The Three Mile Island Nuclear Power Plant Disaster

Three Mile Island Unit 2, located near Harrisburg, PA, had an automatic shutdown, even though the plant’s efficiency level rated about 100 percent. On March 28, 1979, one of the reactor pumps, used to supply cooling water, stopped operating, causing an automatic shutdown. This triggered an

On March 1979, in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania Three Mile Island there were misread gauges and poor decision that lead to the melting of the core reactor. But after the core melted

history took place on March 28, 1979 at the Three Mile Island plant in Pennsylvania. A cooling system failed, causing a partial meltdown, but a full meltdown was averted and there were no fatalities. However, despite the positive outcome and despite the passage of more than 30 years, the incident remains fresh in the minds of those who are old enough to remember it.

The Fukushima disaster was caused by an earthquake and its following tsunami which caused a failure in the backup systems (World Nuclear Association, 2016). The tsunami knocked out the generators that powered the cooldown processes for three of the Fukushima power plants which caused the radiation leaks and other complications. Consequentially, the disaster was initially classified as a level 5 on the INES scale. Further investigation after the disaster was under control changed it to a level 7 disaster, the highest level on the INES scale. The estimated radioactive releases were about one tenth of Chernobyl, the worst nuclear disaster in history.

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

There are currently 442 active nuclear power reactors worldwide according to the Nuclear Energy Institute. Of all of the reactors worldwide, 14 have been classified as accidents where the public has been exposed to radiation. The most devastating of these incidents was the core meltdown of reactor 4 at Chernobyl, better known as the Chernobyl disaster.

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 the morning of April 26th 1986 the world experienced the worst nuclear and engineering disaster ever: the nuclear disaster of Chernobyl. Reactor number 4 at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant exploded due various reasons: the design of the reactor itself had a major flaw that would make it unstable when run at low power, and the employees responsible for running the reactor were inadequately trained. Leonid Toptunov, the

On January 3, 1961 at 9:01 PM the United States experienced what any believe the be the first nuclear reactor accident in world history (Adams, 1996). The US Army had commissioned a small reactor prototype to be built in the Idaho desert that surround Idaho Falls. They believed that they were isolated enough that they could conduct experiments with a small reactor that would mimic the conditions of the site they wished to have the reactor on while also allowing for a safety zone for the people in the nearby town. The reactor was a small three rod affair that did not have the shielding or the safety measures that would come in response to this accident (Stacy, 2000, 144).

The Chernobyl accident was a disastrous nuclear event that happened on 26th April 1986 at the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant in Ukraine. The Chernobyl disaster is classified as a level 7 event according to the International Nuclear Event Scale (only two events have been classified this high in the past) and has caused damages that consist of the cost of 500,000 workers and 18 billion rubles, 31 deaths according to the Soviet casualty count (this is still being disputed) and between 4000-27000 affected future deaths due to radiation exposure [G1].

This accident has been, by far the worst nuclear power plant accident within the borders of the United States.However, the studies conducted by governmental groups such as the Nuclear Regulatory Committee (NRC), the Environmental Protection Agency, the Department of Health, Department of Energy, and the State of Pennsylvania as well as numerous independent organizations have deemed that the accident at Three Mile Island had very little, if an at all, effects on the health of the communities surrounding the plant.[8]

Each year, enormous quantities of radioactive waste are created during the nuclear fuel process, including 2,000 metric tons of high-level radioactive waste and 12 million cubic feet of low-level radioactive waste in the U.S. alone. More than 58,000 metric tons of highly radioactive spent fuel already has accumulated at reactor sites around the U.S. for which there currently is no permanent repository. Even if Yucca Mountain is licensed, the Department of Energy has stated that it would not open before 2017. In 1979, the United States had its own disaster following an accident at the Three Mile Island Nuclear Reactor in Pennsylvania.In avoiding such accidents the industry has been very successful. In over 16,000 cumulative reactor years of

On 11 March 2011 in Japan, the Fukushima nuclear power plant was seriously damaged by an earthquake and the radioactive substances were leaked to the surrounding. Local people had to evacuate away and up till now they are living under threat.

On March 11th, 2011, the northern section of Japan was hit by a 9.0 magnitude earthquake, followed by a 15 meter tsunami, causing the death of over 15000 people. (Spacey) Even though the earthquake and the tsunami caused a tremendous amount of deaths in the northern region of Japan, the meltdown of the Fukushima nuclear power plant caused a severe damage to northern Japan’s ecosystem that people still cannot go back to their homes; despite it is 4 years after the disaster. After the earthquake, the tsunami destroyed the power supply used by Fukushima’s three nuclear power stations, causing severe levels of meltdown to be occurred inside the reactors in the timespan of 3 days. It was not until 2 weeks after the tragedy, when the reactors were finally stabilized, and took several months to approach what is called a “cold shutdown condition”, in which the fission in the reactors are completely stopped.(Fukushima A)

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.