1979 scare | Times News Online Monday, March 31, 2014 35th anniversary of the Three Mile Island crisis Last Friday marked the 35th Anniversary of Three Mile Island accident, the civilian nuclear power plant near Harrisburg that suffered a partial meltdown of one reactor. Although it resulted in no deaths or injuries, TMI became one of the worst nuclear disasters in our country's history, forcing the evacuation of 140,000 people. To mark last week's anniversary of the TMI accident, former Pennsylvania Gov. Dick Thornburgh and former federal nuclear engineer Harold Denton were among the speakers at a two-day event hosted by Penn State Harrisburg. Thornburgh had been Pennsylvania's governor for only 72 days when the TMI accident unfolded while Denton, who worked for the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, was a calming voice amid all the chaos during the crisis. Since it represents approximately 21 percent of the state's total electric generating capacity, Pennsylvania is a major player in the nuclear power industry. According to the U.S.

Census Bureau, nearly 93,000 people live within 10 miles of the Susquehanna plant in Berwick, and 147,640 people are within 10 miles of the Three Mile Island plant. The accident in 1979, which was caused by a combination of errors, resulted in major upgrades in training, oversight, safety procedures and emergency response. More federal requirements were added following the attacks on the U.S. by terrorists on Sept. 11, 2001. This area has an important role in the event of a nuclear disaster at either the Susquehanna plant in Berwick or at Three Mile Island. Schuylkill County serves as a support county and is part of the evacuation plans for both facilities. Tamaqua and Marian high schools would also serve as evacuation shelters for up to 2,000 residents. After 35 years, the subject of nuclear power remains a charged issue. Last week, an anti-nuclear power group called No Nukes Pennsylvania, held its 32nd vigil outside TMI's north gate.

Proponents of nuclear power point to the progress in technology and safety over the decades and the fact that it requires no pollution of the air and no burning of fossil fuels. Opponents argue that the plants will never be completely safe and that the nuclear waste being stored throughout the country in temporary facilities will always pose a risk. One concern is that it could fall into the hands of terrorists looking to build dirty bombs. A positive point from the pro-nuclear camp is that no one in this country has become seriously ill or has died because of any kind of accident at a civilian nuclear power plant. Hopefully it remains that way and the nuclear fumbles caused by the near-disaster at TMI won't be repeated. By Jim Zbick NRC: Backgrounder on the Three Mile Island Accident Home > NRC Library > Document Collections > Fact Sheets > Backgrounder on the Three Mile Island Accident Backgrounder on the Three Mile Island Accident Printable Version (does not include Animated Diagram of the Sequence of Events) Plant Diagram 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 to tighten and heighten its regulatory oversight. All of these changes significantly enhanced U.S. reactor safety. A combination of equipment malfunctions, design-related problems and worker errors led to TMI-2's partial meltdown and very small off-site releases of radioactivity. Summary of Events The accident began about 4 a.m. on Wednesday, March 28, 1979, when the plant experienced a failure in the secondary, non-nuclear section of the plant (one of two reactors on the site). Either a mechanical or electrical failure prevented the main feedwater pumps from sending water to the steam generators that remove heat from the reactor core. This caused the plant's turbine-generator and then the reactor itself to automatically shut down. Immediately, the pressure in the primary system (the nuclear portion of the plant) began to increase.

In order to control that pressure, the pilot-operated relief valve (a valve located at the top of the pressurizer) opened. The valve should have closed when the pressure fell to proper levels, but it became stuck open. Instruments in the control room, however, indicated to the plant staff that the valve was closed. As a result, the plant staff was unaware that cooling water was pouring out of the stuck-open valve. As coolant flowed from the primary system through the valve, other instruments available to reactor operators provided inadequate information. There was no instrument that showed how much water covered the core. As a result, plant staff assumed that as long as the pressurizer water level was high, the core was properly covered with water. As alarms rang and warning lights flashed, the operators did not realize that the plant was experiencing a loss-of-coolant accident. They took a series of actions that made conditions worse. The water escaping through the stuck valve reduced primary system pressure so much that the reactor coolant pumps had to be turned off to prevent dangerous vibrations. To prevent the pressurizer from filling up completely, the staff reduced how much emergency cooling water was being pumped in to the primary system.

