Nuclear Power Plants

Is America edging slowly back toward accepting nuclear power as a major source of energy? By some reckoning, any such reversal may seem unlikely now. It's been only five years since the disastrous meltdown at the Chernobyl reactor in the Soviet Union and 12 years since the Three Mile Island incident here. And there still are concerns about the safety of nuclear power plants, the cost overruns inherent in constructing them and the seemingly intractable problems of how to dispose of nuclear waste.

Re “ UAE to buy drones made in U.S. ,” Feb. 23 I am not sure why there is such a controversy about civilians getting killed accidentally by drones. What is the difference between that and civilians getting killed accidentally when we dropped bombs on munition factories in Germany in World War II (a declared war) or in Korea or Vietnam (undeclared wars), when military targets were targeted? Of course we were trying to kill soldiers and their leaders at times. It is unfortunate, but civilians are always hurt during wars, so why are drones different?

The last of eastern Germany's trouble-ridden nuclear power plants will close this weekend on completion of a substitute oil-powered station, energy officials said Tuesday. Officials will close the fourth and last reactor at the Greifswald plant, which once provided 10% of former Communist-ruled East Germany's energy needs but did not meet safety standards in the new united country. The other three reactors, as well as a smaller plant at Rheinsberg, closed earlier this year.