| Summary: | Surely we have been here before? In 1979 the world was in a recession caused by high oil prices; nuclear investment, though costs had stabilised since the early 1970s, was looking more expensive than had been expected a decade earlier; a sophisticated anti-nuclear movement had developed, and had for example been instrumental in ensuring that the Zwentendorf plant in Austria was refused an operating licence although it had been completed. Then came the accident at Three Mile Island in Pennsylvania, followed in 1986 by Chernobyl (Ukraine). Costs of nuclear investment shot through the roof as plants had to be redesigned (in many cases after construction had already begun), public and political sentiment changed decisively, leading to an Italian referendum to shut down their nuclear plants immediately (or at least by 1990), a phase-out policy in Germany, a whole range of other countries such as Switzerland placing moratoria on new build or barriers to entering the nuclear club. Liberalisation of power markets created further challenges for heavily capital-intensive sources of power like nuclear.
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