These actions starved the reactor core of coolant, causing it to overheat. Without the proper water flow, the nuclear fuel overheated to the point at which the zirconium cladding (the long metal tubes that hold the nuclear fuel pellets) ruptured and the fuel pellets began to melt. It was later found that about half of the core melted during the early stages of the accident. Although TMI-2 suffered a severe core meltdown, the most dangerous kind of nuclear power accident, consequences outside the plant were minimal. Unlike the Chernobyl and Fukushima accidents, TMI-2's containment building remained intact and held almost all of the accident's radioactive material. Federal and state authorities were initially concerned about the small releases of radioactive gases that were measured off-site by the late morning of March 28 and even more concerned about the potential threat that the reactor posed to the surrounding population. They did not know that the core had melted, but they immediately took steps to try to gain control of the reactor and ensure adequate cooling to the core. The NRC's regional office in King of Prussia, Pa., was notified at 7:45 a.m. on March 28.

By 8 a.m., NRC Headquarters in Washington, D.C., was alerted and the NRC Operations Center in Bethesda, Md., was activated. The regional office promptly dispatched the first team of inspectors to the site and other agencies, such as the Department of Energy and the Environmental Protection Agency, also mobilized their response teams. Helicopters hired by TMI's owner, General Public Utilities Nuclear, and the Department of Energy were sampling radioactivity in the atmosphere above the plant by midday. A team from the Brookhaven National Laboratory was also sent to assist in radiation monitoring. At 9:15 a.m., the White House was notified and at 11 a.m., all non-essential personnel were ordered off the plant's premises. By the evening of March 28, the core appeared to be adequately cooled and the reactor appeared to be stable. But new concerns arose by the morning of Friday, March 30. A significant release of radiation from the plant's auxiliary building, performed to relieve pressure on the primary system and avoid curtailing the flow of coolant to the core, caused a great deal of confusion and consternation. In an atmosphere of growing uncertainty about the condition of the plant, the governor of Pennsylvania, Richard L.

Thornburgh, consulted with the NRC about evacuating the population near the plant. Eventually, he and NRC Chairman Joseph Hendrie agreed that it would be prudent for those members of society most vulnerable to radiation to evacuate the area. Thornburgh announced that he was advising pregnant women and pre-school-age children within a five-mile radius of the plant to leave the area. Within a short time, chemical reactions in the melting fuel created a large hydrogen bubble in the dome of the pressure vessel, the container that holds the reactor core. NRC officials worried the hydrogen bubble might burn or even explode and rupture the pressure vessel. In that event, the core would fall into the containment building and perhaps cause a breach of containment. The hydrogen bubble was a source of intense scrutiny and great anxiety, both among government authorities and the population, throughout the day on Saturday, March 31. The crisis ended when experts determined on Sunday, April 1, that the bubble could not burn or explode because of the absence of oxygen in the pressure vessel. Further, by that time, the utility had succeeded in greatly reducing the size of the bubble.

Animated Diagram of the Sequence of Events The following animated diagram graphically depicts the sequence of events associated with the accident at TMI-2. Health Effects The NRC conducted detailed studies of the accident's radiological consequences, as did the Environmental Protection Agency, the Department of Health, Education and Welfare (now Health and Human Services), the Department of Energy, and the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. Several independent groups also conducted studies. The approximately 2 million people around TMI-2 during the accident are estimated to have received an average radiation dose of only about 1 millirem above the usual background dose. To put this into context, exposure from a chest X-ray is about 6 millirem and the area's natural radioactive background dose is about 100-125 millirem per year for the area. The accident's maximum dose to a person at the site boundary would have been less than 100 millirem above background. In the months following the accident, although questions were raised about possible adverse effects from radiation on human, animal, and plant life in the TMI area, none could be directly correlated to the accident.

Thousands of environmental samples of air, water, milk, vegetation, soil, and foodstuffs were collected by various government agencies monitoring the area. Very low levels of radionuclides could be attributed to releases from the accident. However, comprehensive investigations and assessments by several well respected organizations, such as Columbia University and the University of Pittsburgh, have concluded that in spite of serious damage to the reactor, the actual release had negligible effects on the physical health of individuals or the environment. Impact of the Accident A combination of personnel error, design deficiencies, and component failures caused the Three Mile Island accident, which permanently changed both the nuclear industry and the NRC. Public fear and distrust increased, NRC's regulations and oversight became broader and more robust, and management of the plants was scrutinized more carefully. Careful analysis of the accident's events identified problems and led to permanent and sweeping changes in how NRC regulates its licensees – which, in turn, has reduced the risk to public health and safety. Here are some of the major changes that have occurred since the accident: Upgrading and strengthening of plant design and equipment requirements.

