American military requirements declined in the 1960s , and the government completed its uranium procurement program by the end of 1970 . Simultaneously , a new market emerged : commercial nuclear power plants . In the U.S. this market virtually collapsed by the end of the 1970s as a result of industrial strains caused by the energy crisis , popular opposition , and finally the Three Mile Island nuclear accident in 1979 , all of which led to a '' de facto '' moratorium on the development of new nuclear reactor power stations
Three Mile Island nuclear accident
Three Mile Island accident
Uranium mining