![]() Cleanup continued on Unit-2 until 1990, but it was too damaged to be rendered usable again.Stark Raving Dad Lisa: "Dear Bart, I am using the stationery Mom and Dad gave me for my birthday to inform you that we are now brother and sister in name only. The unharmed Unit-1 reactor at Three Mile Island, which was shut down during the crisis, did not resume operation until 1985. Nonetheless, the incident greatly eroded the public’s faith in nuclear power. Slowly, the hydrogen was bled from the system as the reactor cooled.Īt the height of the crisis, plant workers were exposed to unhealthy levels of radiation, but no one outside Three Mile Island had their health adversely affected by the accident and no one died as a result of the accident. That afternoon, experts agreed that the hydrogen bubble was not in danger of exploding. His visit achieved its aim of calming local residents and the nation. Carter, a trained nuclear engineer, had helped dismantle a damaged Canadian nuclear reactor while serving in the U.S. On April 1, President Jimmy Carter arrived at Three Mile Island to inspect the plant. Experts were uncertain if the hydrogen bubble would create further meltdown or possibly a giant explosion, and as a precaution Governor Thornburgh advised “pregnant women and pre-school age children to leave the area within a five-mile radius of the Three Mile Island facility until further notice.” This led to the panic the governor had hoped to avoid within days, more than 100,000 people had fled surrounding towns. After the radiation leak was discovered on March 30, residents were advised to stay indoors. At that time, plant operators had not registered the explosion, which sounded like a ventilation door closing. On March 28, some of this gas had exploded, releasing a small amount of radiation into the atmosphere. The bubble of gas was created two days before when exposed core materials reacted with super-heated steam. Two days later, however, on March 30, a bubble of highly flammable hydrogen gas was discovered within the reactor building. More than half the core was destroyed or molten, but it had not broken its protective shell, and no radiation was escaping. The reactor had come within less than an hour of a complete meltdown. ![]() The temperature began to drop, and pressure in the reactor was reduced. Pennsylvania Governor Dick Thornburgh considered calling an evacuation.įinally, at about 8 p.m., plant operators realized they needed to get water moving through the core again and restarted the pumps. The plant’s parent company, Metropolitan Edison, downplayed the crisis and claimed that no radiation had been detected off plant grounds, but the same day inspectors detected slightly increased levels of radiation nearby as a result of the contaminated water leak. Shortly after 8 a.m., word of the accident leaked to the outside world. The radiation levels, though not immediately life-threatening, were dangerous, and the core cooked further as the contaminated water was contained and precautions were taken to protect the operators. In the meltdown scenario, the core melts, and deadly radiation drifts across the countryside, fatally sickening a potentially great number of people.Īs the plant operators struggled to understand what had happened, the contaminated water was releasing radioactive gases throughout the plant. By early morning, the core had heated to over 4,000 degrees, just 1,000 degrees short of meltdown. ![]() The reactor was also shut down, but residual heat from the fission process was still being released. However, human operators in the control room misread confusing and contradictory readings and shut off the emergency water system. Left alone, these safety devices would have prevented the development of a larger crisis. In 1978, a second state-of-the-art reactor began operating on Three Mile Island, which was lauded for generating affordable and reliable energy in a time of energy crises.Īfter the cooling water began to drain out of the broken pressure valve on the morning of March 28, 1979, emergency cooling pumps automatically went into operation. The Three Mile Island nuclear power plant was built in 1974 on a sandbar on Pennsylvania’s Susquehanna River, just 10 miles downstream from the state capitol in Harrisburg. ![]() Cooling water, contaminated with radiation, drained from the open valve into adjoining buildings, and the core began to dangerously overheat. nuclear power industry begins when a pressure valve in the Unit-2 reactor at Three Mile Island fails to close. on March 28, 1979, one of the worst accidents in the history of the U.S. ![]()
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