Anniversaries are usually remembered with flowers and perhaps a small celebration. But this week --15 years after a reactor core at Three Mile Island melted, causing panic and a fear of nuclear power that lasted for years --the only plans for commemoration are from anti-nuclear groups.

TMI Alert, a group formed to promote awareness of nuclear power issues, held a conference last weekend to discuss clean-up problems and decommissioning of nuclear power plants, said Eric Epstein, the group's spokesman.

Epstein said nuclear power doesn't have a future because of all the problems generated by the "back end of nuclear power," including the disposal of nuclear waste and the expense of dismantling old power plants.

"The overwhelming majority don't believe nuclear power has a future," he said. "Nuclear power is dead."

One professor at the University's Hershey Medical Center has researched the public's reaction to the accident, but has found there were no significant long-term effects on people living near the plant.

Peter S. Houts, associate professor of behavioral science, published his findings in 1988. Although real estate values dropped following the accident because many people were trying to sell their homes, there were no health problems directly linked to radioactivity, he said.

"Younger people were more upset by this than older people," he said, adding that reports of miscarriages and health problems after the accident were due to community stress.

Mary Wells, a spokeswoman for the TMI nuclear power plant near Harrisburg, said the accident permanently disabled the Unit 2 reactor at TMI. Rebuilding the reactor, which was capable of providing power for about half a million homes, would not be cost effective, she said.

After the accident, the main change was increased communications between General Public Utilities, the company that owns the TMI power plant, and the surrounding community, Wells said.

"Before the accident, people didn't pay much attention to the fact TMI was here," she said.

General Public Utilities believes the lessons learned during and after the accident of March 28, 1979, have made nuclear power more accessible to the public and eliminated misunderstandings.

"Every single day we're here working, we're not far from the things we learned then," Wells said.

People who are interested in working in the nuclear industry have also been following public opinion to estimate whether nuclear power can become widely accepted.

"I don't think in the long run it's as hazardous as some people make it out to be," said Tony Baratta, professor of nuclear engineering.

Public opinion has been more favorable toward nuclear power, and the alternatives are more expensive fuels such as natural gas, or fuels that produce more waste, such as coal, he said.

But whether the nuclear industry can recover is debatable. Ed Hollinger (graduate-nuclear engineering) said he believes that construction has not begun on even one facility since the accident, and there are no plans for new facilities.

"If you're a nuclear engineer and you want to go out and build nuclear power plants, you're going to have trouble convincing people to do that," he said.