Claim: There has never been a death caused by a [commercial nuclear] reactor in the United States, even when Three Mile Island failed in the 1970s.
Verdict: SUPPORTS

Retrieved passages:
title: Three Mile Island accident
text: Three Mile Island accident The Three Mile Island accident occurred on March 28, 1979, in reactor number 2 of Three Mile Island Nuclear Generating Station (TMI-2) in Dauphin County, Pennsylvania, near Harrisburg. It was the most significant accident in U.S. commercial nuclear power plant history. The incident was rated a five on the seven-point International Nuclear Event Scale: Accident with wider consequences. The accident began with failures in the non-nuclear secondary system, followed by a stuck-open pilot-operated relief valve in the primary system, which allowed large amounts of nuclear reactor coolant to escape. The mechanical failures were compounded by the

title: Nuclear safety in the United States
text: the only known fatal reactor accident in the United States. The accident released about of iodine-131, which was not considered significant due to its location in a remote desert of Idaho. About of fission products were released into the atmosphere. On March 28, 1979, equipment failures and operator error contributed to loss of coolant and a partial core meltdown at the Three Mile Island Nuclear Power Plant in Pennsylvania. The mechanical failures were compounded by the initial failure of plant operators to recognize the situation as a loss-of-coolant accident due to inadequate training and human factors, such as human-computer interaction

title: Three Mile Island accident health effects
text: Island plant is located, the 1979 death rate among infants under one year represented a 28 percent increase over that of 1978, and among infants under one month, the death rate increased by 54 percent." Physicist Ernest Sternglass, a specialist in low-level radiation, noted these statistics in the 1981 edition of his book "Secret Fallout: low-level radiation from Hiroshima to Three-Mile Island". In their final 1981 report, however, the Pennsylvania Department of Health, examining death rates within the 10-mile area around TMI for the 6 months after the accident, said that the TMI-2 accident did not cause local deaths of

title: Nuclear power in the United States
text: accident caused a total of $2.4 billion in property damages. The health effects of the Three Mile Island accident are widely, but not universally, agreed to be very low level. The accident triggered protests around the world. The 1979 Three Mile Island accident was a pivotal event that led to questions about U.S. nuclear safety. Earlier events had a similar effect, including a 1975 fire at Browns Ferry, the 1976 testimonials of three concerned GE nuclear engineers, the GE Three. In 1981, workers inadvertently reversed pipe restraints at the Diablo Canyon Power Plant reactors, compromising seismic protection systems, which further

title: Nuclear power debate
text: Babcock & Wilcox) of the Three Mile Island Nuclear Generating Station in Dauphin County, Pennsylvania near Harrisburg, United States in 1979. It was the most significant accident in the history of the USA commercial nuclear power generating industry, resulting in the release of approximately 2.5 million curies of radioactive noble gases, and approximately 15 curies of iodine-131. Cleanup started in August 1979 and officially ended in December 1993, with a total cleanup cost of about $. The incident was rated a five on the seven-point International Nuclear Event Scale: Accident With Wider Consequences. The health effects of the Three Mile

title: Nuclear labor issues
text: part interview, on the implications of her case in relation to compensation for radiation injury, and on proving strict liability and physical injury in nuclear facilities. The Three Mile Island accident in Pennsylvania occurred on March 28, 1979 was rated a 5 on the 7-point International Nuclear Event Scale resulting in the meltdown of radioactive fuel in the Unit 2 reactor. On January 4, 1986, a tank containing uranium hexafluoride (UF6) ruptured, releasing 14.5 tons of gaseous UF6 into the environment and causing the death of James Harrison, a 25-year old African American/Cherokee worker, and the hospitalization of 37 workers

title: Nuclear power debate
text: plants and other facilities covering 1950 to 1984 focusing on the change after operation started of the respective facilities. They concluded in no link. In 2000 the University of Pittsburgh found no link to heightened cancer deaths in people living within 5 miles of plant at the time of the Three Mile Island accident. The same year, the Illinois Public Health Department found no statistical abnormality of childhood cancers in counties with nuclear plants. In 2001 the Connecticut Academy of Science and Engineering confirmed that radiation emissions were negligibly low at the Connecticut Yankee Nuclear Power Plant. Also that year,

title: Three Mile Island: A Nuclear Crisis in Historical Perspective
text: after the accident. The international attention garnered by the crisis redoubled the determination of, and enhanced the credibility of, the anti-nuclear movement. Arguably, the United States nuclear industry has never recovered. Walker reports that "studies looking for long-term radiation effects resulting from the accident have reached conflicting conclusions", but it seems "that any increase in cancers is slight enough to have occurred by chance". Walker concludes that the TMI-2 accident left a mixed legacy. It did force regulatory and operational improvements on a reluctant industry, but it also increased opposition to nuclear power. In Walker's analysis, neither the critics nor

title: Three Mile Island accident health effects
text: study on local death rates before and after the accident, for the period 1975-1985, for the 10-mile area around TMI. Assigning fallout impact based on winds on the morning of March 28, 1979, the study found no link between fallout and cancer risk. The study found that cancer rates near the Three Mile Island plant peaked in 1982-3, but their mathematical model did not account for the observed increase in cancer rates, since they argued that latency periods for cancer are much longer than three years. From 1975 to 1979 there were 1,722 reported cases of cancer, and between 1981

title: Three Mile Island Nuclear Generating Station
text: not shown any increase in cancer as a result of the accident. However, almost $25 million was paid in insurance settlements to people who then agreed not to discuss their injuries in ongoing litigation. Unit 2 has not been operational since the accident occurred. The New York Times reported on August 14, 1993, 14 years after the accident, that the clean up had been finished. According to the United States NRC, 2.3 million gallons of waste water had been removed. The incident was widely publicized internationally, and had far-reaching effects on public opinion, particularly in the United States. "The China

title: Nuclear power
text: dollars. The Three Mile Island accident in 1979 was a smaller scale accident, rated at INES level 5. There were no direct or indirect deaths caused by the accident. According to Benjamin K. Sovacool, fission energy accidents ranked first among energy sources in terms of their total economic cost, accounting for 41 percent of all property damage attributed to energy accidents. Another analysis presented in the international journal "Human and Ecological Risk Assessment" found that coal, oil, Liquid petroleum gas and hydroelectric accidents (primarily due to the Banqiao dam burst) have resulted in greater economic impacts than nuclear power accidents.

