Insuring against Disaster: The Nuclear Industry on Trial by John W. Johnson

Abstract

186 Book Reviews TECHNOLOGY AND CULTURE its treatment after the 18th century. If some non-Western energy sys­ tems are taken into account, for example, China, others are com­ pletely ignored or superficially treated. The accent is put, as is easily understandable, on the French energy system. In spite of this lack of balance, some of the historical accounts, such as those on “An­ tiquity,” the “Western Middle Ages,” the “Chinese Energy Model,” and “Nuclear Energy in France,” are remarkably well done. The closer the book comes to the present day in its analysis of the various energy systems, the more pronounced is the Marxism. Because of this, it should be approached with caution. The authors’ position becomes ever more politically one-sided: antinuclear, proThird World, and socialist (Marxist utopian, but not Sovietophile). But it is an important work; it attempts to place technical progress within a large-scale synthesis of human history. Alexandre Herlea Dr. Herlea is associate professor in the history of technology at the École Centrale des Arts et Manufactures and a research engineer in the Conservatoire Na­ tional des Arts et Métiers. Insuring against Disaster: The Nuclear Industry on Trial. By John W. Johnson. Macon, Ga.: Mercer University Press, 1986. Pp. xii+284; notes, bibliography, index. $28.95. The Chernobyl nuclear disaster in the Soviet Union has demon­ strated dramatically some of the fearsome risks associated with nu­ clear technology. A catastrophic accident at a nuclear power plant could cause thousands of deaths, vast numbers of injuries, and many billions of dollars in damage to surrounding property. Yet since 1957, a federal statute known as the Price-Anderson Act has— in order to encourage nuclear power development—limited the U.S. nuclear power industry’s public liability for such a disaster to $660 million or less. How do U.S. political institutions come to develop and, with time, reevaluate such a policy? In Insuring against Disaster, John W. Johnson provides a partial answer by tracing the historical origins of a 1978 U.S. Supreme Court test case that ultimately upheld the constitutionality of the Price-Anderson Act. The story begins humbly enough, with the awakening of local op­ position toward Duke Power Company’s proposed construction of a commercial nuclear power plant near Charlotte, North Carolina, in 1970. We learn of the formation of the antinuclear Carolina Environ­ mental Study Group; their unsuccessful attempt to block construc­ tion of the plant through intervention in U.S. Atomic Energy Commission licensing hearings; and then a complex sequence of legal appeals and challenges, culminating in a showdown before the U.S. Supreme Court in which the fate of nuclear power in the United States seemingly hung in the balance. TECHNOLOGY AND CULTURE Book Reviews 187 At every stage the competing proponents and opponents of nu­ clear power struggled to define the issues and to influence the pre­ cise choice of forum in which these issues would be decided in a way that each anticipated would prove favorable to its preferred polit­ ical outcome. Also along the way the stakes for the nuclear industry escalated; the number and social prominence of the actors in­ creased, eventually including Ralph Nader’s Public Citizen Litiga­ tion Group and the U.S. solicitor general; while the specific issues under debate narrowed from the Charlotte environmentalists’ wide range of initial concerns about nuclear power to the single question of whether the Price-Anderson Act denies the potential victims of a nuclear accident certain of their constitutional rights. The clear impression is that—at least during the period 1957-78— U.S. political institutions were not entirely up to the task of regulat­ ing a complex technology such as nuclear power: the U.S. Congress enacted and periodically renewed the Price-Anderson Act without adequately scrutinizing the law’s implications; and the courts, while competent to review the constitutionality of legislation, were not well equipped to go further and provide substantive, independent re­ view of public policy. Johnson ably elucidates the nature of legal reasoning and proce­ dure, livens his account with a series of character profiles, contextualizes by reviewing the legislative history of the PriceAnderson Act, and throughout brings to bear an...