America's First Nuclear Disaster

This research paper discusses the Three Mile Island incident to include what started it, the results in the aftermath, and how it could have been prevented. The Three Mile Island Unit 2 (TMI-2) reactor, near Middletown, Pa., partially melted down on March 28, 1979. This was the most serious accident in U.S. commercial nuclear power plant operating history, although its small radioactive releases had no detectable health effects on plant workers or the public. Its aftermath brought about sweeping changes involving emergency response planning, reactor operator training, human factors engineering, radiation protection, and many other areas of nuclear power plant operations. It also caused the NRC (Nuclear Regulatory Commission) to tighten and

realize that the plant was having an accident with the coolant level. The tubes holding the nuclear fuel began to melt since they became over heated which also caused fuel pellets to melt. Even though this was the most dangerous kind of nuclear accident, the radiation did not reach outside of the containment building nor did it release out into the environment. There were no immediate injuries or deaths reported from the raditation to the faculty workers.

his led to the melting of the fuel and a drastic increase in radioactivity within the reactor coolant.This also resulted in leaks in the coolant system, which led to small amounts of radiation escaping into the environment.[7]

As humans we want to have a good life, have a home, maybe a family and feel safe. With the advances in industry such as energy production we can have more luxuries which include heat, lights and running water. However, as technology gets bigger and better there will always be risks that can lead to catastrophic outcomes. Luckily for the United States; we did not have a disastrous outcome with a nuclear power plant such as the 1986’s Chernobyl Nuclear Power plant catastrophe, making, ”the Chernobyl disaster the only level 7 incident on the International Nuclear Event Scales (INES) making it the biggest man-made disaster of all time” (List 25, 2014) . Three Mile Island power plants is located near Middletown Pennsylvania. On March 28, 1979, the plant had a partial meltdown. Even though the Three Mile Island power plant incident did not have any adverse health effects, Three Mile Island had an impact on the nuclear industry development and politically in the United States.

This did not mean that the valve had actually performed that action, but rather that the message was received by the valve (History Channel…). The light shut off, which indicated to the operators that the valve had been opened and reclosed, however the valve did not reclose (Wikipedia). The PORV remained open and was releasing a combination of coolant and radioactive material. As coolant water was released, no instrument indicated this to the operators; the operators had only been trained to estimate the amount of water in the reactor by doing calculations based upon pressure readings. These pressure readings were now skewed and thus the calculations were wrong and based upon these wrong calculations, the operators stopped the flow of cooling water to the reactor. The lack of water caused overheating within the reactor and according to the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission’s findings, about half of the reactor’s core melted. Operators had no way of knowing this and also were not trained to handle such an event. Unlike the event at Chernobyl, the reactor stayed intact and massive amounts of radiation were not leaked into the surrounding area. This containment, led nuclear engineer, Jack Herbein to announce publically that the citizens of Harrisburg were in no danger. Herbein’s comments on the plant were near fraudulent because no one was certain as to the actual danger that they were in

Americas main fear was the actual spread of communism and the fear that a domino effect would occur, especially the far east. In 1949, their fears were confirmed when communist China took power and North Korea consequently became a communist country and began to threaten pro-American South Korea. That same year, the Soviet Union developed and tested its first atomic bomb, which was years earlier than American scientists had anticipated. This chain of events began the Arms race between the Soviet Union and the U.S., which would continue until the late 1980s with each side trying to outdo the other. Against this background many other subsequent events helped to stir up suspicion and mass paranoia which only heightened anti-communist sentiment,

Ever since the first atomic bomb explosion in Nagasaki and Hiroshima Japan 1945, the world knew little on how the bomb was made, or so they thought. Only four years later in 1949, “Harry S. Truman announced that an atomic explosion had occurred in the Soviet Union”, (Knappman 452). This was shocking news to the world because many believed that they could not make the atomic bomb. Perhaps it was a breach of national secrecy? This resulted in a hysteria around America about the Communist spies and the espionage age ensued.

The occurrence of the explosion was a direct effect of Cold War isolation and the subsequent lack of safety regulations. From its beginning the Soviet nuclear effort, primarily focused on making an atomic bomb, was done with complete disregard for human life. Run by skilled, determined and callous managers, the nuclear industry did not take human life into account if such concerns did not serve the task at hand. And, like many of the Soviet’s projects, the emerging nuclear industry was covered in secrecy, with little to no information of what was going on made public. This was mainly due to the fact they wanted to conceal any plans from their enemies, such as the United States. The Soviet government also wanted to control the scientists and

Summer march 28, 1979 reactor number 1 was shutdown for refueling while reactor number 2 was running at 97% power. The problem which caused the main event to follow was a blockage in the filtration system, the filtration was normally cleaned with air pressure. When the air pressure wasn’t working they decided just to use the force of the water. The force of the water caused a valve to leak which then caused the feed water and booster pumps to turn off. This stopped the whole process of the nuclear reactor, with that happened the steam in the reactor had nowhere to go with the decay heat increasing. All this caused

Countless nuclear power plant accidents have been occurring quite frequently since its invention. Some accidents have even been underestimated,

There have been lots of nuclear accident around the world. One of the accident that had a major impact on the world was the Chernobyl disaster. The disaster took place on 26 April 1986 at the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant in Ukraine. The disaster was caused by a reaction explosion induced by design faults and staff application errors. The accident took place in the course of scheduled tests to check the power supply mode in the event of external sources loss. Even after 10 days, explosions and ejections of radioactive substances continued. The release of radiation and radioactive substance polluted the places within 30 km of Chernobyl, and those areas have been closed for a long period of

On March 28, 1979 in the early morning hours, mechanical and human errors started taking place in reactor number 2. Electrical failures eventually led to water pumps failing. This is one of the worst case scenarios do to the fact that the pumps are the only way to get water into the reactor to keep it cool. In conclusion, without any water reaching

Early in the morning of April 27, 1986, the world experienced its largest nuclear disaster ever (Gould 40). While violating safety protocol during a test, Reactor 4 at the Chernobyl power plant was placed in a severely unstable state, and in a matter of seconds the reactor output shot up to 120 times the rated output (Flavin 8). The resulting steam explosion tossed aside the reactor’s 1,000 ton concrete covering and released radioactive particles up to one and a half miles into the sky (Gould 38). The explosion and resulting fires caused 31 immediate deaths and over a thousand injuries, including radiation poisoning (Flavin 5). After the

Many critics argue that due to the Three Mile Island nuclear incident that occurred March 28, 1979, in Pennsylvania resulted in a reactor meltdown, with no casualties due to a combination of equipment failure and a lack of operators understanding what to do to a faulty reactor. This incident has put the majority public to have safety concerns over not only the operators working in the plants but also the civilians in the surrounding area. Yet since the accident, the United States formed the National Academy for Nuclear Training to improve training the Institute of Nuclear Power Operations which reviews and accredits nuclear utilities’ training programs for all key positions at each plant. In addition, nuclear energy plants have proven the ability to produce clean electricity without greenhouse gas emissions and the reliability due to its increased efficiency and increased power output.

The causes of the accident was quite complex. In brief, it began with a closed bypass valve, which stopped the water flowing to the secondary main feed water pumps, once the steam generators could not receive water, they stopped and the reactor emergently shutdown. Control rods were inserted into the