Rather, the disastrous consequence of Three Mile Island is that it led to the halt in construction of nuclear power plants in the United States. Environmentalists fanned the flames from this accident and developed sufficient public hysteria to lay waste to an entire industry.

As a result of the accident, our nation's nuclear power industry went into a deep freeze. The environmental movement, supported by public sentiment and unopposed by spineless legislators, took the country's power generating industry hostage. Regulatory requirements added the final nails to the coffin of any new nuclear power projects.

We are all suffering the adverse effects. Each time we turn on a light, move a thermostat or plug in our cell phone. These effects are painstakingly quantified for us in our bills for electricity and natural gas. We are paying far more than had the country aggressively built nuclear power plants in the last twenty nine years.

That Americans are paying prices in excess of $3 a gallon at the gas pump may be beyond the control of our government and due to world supply and demand factors. However, that our electricity and natural gas bills are so high is the result of national stupidity. In a cover story in February 1985, Forbes Magazine declared that "the failure of the U.S. nuclear power program ranks as the largest managerial disaster in business history, a disaster on a monumental scale."

Nuclear power currently generates approximately nineteen percent of the electricity in the United States. It has been stuck at that level for many years. Almost twenty percent of our electricity is generated from natural gas. Fifty percent from coal. Roughly six percent from hydropower, three percent from oil and there are some smaller contributors.

Without new nuclear plants, utilities make up their shortfall from natural gas. That means burning for electricity a scarce natural resource and fossil fuel. Also, we are subject to horrendous price swings every time a hurricane hits the gas fields in the Gulf of Mexico or temperatures are high or low for a sustained period.

The irony is that some environmental groups now realize that the best practical alternative for producing electrical energy is nuclear. To be sure, they would prefer solar or wind, but recognize the impracticality of those on a large scale. They now believe that our burning of fossil fuels and particularly coal is contributing significantly to global warming. There are ways to scrub carbon from coal fired power plants, but it is pricey and will take time to develop. If we continue to burn coal, then this scrubbing technology is almost certain to be mandated by the federal government and state governments being forced to yield politically on the global warming issue. The addition of this scrubbing technology will further drive up the cost of electricity.

On the other hand, nuclear power plants supply clean air, carbon free electricity. They produce no greenhouse gases or other pollutants. They do not result in the depletion of a scarce natural resource.

The rest of the world has not bought into this American insanity. At the present time, nuclear generation supplies 78% of the electricity in France. 54% in Belgium and 48% in Sweden. These are hardly reckless nations.

Our situation in the United States has become even more dire because the need for base load electricity continues to grow each year. This will drive up costs even further.

It is conceivable that the climate for nuclear power (no pun intended) may be changing. Nuclear generating companies are currently planning to submit license applications for thirty one new plants. Even if these projects are approved, it will be decades before the new plants come on line. Indeed, they may never produce electricity unless congress changes the law to preclude litigation that effectively blocks the projects from proceeding.

Meantime, we will continue to open our utility bills and groan. When you do that, think about Three Mile Island and how an accident that didn't harm a single individual continues to wreak havoc on our entire nation and its economy twenty-nine years later. This is an American folly.

Allan Topol / AllanTopol.Com E-Mail: readermail@AllanTopol.Com