Explosions. Radiation. Evacuations. More than 30 years after Three Mile Island, the     1    crisis in Fukushima, Japan, has brought back some of the worst     2    surrounding nuclear power—and restarted a major debate about the merits and the     3    of this energy source. Does nuclear energy offer a path away from carbon-based fuels Or are nuclear power plants too big a threat It’s time to     4    myth from reality.
    One myth is that the biggest problem with nuclear energy is safety. Safety is certainly a critical issue,     5    the tragedy in Japan is making clear. But for years, the biggest challenge to sustainable nuclear energy hasn’t been safety,     6    cost.
    In the United States, new nuclear construction was already slowing down even before the partial meltdown at Three Mile Island in 1979. The disaster     7    sealed its fate. The last nuclear power plant to come online started     8    power in 1996—but its construction began in 1972. Today, nuclear power remains     9    more expensive than coal-or gas-fired electricity,     10    because nuclear plants are so expensive to build.     11    are slippery, but a plant can cost $ 5 billion. A 2009 MIT study estimated that the cost of producing nuclear energy was about 30 percent higher than     12    of coal or gas.
    Of course, cost and safety aren’t     13    . Concerns about safety lead to extensive regulatory approval processes and add uncertainty to plant developers, calculations, both of     4    boost the price of financing new nuclear plants. It’s not clear how much these construction costs would     15    if safety fears subsided and the financing became cheaper—and after the Fukushima catastrophe, we’re unlikely to find out.