Essay on Three Mile Island

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

To understand the Three Mile Island incident, a background knowledge is needed. What is a nuclear power plant? Nuclear power plants are energy producing facilities. The energy is produced in a nuclear reactor located in the facility. The plants use heat generated from nuclear fission which occurs in a contained area and in which water is converted to steam. Nuclear fission is the division of a nucleus in two approximate equal masses. When this process is completed a release of a large

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

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

Many of the same ineffectual workers that had worsened the incident, were mistakenly sharing conflicting data and misinformation with both government officials and the press. Rumors of deadly doses of radiation being released onto the public began to swirl as a byproduct of the confusion. Nearly 140,000 frantic citizens fled the area in the days that followed. State officials advised the remaining citizens to refrain from venturing outside of the home, and recommended farmers in the area to herd their livestock into shelter. The governor of Pennsylvania, Dick Thornburgh, even went far as to take the precautionary measure of issuing the evacuation of all pregnant women from the area. Without as much as single death or injury linked to the Three Mile Island incident, a petrified America became united under fear. In a matter of days, the seemingly visionary road leading to the age of nuclear power was entirely weathered away, and the people now wanted

The operator opened the relief valve to release the pressure in which is in the reactor, while the pressure inside the reactor was decreasing up to the required level due to the improper respond and malfunctioning lead to failure of the valve to close. Not only wrong readings by the engineers, but also an inputting excess amount of computer data lead to the technical failure, the slag in the ongoing analyzing process and immediately human alert was alarmed in the power plant. But this issue as not stopped yet, the core of the reactor was beginning to cook. The incident China syndrome was named since there was the increasing of temperature from 4300 degrees Celsius to 5300degree at which meltdown. Hazardous radioactive gas was exposed all over the plant because of the leaked water from the open valve in an adjacent building. No emergency precaution was taken when the second accident of radioactive gas took place. In the video, there was also a communication error to note down and transfer the report were the problems facing the operators to take the decision quickly. Also, one of the employers found the fault in the explosion theory of co-worker prediction the hydrogen bubble was never a threat, it was a human error. Finally, it was the most devastating incident that was spread in the news all over the world and local people

For some reason, the center control rod, possibly for maintenance purposes, was manually lifted approximately 50 cm (Stacy, 2000, 141). This caused there to be an instant, or prompt, criticality which caused the reactor to blow up (Stacy, 2000, 141). The reason for this appears to be that the reactor activated due to the reaction caused by the influx of water, a moderator, into the system. The reaction rapidly heated the moderator and the cooling water to steam which expanded in the small containment vessel and caused the reactor pressure lid to blow off of the vessel (Stacy, 2000, 141). Two of the three men, who were working inside the reactor compartment, apparently died instantly from the explosion. The other

The nuclear disaster in Fukushima occurred at fourteen forty six, Japanese time. The disaster occurred because a major magnitude nine earthquake struck North Eastern Japan and a fifteen meter high tsunami also struck the power plant (Grimston). There were eleven overall reactors that were effected by the earthquake and tsunami. Nine of the reactors cooling systems continued to work after the natural disasters occurred, but reactors one, two and three of the Fukushima Daiichi plant were terribly damaged and could not cool down the fission process. This is what lead to the one, two and three reactors to melt, causing the most detrimental damage to the global community (Grimston). Critics of the disasters say that Daiichi was not up to global nuclear safety standards because the wall the protected the plant was only stable against six meter tall tsunami waves, not the massive

In Pennsylvania, the worst nuclear power plant accident in the United States occurred. Nuclear power plants generate a mass of electricity using steam generators. The plants are very controversial concerning their safety with the environment and its role with unstable reactants like uranium and plutonium. On March 12, 1979, someone at the Three Mile Island’s second reactor, or TMI-2 for short, left a relief valve wide open leading large amounts of nuclear reactant cooling to the main reactor. All of the coolant leaving TMI-2 was recognized by the control panel in the plant but was disregarded as a loss that typically happens. At first, the surrounding towns were told that the incident wasn’t anything of worry. But after a couple days

On March 28, 1979, one of the most serious accidents in U.S. commercial nuclear power plant operating history that occurred. The Three Mile Island incident was rated a five on the seven-point international event scale. Three Mile Island Unit 2 reactor partially melted down. Three Mile Island is an island in Middletown, Pennsylvania. It was a cooling system

Some experts compared the events unfolding to partial meltdown that occurred at the Three Mile Island nuclear plant.

Three Mile Island accident was the most severe disaster in U.S. nuclear power plant history, in spite of the fact that its little radioactive discharges had no recognizable health consequences for power plant laborers or the general population. In late 1970's failing of Three Mile Island-2 was watched and radioactivity discharges to the surroundings. Plant Engineers trusted the incident was because of failure in cooling systems; the generated heat remains in the reactor, which leads increase in pressure. According to the rector structure, the valve was not closed and the machine in the control room it peruses the valve was shut. As a result alternate instruments in the plant appeared insufficient subtle elements to follow genuine reason

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

The disaster took place on April 1986, and was caused by inexperienced staff. When the power plant had to undergo a special test, to make sure that sufficient amount of cooling water would be supplied to the reactor in case of a power outage. However, the test had been delayed, because the national grid required the power output more than the expected time. Hence, the test was postponed after midnight where the night shift had to come. The night shift had little experience about such a test as most of them were electrical engineers rather than nuclear. On the other hand, the night shift had to perform the test before the grid needed the power again, otherwise they would have all been fined or fired. Consequently, lead to an unnecessary pressure on the personnel, which in turn increased the probability of making incorrect

During the Chernobyl disaster, Simple errors such as a Faulty structure design within the reactors, mechanical failure in a cooling system or reduced air pressure, and human error created an environment for a meltdown to occur. Without the proper emergency features,