And you thought that Jane Fonda was only responsible for losing the Vietnam War. Stephen Dubner and Steven Levitt are now blaming her also for the fact that no nuclear power plants have been constructed in the United States for the last quarter century. The culprit in their view is her 1979 move The China Syndome, about the meltdown of a nuclear power plant, the release of which preceded the accident at the Three Mile Island by 12 days. Mr. Dubner and Mr. Levitt argue that there was no serious harm caused by the Three Mile Island accident, but as a result of the fears created by the film, the nuclear industry has been prevented from building new plants. (I always thought Homer Simpson was the real problem here.) Well, one thing that we did learn from the accident was that the safety personnel and company officials running the plant did everything they could to conceal the problems at the plant absolutely as long as they could. Only when it was clear that matters were getting out of control did they finally notify the regulatory authorities to both get their assistance and allow them to take necessary precautions. Of course no one was punished for their actions. I claim no expertise on the safety of nuclear power, but the lesson of Three Mile Island is that the executives at the companies that operate these facilities care far more about saving their careers than ensuring that their plants operate safely. There have been no changes in corporate accountability in the years since Three Mile Island that would lead anyone to believe that the corporate overseers of nuclear power plants would act more responsibly today than they did in 1979. It is too bad that the authors of Freakonmics ignored this aspect of the history of Three Mile Island. Maybe the NYT should give Jane Fonda a column to get some more serious economic analysis into the paper.
--Dean Baker
