Nuclear Energy Then ... and Now

WASHINGTON, June 21 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- A comparison of the advances made in the nuclear energy industry since Jimmy Carter's visit to the Three Mile Island nuclear power plant near Harrisburg, Pa., on April 1, 1979. Carter was the last sitting U.S. president to visit a nuclear power plant prior to President George W. Bush's visit to Constellation Energy's Calvert Cliffs nuclear power station in Lusby, Md., on June 22, 2005. President Bush also visited Exelon Nuclear's Limerick Generating Station in southeast Pennsylvania on May 24, 2006.

  Nuclear Energy Performance Measures                 1979          Today
  Number of commercial reactors                         69            104
  Electricity production (kilowatt-hours)      255 billion    787 billion
  Electricity production
  (percent of U.S. supplies)                           11%            19%
  Average capacity factor                              56%            90%
  Unplanned reactor shutdown
   (median per 7,000 reactor hours)                    7.3            0.4
  Industrial safety accident rate
   (per 200,000 hours worked)                          2.1           0.12