Editing Three Mile Island accident (section)

===Effect on nuclear power industry===
[[File:Nuclear_power_history.svg|right|thumb|upright=1.4|Global history of the use of [[nuclear power]]. The Three Mile Island accident is one of the factors cited for the decline of new reactor construction.]]
According to the IAEA, the Three Mile Island accident was a significant turning point in the global development of nuclear power.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.iaea.org/About/Policy/GC/GC48/Documents/gc48inf-4_ftn3.pdf |title=50 Years of Nuclear Energy |website=[[IAEA]] |access-date=December 29, 2008}}</ref> From 1963 to 1979, the number of reactors under construction globally increased every year except in 1971 and 1978. However, following the event, the number of reactors under construction in the U.S. declined from 1980 to 1998, with increasing construction costs and delayed completion dates for some reactors.<ref name=Hultman13>{{cite journal |last1=Hultman |first1=N. |last2=Koomey |first2=J. |title=Three Mile Island: The driver of US nuclear power's decline? |journal=Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists |year=2013 |volume=69 |issue=3 |pages=63–70 |doi=10.1177/0096340213485949 |bibcode=2013BuAtS..69c..63H |s2cid=145756891}}</ref> Many similar Babcock & Wilcox reactors on order were canceled. In total, 52&nbsp;U.S. nuclear reactors were canceled between 1980 and 1984.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://clonemaster.homestead.com/files/cancel.htm |title=Cancelled Nuclear Units Ordered in the United States |date=January 23, 2012 |website=Nuclear Power Plants in the U.S. |access-date=March 6, 2018 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120123212944/http://clonemaster.homestead.com/files/cancel.htm |archive-date=January 23, 2012}}</ref>

The accident did not initiate the demise of the U.S. nuclear power industry, but it did halt its historic growth. Additionally, as a result of the earlier [[1973 oil crisis]] and post-crisis analysis with conclusions of potential overcapacity in [[Base load power plant|base load]], 40 planned nuclear power plants already had been canceled before the accident. At the time of the incident, 129 nuclear power plants had been approved, but of those, only 53 which were not already operating were completed. During the lengthy review process, complicated by the [[Chernobyl disaster]] seven years later, federal requirements to correct safety issues and design deficiencies became more stringent, [[Anti-nuclear movement in the United States|local opposition]] became more strident, construction times were significantly lengthened and costs skyrocketed.<ref>{{cite news |last=Gertner |first=Jon |title=Atomic Balm? |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2006/07/16/magazine/16nuclear.html |newspaper=[[The New York Times Magazine]] |date=July 16, 2006 |access-date=September 30, 2018}}</ref> Until 2012,<ref>{{cite web |url=http://nuclearstreet.com/nuclear_power_industry_news/b/nuclear_power_news/archive/2012/02/09/nrc-approves-vogtle-reactor-construction-_2d00_-first-new-nuclear-plant-approval-in-34-years-_2800_with-new-plant-photos_2900_-020902.aspx |title=NRC Approves Vogtle Reactor Construction – First New Nuclear Plant Approval in 34 Years |website=Nuclear Street |access-date=September 30, 2018}}</ref> no U.S. nuclear power plant had been authorized to begin construction since the year before, 1978. Globally, the end of the increase in nuclear power plant construction came with the more catastrophic Chernobyl disaster in 1986 (see graph).