The environment as a policy problemIn the 1950s and 1960s, two key factors explained government support for
nuclear power. First, for nuclear powers such as Britain, France and the USA,
the military objective to develop nuclear weapons generated a demand for
plutonium (for weapons), which could only be extracted from reprocessed
spent uranium (from nuclear power-stations). This military–industrial link
wascritical in the decision to push ahead with what was, even to its most
enthusiastic supporters in the 1950s, still an uncommercial technology. Sec-
ondly, the belief that nuclear power offered a modern, technological solu-
tion to future energy requirements was widespread. All governments, includ-
ing many with no pretensions to develop nuclear weapons, were persuaded
that nuclear power had the potential to provide an abundant supply of cheap
energy to underpin future economic growth. Other factors contributed to
this growing love affair with nuclear energy. Concern about pollution from
coal-fired plants was a major stimulus to the US nuclear programme in the
1960s. The Middle East oil crisis of 1973–4 prompted several European coun-
tries, notably West Germany and France, to launch huge construction pro-
grammes in order to reduce their dependence on oil supplies from volatile
overseas markets. By 2006 there were some 440 nuclear reactors in opera-
tion across the world in 31 countries generating 16 per cent of global elec-
tricity (World Nuclear Association 2006 ). The USA has the biggest nuclear
sector, with 103 reactors generating 788.6 billion kilowatt hours of electric-
ity (or 20 per cent of its total electricity), whilst in France, with the second
largest nuclear capacity, 78 per cent of electricity is generated by the nuclear
sector.
Yet, since the mid-1990s, the nuclear industry has been in deep crisis.
In 2001, there were no reactors under construction anywhere in Western
Europe or North America, with a moratorium on the construction of new
reactors in five out of eight European nations with nuclear power. Britain
had no plans for further expansion and the US nuclear industry had come
toacomplete standstill. Sweden launched its policy of abandoning nuclear
power – the source of half its electricity – by closing the Barseb ̈ack-1 reactor
in November 1999. Germany and Belgium also initiated gradual phase-outs
of nuclear power. In short, it amounted to a truly dramatic policy reversal.
Significantly, all five exogenous factors identified in theprevious section
contributed to the destabilisation of pro-nuclear policy communities.
First, the nuclear industry was hit by a series of major crises. The par-
tial meltdown of a reactor at the Three Mile Island plant in 1979 prompted
amajor global debate about nuclear safety and destroyed the industry in
America: no new nuclear power stations were ordered there after 1978. The
1986 accident at Chernobyl had a similar impact on the nuclear consensus in
Europe: Italy held three referenda on nuclear power in 1987, the German SPD
declared its commitment to a phase-out of nuclear power and opposition
in Scandinavia strengthened. Only in France did the powerful pro-nuclear
elite consensus produce a complacent response to Chernobyl (Liberatore
1995 ).