The ideal site for a nuclear plant is one for which there is no evidence of any seismic activity over the past millennia; is not subject to hurricanes, tornadoes or floods. It should be in an endless expanse of unpopulated desert with an abundant supply of very cold water flowing nowhere and containing no aquatic life. Most important, it should be adjacent to a major load center.

BUT periodic low-level discharges are not what principally alarms anti-reactor groups. The big fear is of a major accident at Vernon. Although it is certain that the plant cannotsustain a full, A-bomb blast, it can easily run out of control, melting its safety devices and enclosures. Such overheating would cause explosions of superheated water which could rupture the reactor shielding, releasing highly radioactive particles and gases.

Such a disaster was investigated by the AEC in its own Brookhaven Report, which suggested that reactors one-fifth the size of current models could contaminate up to 150,000 square miles of land, kill 3,400 people outright, cause 55,000 premature cancer deaths, and force evacuation of 450,000 people for over one year. An additional 4 million might have to be kept under close surveillance. Damage could exceed $7 billion. Such a peace-time, man-made catastrophe boggles the imagination. And physicist-writer Dr. Ralph Lapp has said he feels "Before the year 2000 it would appear a certainty that we will have a serious accident."

How well equipped are reactors to avert accidents? Out of almost 4000 construction standards for nuclear plants only about 100 have been officially recognized. And in the recent construction of a reactor in Gravel Neck, Virginia, the welding superintendent admitted that as many as 5000 welds in vital parts of the structure could be defective. A cooling water failure might precipitate a "runaway" which could cause a high-power steam explosion within one-hundredth of a second. Vernon's emergency cooling system takes from three to ten seconds to become effectively operational.

There will be no full-scale test of emergency systems at Vernon before 1973 or 1974 because the test facility has been delayed in construction. Testing will take place at the National Reactor Testing site near Idaho Falls, but results will not come before 1975. And, as Dr. Milton Shaw, AEC director of reactor development, testified before Congress, "Seventy-one utilities and twenty architect-engineering firms are working on nuclear power plants. Most of these personnel are trying to build the first nuclear plant they ever built."

REACTORS are licensed under the Research and Medical Section of the Atomic Energy Act. They have not yet been deemed of "practical value" by the AEC, according to the act. Yet over 92 are now being actually designed. In short, nuclear power plants are colossal experiments, with entirely untested emergency systems, poorly defined construction standards, built by complete novices. Is this why no insurance company in the nation will cover the risk involved? In fact, no utilities would consider building nuclear plants until the Price-Anderson Act of 1957 absolved them of all financial responsibility. The government, under this form of subsidy, limits payments in the case of an accident to $560 million per reactor, although the AEC itself has estimated damages from small reactors to be as high as $7 billion.

Given the lack of operating experience and their novelty, why aren't reactors built underground as in Sweden and Switzerland? This has been advocated for many years by Dr. Edward Teller (proverbial father of the H-bomb) and others in this country. The reason is simple. As has been proven in Britain, which generates four times as much electricity from fission as the U. S., nuclear reactors are simply more costly than other forms of power. Underground construction would be prohibitively expensive.

What about other sources of power? When many estimate that there are over 300 years of fossil fuels left-coal, shale, oil, natural gas-and that geothermal, fusion, solar, magneto-hydrodynamics and other clean power technologies are just around the corner, why the rush for fission? These other power technologies haven't been given a chance. The AEC spends 83 per cent of its research dollar on fission power. Con Edison spent more on advertising last year than on all research. In fact, over ten times as much is spent on advertising for electricity as is spent on research into non-fission power sources.

As a result Senator Mike Gravel (D-Alaska) has announced a bill to call for a moratorium on reactor building and the creation of a national energy agency to oversee the AEC and stop reckless proliferation of atomic reactors.

In the meantime, conservation groups and the state have recently obtained some important concessions from Vermont Yankee in the form on improved emissions standards for the Vernon plant. But Vermont continues to explain that it is entirely unable to conduct effective monitoring and enforcement of the improved standards. And it is also incapable of coping with a major accident.

( Members of the New England Coalition on Nuclear Pollution will be in Cambridge on Sunday [ March 14, Sever 1, 2 p. m. ] to explain their opposition to the Vernon power plant. Hearings on the Vernon power station should begin late this month.