The Jane Fonda effect

Is there a bigger global warming villain than Jane Fonda, ask Stephen J. Dubner and Steven D. Levitt, the authors of "Freakonomics."

"The China Syndrome" opened on March 16, 1979. With the no-nukes protest movement in full swing, the movie was attacked by the nuclear industry as an irresponsible act of leftist fear-mongering. Twelve days later, an accident occurred at the Three Mile Island (TMI) nuclear plant in south-central Pennsylvania.

Stoked by "The China Syndrome," the accident at TMI created widespread panic:

The nuclear industry, already foundering as a result of economic, regulatory and public pressures, halted plans for further expansion.

And so, instead of becoming a nation with clean and cheap nuclear energy, as once seemed inevitable, the United States kept building power plants that burned coal and other fossil fuels.

Today such plants account for 40 per cent of the country's energy-related carbon-dioxide emissions.

Despite the unintended consequences of Jane Fonda, nuclear power may be making a comeback in the United States. Could it be that nuclear energy, risks and all, is preferable to global warming?

There are plans for more than two dozen new reactors on the drawing board and billions of dollars in potential federal loan guarantees.

Even though the development of new nuclear plants stalled by the early 1980s, the country's 104 reactors today produce nearly 20 per cent of the electricity the nation consumes.

This share has actually grown over the years along with our consumption, since nuclear technology has become more efficient.

While the fixed costs of a new nuclear plant are higher than those of a coal or natural-gas plant, the energy is cheaper to create: Exelon, the largest nuclear company in the United States, claims to produce electricity at 1.3 cents per kilowatt-hour, compared with 2.2 cents for coal.

Source: Stephen J. Dubner and Steven D. Levitt, The Jane Fonda Effect, New York Times, September 16, 2007.

For text: http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/16/magazine/16wwln-freakonomics-t.html

For more on Nuclear Energy: http://eteam.ncpa.org/issues/?c=nuclear-energy

For more on Energy Issues: http://www.ncpa.org/sub/dpd/index.php?Article_Category=22

FMF Policy Bulletin/ 25 September 2007