LITMIR.BIZ

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for greater use of domestic natural gas. I reported on wind farms in Alaska and at Altamont Pass, site of the disastrous 1969 Stones concert. I visited an experimental tidal energy plant in the Bay of Fundy (shades of New England river mills!) and laid plans to see one on the Brittany coast. I visited an Arizona shopping center powered by the sun and a solar housing development in the hills above L.A. But these technologies were having a hard time gaining traction. Every time the price of oil dropped, investors blinked and put their wallets back in their pockets. The venerable coal industry was still a significant part of our energy mix, especially for big-city electric generation, so I spent a few days tramping around coal mines in West Virginia, glad I didn’t have to do that to make a living. Then, of course, there was nuclear power, which was finally taking hold in the U.S. as well as certain European countries and the USSR.

      At the end of March, Jimmy Carter’s Middle East virtuoso performance was capped by a White House signing ceremony. Following the initial euphoria, it took half a year of head knocking to bring Sadat and Begin around. Normalization of relations would come next year. Carter had exactly three days to savor his triumph. My first word was a call from Fred. “Get your bag together, you’re on your way to Harrisburg P.A.”

      “Harrisburg, Pennsylvania on the Susquehanna River. Steel, farming, railroads. What’s going on?”

      “You see China Syndrome?”

      “Last weekend, in fact. A good film, though I cannot abide Jane Fonda. You’ll find tickets and dinner on my expense report, category of research.”

      “We’ll see about that. Meantime, take a look at the TV. A nuclear powerplant there is coming unglued. You’re on an eleven-thirty flight. See Sandy. Ciao.”

      During the short flight I flipped through the folder I had grabbed racing out the door. Nuclear means clean, abundant power, predictable if not low costs. Also, down the road, the prospect of cutting loose those who take our money with one hand and stab us with the other. The protest industry’s cause du jour, nuclear’s risks had been blown way out of proportion.

      Ambitious politicians like Teddy Kennedy were lining up against, and they’d have a field day if the incident toward which I sped was as serious as first reports indicated. To me it was the height of irresponsibility to ignore the issue – what is the alternative? My own view, nuclear has been haunted by its horrific first use, also by our anxiety from living so long with the threat of nuclear annihilation. As for the nuclear genie escaping the Big Power bottle, if peaceful technologies could be diverted to military use, that was a legitimate concern.

      Our landing approach gave me a good view. On the sandbar called Three Mile Island were not one, but two nuclear powerplants. No dense white clouds of the kind that typically belch from the cooling towers, only a few wisps of steam. I picked up a rental car and made the short drive to the plant. Press pass in hand, I worked my way through the crowd of police and security guards and found myself in a cramped conference room converted to a media briefing room. There were plenty of us, radio, TV, print reporters, photographers. This had been the day’s top story since coming across the AP wire around nine.

      The facts were sketchy. Shortly after 4 a.m. pumps supplying water to TMI-2’s steam generators stopped running – it wasn’t known why – then safety systems shut down the turbine and the generator it powered. But the temperature continued to rise, decaying radioactive materials still heating water around the core. Water carries heat from the nuclear core and creates the steam that spins the turbines that produce the electricity. As this water is heated, the reactor is cooled, otherwise it overheats and, in the extreme, melts down. A faulty water pump may not sound like much, but it is a big, big deal. Metropolitan Edison’s spokesmen said they’d there has been no radiation leak, “everything is under control, no danger exists to public health and safety.” But why did the water pump stop running? What were they doing to identify the problem and contain it? Short answer, they didn’t know. Maybe tomorrow. Not a hundred yards from what might be a nuclear time bomb, this was not reassuring.

      About eight I checked in at the motel and began writing. They were holding the lead position on page one. Our Washington bureau would report on the federal response and Governor Thornburg’s reaction. On CBS Walter Cronkite dipped into doomsday language several times. Before filing I flipped channels to see whether local news might have spotted anything I had missed. Next morning over room-service breakfast I perused the Times and a Patriot-News from the gift shop. For the Gazette a joint byline, yours truly from Middletown, Pa, and Al Starkey from Washington, under the headline –

      PENNSYLVANIA NUCLEAR ACCIDENT

      RADIATION LEAK PROBED

      Some residents were heading for their in-laws, others stayed put behind closed doors. Most businesses remained open, hoping for the best. It turned out, the problem was from mechanical failure and human error, a common combination. Radiation leakage, not a threat outside the facility, was massive inside the reactor building. Cooling system failure had allowed nuclear fuel to melt and contaminate the coolant, which escaped and flowed into the basement of the reactor. On the third day NRC experts reported that a hydrogen gas bubble was trapped in the pressurizer above the reactor core. Asked if a catastrophic explosion was possible, the scientist admitted it was. Governor Thornburg issued a recommendation that pregnant women and children under two evacuate for five miles around.

      As Kennedy and the critics attacked, Jimmy Carter tried desperately to shore up nuclear as a mainstay in our drive for energy independence, visiting Three Mile Island at the height of the emergency. Several days in, the experts defused the hydrogen bubble and ended the immediate crisis. TMI-2 was shut down, and when their operating license expired in 2014, both units would be decommissioned.

      Back in New York I reported on the political fallout (sorry). A march on the nation’s capitol demanded an immediate shutdown of all nuclear plants. The NRC stopped issuing new nuclear plant permits and New York state banned all construction. Anti-nuclear was part of a growing national preoccupation with danger and harm prevention. Some called this paranoia, I reported, noting that things go wrong, machines fail and hurt people, chemicals have side effects. Cranberries, no. 2 red dye, saccharine, seat belts, bike helmets, now the ubiquitous warning label. And a spate of environmental laws – Endangered Species Act, National Environmental Policy Act, clean air and water legislation. Not only was the Robert Moses era dead and buried, today it is inconceivable. No longer is it possible in any reasonable time to gain approval for even clearly beneficial projects.

      THE BIG LOSER WAS JIMMY CARTER, nuclear engineer, champion of technology. Protestors, public opinion and panicked politicians excised his alternative energy program’s vital core. The timing couldn’t have been worse. The turmoil in Iran would deny that country’s oil to us for an indefinite time. Inflation raged as people watched their paychecks and savings fall in value. “Can do” was an echo of a distant, quaint time, supplanted by gloom and pessimism. It was un-American, a betrayal of our social compact, that what you worked all your life for could just slip away.

      His approval rating below twenty-five percent, Carter decided to go on the offensive. In a nationally televised speech, he asked the nation to join him in overcoming its “crisis of spirit” and adapt to a new age of limits. Carter scolded those who “tend to worship self-indulgence and consumption.” This floored me. Saying that to a nation built on producing, selling and buying! A strong reaction set in against what became known as Carter’s “malaise” speech. Two days later he asked his entire cabinet to resign and several who had clashed with him, including James Schlesinger, found theirs accepted. Charlie Stebbins said Carter meant to signal a new start, a breath of fresh air. Instead it came across as bumbling and incompetence. The people wanted leadership, not preaching.

      ON A DREARY AFTERNOON some good news blew in and cleared the skies big time. We won the Pulitzer! The newsroom saw it come over the wires, and as I dragged in from an interminable press conference my colleagues stood and cheered. I reached Diane at her office – she’d just heard. Tom O’Connor called our team together, one thing led to another and the day ended in a fizzy celebration. I wonder how many goofs made it into the next day’s early edition. We won for Public Service, granddaddy of the journalism Pulitzers, for “a distinguished example

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