Three Mile Island - Day One - March 28, 1979
By Gordonskene Wednesday Apr 01, 2009 6:05pm("Nothing serious . . . .really . . .honest!)
Around four in the morning on March 28, 1979, a series of events would eventually turn into one of the biggest Nuclear Power Plant disasters in U.S. History. Initial reports indicated nothing much had gone wrong. In fact, as the situation slowly came to light, officials still vehemently denied anything was other than routine. Attempts at spin and passing the accident off as "nothing to be concerned about" hid the reality that this was much more serious than previously thought.
For example, this exchange from a Spokesman for Metropolitan Edison:
"The plant is in a safe condition. The radiation levels at the site boundary are really only a tenth of the general emergency level where we usually get concerned. We do have our crews out. We're monitoring for airborne contamination. The amount we've fond is minimal. Very small traces of radioactivity has been released from the plant"
The tune would change dramatically by the next day.
John Amato:
Gordon Skene has a great series up on Newstalgia covering the 1979 Three Mile Island nuclear power plant disaster. I love history and Gordon has been doing a "bang up" job so far.
If you want to hear more news reports, here are Parts II, III, and IV of the series.
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I took out my high school graduation ring ('79) a couple of days ago and I've actually been wearing it. I think I've already worn it more in the last week than I did when I was actually in high school.*
*Mostly, it was in my pocket or on my girlfriend's finger.
The environmental and health disaster that was Love Canal completely dwarfs what Three Mile Island did.
And as nickjacket pointed out, Chernobyl was a horror.
Is still burning.
Soviets knowingly killing themselves to prevent runaway machinery from reaching healthy humans is shock and awe to me.
Does political face-saving preserve lives or cost 'em?
I see your Love Canal and raise you a Chernobyl.
I wasn't aware that Chernobyl was in the United States or had any connection to American technologies and practices.
If I compare all the hoopla about 3 Mile Island to just the first day of sarcophagous building in Chernobyl USSR, we truly have the technological advantage.
1979 - My first Honda, a CB400A.
2009 - Honda NSA700A ride home from cycle store last week.
Right now I'm riding a Suzuki 650 Burgman scooter. Great fun. It's like riding a small touring bike.
would learn from the Japanese.
Your AN650 is feature packed for the money... And that lifetime drive belt, CVT transmission plus time and temperature on the panel can't be beat.
For stealing our technology.
The Soviets had some cost-cutting methods, uniquely theirs, that made Chernobyl more likely to happen. Had they copied us more completely, Chernobyl may have been the near miss that Three Mile Island was.
Just how lucky were we?
And given the last 8 years of cronyism, what are the odds of it happening again?
100 to 1? 1000 to 1? A million to 1 ?
I'll play the lottery instead.
It's not about cronyism or any of that. It's about physics and reactor design. The Russians didn't cut corners by using cheap concrete or something, they cut out safety designs.
But if the boosh admin were to hand out contracts to build N reactors. I for one wouldn't trust any of them.
Honesty and the boosh admin do not coincide.
Many things have changed now concerning nuclear safety. Before 3 Miles Island, having an emergency shutdown was something normal, it was just stuff that 'happened'. Nowadays emergency shutdowns are not tolerated, and will lead to an indepth investigation and probable shutdown for months of the plant. Operators are trained differently now too. In 3 miles Island the benign incident evolved into a major accident because of defective material but mostly because of bad decision of the operators. I don't say they handled wrong, they handled like they were trained, and for hours were still trying to get the plant working again. So training has focused much more on nuclear safety, and ergonomics of the control room as well as electric signals have dramatically improved.
Chernobyl is another problem: there where two major factors. First of all as said by another poster, the drastic cutting on safety design: no bunker, many low-quality products not allowed by the designers but used by the contractor to save costs etc. Then they tried out an emergency test that was suposed to be done before the plant was in operation. The design and type of the nuclear reactor was also responsible for the magnitude of the explosion. I don't think many in US or Europe share that same design with graphite bars. (I'm sure non where I live)
But a concrete bunker missing is now out of question, three miles Island had a one wall concrete bunker that didn't get breached, nuclear material escaped because of wrongly closed and open valves. 2 walls concrete bunkers is nowadays the minimum. Around the reactor in Tsjernobyl there was no concrete bunker.
I vividly remember going to see the movie "China Syndrome" that weekend and when there was a line "if this thing goes it could make the state the size of Pennsylvania uninhabitable" there was rather nervous laughter throughout the audience.
China Syndrome Trailer - YouTube 2:07
Voices From Three Mile Island - YouTube 8:51
Warning. Unpleasant to view.
Frog..s
Fall out pattern from Chernobyl
and raise you one Centralia, PA.
BTW, fly into Harrisburg sometime. Air traffic flies pretty much directly over the nuke plant towers there. No one has learned a damn thing.
routing air traffic directly near items like cooling towers (reporting point) is safer than inventing an approach over areas that aren't in agreement with prevailing winds, terrain, noise abatement and other navigational concerns.
