Nuclear reactor accidents in the United States reactors and research facilities. This led to the introduction of the Price-Anderson Act in 1957, which was "an implicit admission that nuclear power provided risks that producers were unwilling to assume without federal backing". Nuclear reactor accidents continued into the 1960s with a small test reactor exploding at the Stationary Low-Power Reactor Number One in Idaho Falls in January 1961 resulting in three deaths which were the first fatalities in the history of U.S. nuclear reactor operations. There was also a partial meltdown at the Enrico Fermi Nuclear Generating Station in Michigan in 1966. The large size of nuclear reactors
Anti-nuclear movement in the United States do better to contemplate a radical redesign, or if that was not possible, to abandon such technology entirely. Nuclear power plants are a complex energy system. and opponents of nuclear power have criticized the sophistication and complexity of the technology. Helen Caldicott has said: "... in essence, a nuclear reactor is just a very sophisticated and dangerous way to boil water – analogous to cutting a pound of butter with a chain saw." These critics of nuclear power advocate the use of energy conservation, efficient energy use, and appropriate renewable energy technologies to create our energy future. Amory Lovins, from