
What was not said. The Kemeny Commission was not expected to solve all nuclear problems, and what was not said bears equal emphasis with what was. There was little guidance given on specific safety designs that can be added to existing or new plants, nor was there an assessment of whether reactors are safe enough. The official Kemeny Commission report opined that reactors are evidently not completely safe, but that the country might need nuclear power and would put up with the risk. Such an observation is hardly new and contributes precious little to the national dialogue.
The lack of really new technical suggestions for safety in the aftermath of the Kemeny report is noteworthy. What does this imply? Is it that safety is good enough already, or—as many of the critics of the light water reactor have feared—that nothing much more can be done? If the light water reactor is inherently an unsafe design, nuclear power is in deep trouble.
The year was not good for nuclear power in other ways. Several court and agency decisions gave compensation to members of the armed forces exposed to radioactivity during nuclear tests several decades ago. These decisions raise the question: how dangerous is low-level radiation? The answer will make an enormous difference in the public's assessment of the probable seriousness of future accidents. Our present evacuation plans, siting requirements, and emergency cooling systems are all based on the premise that the effects of radioactivity fall proportionately with the doses that people get. If the army tests suggest that low-level doses are hazardous, public concern will mount. But no definitive analysis of the health effects of nuclear tests exists.
Next steps. The president has announced his support for most of the Kemeny Commission's recommendations—but in modified form. For example, he proposes keeping the Nuclear Regulatory Commissioners, but that exception may not be too important. More to the point, most of the Kemeny recommendations are so bland that the administration can adopt them with almost no political or organizational discomfort.
If the administration has now made its uneasy peace with nuclear power, it may be to Congress that we must now look for the real consequences of the accident and the Kemeny report. We will then see if sentiment among the public and in Congress for and against nuclear power comes into some kind of consensus. Whether the consensus would be to turn off or turn on the nuclear option within the next year or so, a definite decision would enable the nation to get on with its work in planning for energy strategies for the post-1973 age of more expensive energy.
A version of this article appeared in print in the January 1980 issue of Resources magazine.
