[ti:Japan's Nuclear Disaster Could Hurt Nuclear Energy Plans] [ar:Steve Ember] [al:Economics Report] [by:www.51voa.com] [00:00.00]This is the VOA Special English [00:02.77]Economics Report. [00:04.66]The crisis at Japan's [00:06.51]Fukushima Dai-Ichi nuclear energy center [00:10.24]has raised questions about the future [00:13.13]of the nuclear energy industry. [00:16.07]Arjun Makhijani is president [00:19.01]of the Institute for Energy [00:21.15]and Environmental Research [00:23.54]in the United States. [00:25.53]He says the disaster [00:27.27]in Japan is historic. [00:29.97]ARJUN MAKHIJANI: "We are witnessing [00:30.66]a completely unprecedented [00:32.16]nuclear accident in that [00:33.90]there have never been three reactors [00:36.09]in the same place at the same time [00:38.03]that have had a severe accident." [00:40.91]This week, the chairman of America's [00:43.20]nuclear agency said there is little chance [00:46.59]that harmful radiation from Japan [00:49.57]could reach the United States. [00:51.71]Nuclear Regulatory Commission Chairman [00:55.20]Gregory Jaczko also said [00:57.64]America has a strong program in place [01:00.67]to deal with earthquake threats. [01:03.01]No new nuclear power centers [01:06.21]have been built in the United States [01:08.00]since nineteen seventy-nine. [01:10.88]That was when America's worst [01:13.77]nuclear accident happened [01:15.86]at the Three Mile Island center [01:18.40]in Pennsylvania. [01:19.94]The accident began to turn [01:22.39]public opinion against nuclear energy. [01:26.08]To support more clean energy production, [01:30.11]the Obama administration has been [01:33.00]seeking billions of dollars [01:34.99]in government loan guarantees [01:37.23]to build new centers. [01:39.47]Currently, about twenty percent [01:42.50]of electricity in the United States [01:45.19]comes from nuclear energy. [01:47.49]But critics say nuclear power is too costly [01:52.47]and dangerous to be worth further expansion. [01:56.30]German Chancellor Angela Merkel said [02:00.69]Germany would temporarily close [02:03.48]seven nuclear power centers [02:06.36]while energy policy is reconsidered. [02:10.05]The European Union is planning [02:13.05]to test all centers in its [02:15.99]twenty-seven member nations. [02:18.47]Developing nations are less willing [02:22.17]to slow nuclear expansion. [02:24.76]China said it will continue with plans [02:29.00]to build about twenty-five [02:31.33]new nuclear reactors. [02:33.52]And India, under a cooperation agreement [02:38.05]with the United States, plans to spend [02:42.18]billions on new centers in the coming years. [02:46.16]Japan has made nuclear energy [02:49.70]a national priority [02:51.29]since the nineteen seventies. [02:53.88]Unlike many major economies, [02:57.11]Japan imports eighty percent of its energy. [03:01.49]The Nuclear Energy Institute says [03:05.12]twenty-nine percent of Japan's electricity [03:08.86]came from nuclear sources in two thousand nine. [03:13.48]The government planned to increase [03:16.42]that to forty percent by twenty seventeen. [03:20.76]Nuclear reactors supply fourteen percent [03:25.44]of global electricity. [03:27.28]Nuclear energy is a clean resource, [03:30.71]producing no carbon gases. [03:33.30]But radioactive waste [03:36.14]is a serious unresolved issue. [03:39.38]So is the presence of nuclear power centers [03:42.67]in earthquake areas [03:45.07]like the one near Bushehr, Iran. [03:48.00]And that's the VOA Special English [03:51.65]Economics Report written by Mario Ritter. [03:55.43]I'm Steve Ember.