title: Three Mile Island Nuclear Generating Station
text: 2 million people were exposed to a small amount of radiation from the accident. A review by the World Nuclear Association concluded that no deaths, injuries or adverse health effects resulted from the accident, and a report by Columbia University epidemiologist Maureen Hatch confirmed this finding. Because of the health concerns, the Pennsylvania Department of Health kept a registry of more than 30,000 people that lived within 5 miles of TMI at the time of the accident. The registry was kept for nearly 20 years until 1997, when no evidence was found of unusual health effects. Further epidemiology studies have

title: Three Mile Island accident
text: number of reactors under construction globally increased every year except 1971 and 1978. However, following the event, the number of reactors under construction in the U.S. declined every year from 1980–1998. Many similar Babcock & Wilcox reactors on order were canceled; in total, 51 U.S. nuclear reactors were canceled from 1980–1984. The 1979 TMI accident did not initiate the demise of the U.S. nuclear power industry, but it did halt its historic growth. Additionally, as a result of the earlier 1973 oil crisis and post-crisis analysis with conclusions of potential overcapacity in base load, forty planned nuclear power plants already

title: Three Mile Island accident
text: TMI's 97%. Although Babcock engineers recognized the problem, the company failed to clearly notify its customers of the valve issue. The Pennsylvania House of Representatives conducted its own investigation, which focused on the need to improve evacuation procedures. In 1985, a television camera was used to see the interior of the damaged reactor. In 1986, core samples and samples of debris were obtained from the corium layers on the bottom of the reactor vessel and analyzed. According to the IAEA, the Three Mile Island accident was a significant turning point in the global development of nuclear power. From 1963–1979, the

title: Nuclear reactor accidents in the United States
text: damage costs include destruction of property, emergency response, environmental remediation, evacuation, lost product, fines, and court claims. Because nuclear reactors are large and complex, accidents onsite tend to be relatively expensive. In the U.S., at least 56 nuclear reactor accidents have occurred. The most serious of these U.S. accidents was the Three Mile Island accident in 1979. According to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, the Davis–Besse Nuclear Power Station has been the source of two of the top five most dangerous nuclear incidents in the United States since 1979. The United States Government Accountability Office reported more than 150 incidents from

title: Nuclear history of the United States
text: vessels. The 1979 Three Mile Island accident was a pivotal event that led to questions about U.S. nuclear safety. Earlier events had a similar effect, including a 1975 fire at Browns Ferry, the 1976 testimonials of three concerned GE nuclear engineers, the GE Three. In 1981, workers inadvertently reversed pipe restraints at the Diablo Canyon Power Plant reactors, compromising seismic protection systems, which further undermined confidence in nuclear safety. All of these well-publicised events, undermined public support for the U.S. nuclear industry in the 1970s and the 1980s. The national U.S. movement against nuclear power had its roots in New

title: Nuclear reactor accidents in the United States
text: Nuclear reactor accidents in the United States The United States Government Accountability Office reported more than 150 incidents from 2001 to 2006 of nuclear plants not performing within acceptable safety guidelines. According to a 2010 survey of energy accidents, there have been at least 56 accidents at nuclear reactors in the United States (defined as incidents that either resulted in the loss of human life or more than US$50,000 of property damage). The most serious of these was the Three Mile Island accident in 1979. Davis-Besse Nuclear Power Plant has been the source of two of the top five most

title: Three Mile Island: A Nuclear Crisis in Historical Perspective
text: Three Mile Island accident, though it "caused a grave crisis, did not produce a public health disaster". The pressure vessel held when faced with a core meltdown and there was no breach of the power plant's containment structure. Only "tiny amounts of the most dangerous forms of volatile radiation escaped to the atmosphere". It took 11 years to clean up TMI-2 and this cost about US$1 billion. Walker suggests that the TMI accident incited widespread criticism of nuclear power technology, the nuclear industry, and the NRC. Critics faulted the industry and the NRC for their poor performance both before and

title: Three Mile Island accident
text: been accompanied by a discussion of problems in dose estimates due to a lack of accurate data, as well as illness classifications. The TMI accident enhanced the credibility of anti-nuclear groups, who had predicted an accident, and triggered protests around the world. (President Carter—who had specialized in nuclear power while in the United States Navy—told his cabinet after visiting the plant that the accident was minor, but reportedly declined to do so in public in order to avoid offending left-wing Democrats who opposed nuclear power.) Members of the American public, concerned about the release of radioactive gas from the accident,

title: Nuclear reactor accidents in the United States
text: agencies at the local, state and federal levels tried to solve the problem and decide whether the ongoing accident required an emergency evacuation, and to what extent. Cleanup started in August 1979 and officially ended in December 1993, with a total cleanup cost of about $1 billion. In his 2007 preliminary assessment of major energy accidents, Benjamin K. Sovacool, estimated that the TMI accident caused a total of $2.4 billion in property damages. The health effects of the Three Mile Island accident are widely, but not universally, agreed to be very low level. The TMI accident forced regulatory and operational