Beats Three Mile Island and Chernobyl by twenty and thirty years.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windscale_fire
...modern nuclear plant designs are much safer now. The old "China Syndrome" couldn't occur in new designs.
Also worth noting, no one knows what to do with the waste.
but new designs also burn much more of their fuel and create alot less waste than used to be the case. But if you believe that carbon emissions that cause climate change are our real problem, you should keep your mind open to nuclear power.
The biggest problem with nukes is the cost and time required to bring them on line.
Computers do run them, right.
For some reason, the word hacker pops into my head.
...is that if you pull the plug they shut down with the force of gravity.
oh and the gas leaks
and the oil spills
and sex sells everything
:)
Well, you see, the owners of the Three Mile Island plant had a large financial investment to protect, so telling the truth to the public was determined to be less important, even if it might result in hundreds of deaths. Isn't that how everything works?
they're from another planet. The principals would have had to rehearse damage control public relations long before the accident.
Computer manufacturers do the same thing when a bad run of batteries melts some notebook PC's.
This one is my fave. I just had to mention that.
ok, back to regularly scheduled programming now ...
Seeing Frank Reynolds on ABC comprehend what really happened at 3 Mile and the look on his face said it all.
It took Jimmy Carter's personal visit to the plant to finally let some of the truth out.
If the PORV light says it's closed, and the pressure in the reactor keeps dropping, then that means the PORV indicator is broken, the PORV really is open, and you'd better act quickly.
The PORV light didn't say it was closed, it said there was no electric current opening it. Which people then assumed it was closed since there was no signal opening it.
Things like this have been adressed now, and signals have been more thoroughly designed to include all states one signal to show it is not getting the order to be open, and one signal to show the valve is indeed closed.
Training of plant operators has know dramatical changed because of 3mI too. But most important emergency shutdowns is not considered a benign thing anymore.
Haven't you guys seen the new xmen movie?
It was obviously deadpool and wolverine and sabretooth fighting on it that caused this disaster!@
The government always covers up at the expense of the people.
They did it will the Trade Center - telling us that the air was just fine and dandy.
They did it with agent Orange - Gulf War syndrome - you name it.
We all know it - and do nothing about it.
No politicians with guts out there --- except people like Nader - he who is now roundly condemned for giving us a choice to register our votes on issues such as these.
"It was only 10 Ricans instead of 200 Ricans measured"
I thought it was a report from Lou Dobbs warning about illegal immigration.
I'm just thankful they're closing down the Indian Point Nuke Plant in New York.
Having been in Europe when Chernobyl happened and being told to not play on the grass tat week afterwards, and eating powdered eggs and milk for a month after "just to be safe" (as if), I tell you I can't THINK of anything stupider than parking a nuclear power plant smack in the middle of MILLIONS of people in NY State.
Remember "evacuating" New Orleans? Now try imagining evacuating all five burroughs of NYC, including Manhattan, along with ALL of Rhode Island, Vermont, Delaware, etc. wherever the wind happens to blow, and only having between 10 minutes to an hour to do it.
Fughetaboudit.
Maybe the only thing stupider is the nuke plant in California that they built DIRECTLY ON an earthquake fault line.
Really, do you have to TEMPT fate?
Anybody that thinks this is the answer to our energy woes is a frickin' idiot. These plants are wicked costly to build, and if anything does go wrong, IT REALLY GOES WRONG. For like, the next 4.5 billion years. In the time is takes to build one of these damn fool things, you could build a hundred wind and solar farms, and not be stressing about whether some terrorist will smack a plane into the storage space for the spent fuel rods (buildings which, as with Indian Point, the 9/11 hijackers flew directly over that day) are NOT reinforced to resist a plane hitting the building. And if the water drains from that area, those rods will heat right back up and go into full meltdown.
Nuclear IS NO SOLUTION. It's dirty, dangerous, and no commercial firms will take the RISK... so they want government guarantees.
FORGET nuclear, and FORGET the politicians who want to support it.
GO GREEN!
Living within a 12 mile radius and having my future wife working within 5 mile, this is what I remember hearing on the morning drives to work as the week progressed.
everything is normal.
everything is normal, children and pregnant woman should stay inside with their windows closed.
there is no danger, president carter is heading to california for an unscheduled visit.
everything is under control, the head of the NRC and his staff will be arriving at the site later today.
From that moment on trusting my government and the press to tell the truth to the citizens became nearly inmpossible.
and never should have happened.
Free Speech TV recently showed the "Seabrook 1977" documentary about the protests against the construction of that plant in New Hampshire. With the Three Mile Island incident happening only about a year and a half after those protests, those participants certainly would have felt vindicated.
Stay tuned. It's coming up - and so is Chernobyl. Moving as fast as the Wayback Machine will let me.
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