Analysts say there are lessons to be learned from Britain, where the first nuclear plant to supply substantial amounts of electricity to a national grid opened in 1956. Since then the country's nuclear industry has run into deep trouble.
In June, British Energy, owner of eight of Britain's plants and part of the Three Mile Island plant in Pennsylvania, said it would take a $7 billion write-down for the 2002 fiscal year, mainly to cover costs from decommissioning its older nuclear plants.
''I don't think we're going to see anyone in Britain making a commitment to nuclear in the foreseeable future, because of what happened at British Energy,'' said Fraser McLaren, an analyst at ING in Edinburgh. The country's nuclear waste reprocessing industry is also on the brink of being shut because of safety concerns. In the United States, the nuclear industry tried to ally itself with environmentalists in the 1990's, with little success. Claims in a 1998 ad campaign that nuclear power made electricity without polluting or damaging the environment drew criticism and were found to be unsubstantiated by the Federal Trade Commission.
No nuclear plants have been started in America since the near-meltdown at Three Mile Island in 1979, but there, too, several power companies have said they are considering proposals to build new reactors. Austria and Denmark have forsworn any use of nuclear energy. Eastern enthusiasm for nuclear power has caused some friction with the West. For example, Aust
