16. Dooming America’s Nuclear Energy
The nuclear accident at Three Mile Island was alarming. Cleanup lasted until 1993, cost over a billion dollars, and residents nearby were worried about the exposure’s impact on their health. However, various studies in and around the area since the meltdown only found a statistically insignificant small increase in cancer rates, and no causal connection between the accident and those cancers.
The greatest impact was turning the American public against nuclear energy. In some Developed Countries, such as France, nuclear energy accounts for over 70% of electricity, and other European countries get 25% to 55% of their energy from nuclear plants. In the US, that figure today is about 19%. Before the Three Mile Island meltdown, we were on track to get a steadily growing share of energy from nuclear, but the Three Mile Island meltdown halted that growth.