Global Warming Giving Nuclear New Claim To Clean

MARC LEVY

MIDDLETOWN, Pennsylvania (AP) -- The worst U.S. nuclear power plant accident was unfolding on Pennsylvania's Three Mile Island when an industry economist took the rostrum at a nearby business luncheon.

It did not go well.

Those in the standing-room-only crowd listened raptly to economist Doug Biden's thoughts about cheap, reliable nuclear power, but Biden could not calm their nerves or answer their pointed questions: Should they join the tens of thousands of people fleeing south-central Pennsylvania? Should they let their children drink local milk?

Three decades later, fears of an atomic catastrophe have been largely supplanted by fears about global warming, easing nuclear energy into the same sentence as wind and solar power. Dogged by price spikes and an environmental assault on carbon dioxide emissions, fossil fuels are the new clean-energy pariah.

"There's a lot of support for nuclear now, and most of that support is borne out of a concern for the desire to have emissions-free energy sources," said Biden, who still advocates for power companies as the president of Electric Power Generation Association in Pennsylvania.