This includes fire protection, piping systems, auxiliary feedwater systems, containment building isolation, reliability of individual components (pressure relief valves and electrical circuit breakers), and the ability of plants to shut down automatically; Identifying the critical role of human performance in plant safety led to revamping operator training and staffing requirements, followed by improved instrumentation and controls for operating the plant, and establishment of fitness-for-duty programs for plant workers to guard against alcohol or drug abuse; Enhancing emergency preparedness, including requirements for plants to immediately notify NRC of significant events and an NRC Operations Center staffed 24 hours a day. Drills and response plans are now tested by licensees several times a year, and state and local agencies participate in drills with the Federal Emergency Management Agency and NRC; Integrating NRC observations, findings, and conclusions about licensee performance and management effectiveness into a periodic, public report; Having senior NRC managers regularly analyze plant performance for those plants needing significant additional regulatory attention; Expanding NRC's resident inspector program – first authorized in 1977 – to have at least two inspectors live nearby and work exclusively at each plant in the U.S.

to provide daily surveillance of licensee adherence to NRC regulations; Expanding performance-oriented as well as safety-oriented inspections, and the use of risk assessment to identify vulnerabilities of any plant to severe accidents; Strengthening and reorganizing enforcement staff in a separate office within the NRC; Establishing the Institute of Nuclear Power Operations, the industry's own "policing" group, and formation of what is now the Nuclear Energy Institute to provide a unified industry approach to generic nuclear regulatory issues, and interaction with NRC and other government agencies; Installing additional equipment by licensees to mitigate accident conditions, and monitor radiation levels and plant status; Enacting programs by licensees for early identification of important safety-related problems, and for collecting and assessing relevant data so operating experience can be shared and quickly acted upon; and Expanding NRC's international activities to share enhanced knowledge of nuclear safety with other countries in a number of important technical areas. Current Status Today, the TMI-2 reactor is permanently shut down and all its fuel had been removed. The reactor coolant system is fully drained and the radioactive water decontaminated and evaporated.

The accident's radioactive waste was shipped off-site to an appropriate disposal area, and the reactor fuel and core debris was shipped to the Department of Energy's Idaho National Laboratory. In 2001, FirstEnergy acquired TMI-2 from GPU. FirstEnergy has contracted the monitoring of TMI-2 to Exelon, the current owner and operator of TMI-1. The companies plan to keep the TMI-2 facility in long-term, monitored storage until the operating license for the TMI-1 plant expires, at which time both plants will be decommissioned. Below is a chronology of highlights of the TMI-2 cleanup from 1980 through 1993. Date Monitored storage began. Additional Information Further information on the TMI-2 accident can be obtained from sources listed below. The NUREG documents, many of which are on microfiche, can be ordered for a fee from the NRC's Public Document Room at 301-415-4737 or 1-800-397-4209; e-mail pdr@nrc.gov .

The PDR is located at 11555 Rockville Pike, Rockville, Md.; however the mailing address is: U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, Public Document Room, Washington, D.C. 20555. A glossary is also provided below. Additional Sources for Information on Three Mile Island NRC Annual Report - 1979, NUREG-0690 "Population Dose and Health Impact of the Accident at the Three Mile Island Nuclear Station," NUREG-0558 "Environmental Assessment of Radiological Effluents from Data Gathering and Maintenance Operation on Three Mile Island Unit 2," NUREG-0681 "Report of The President's Commission on The Accident at Three Mile Island," October, 1979 "Investigation into the March 28, 1979 Three Mile Island Accident by the Office of Inspection and Enforcement," NUREG-0600 "Three Mile Island; A Report to the Commissioners and to the Public," by Mitchell Rogovin and George T. Frampton, NUREG/CR-1250, Vols.

I-II, 1980 "Lessons learned From the Three Mile Island - Unit 2 Advisory Panel," NUREG/CR-6252 "The Status of Recommendations of the President's Commission on the Accident at Three Mile Island," (A ten-year review), NUREG-1355 "NRC Views and Analysis of the Recommendations of the President's Commission on the Accident at Three Mile Island," NUREG-0632 "Environmental Impact Statement related to decontamination and disposal of radioactive wastes resulting from March 28, 1979 accident Three Mile Island Nuclear Station, Unit 2," NUREG-0683 "Answers to Questions About Updated Estimates of Occupational Radiation Doses at Three Mile Island, Unit 2," NUREG-1060 "Answers to Frequently Asked Questions About Cleanup Activities at Three Mile Island, Unit 2," NUREG-0732 "Status of Safety Issues at Licensed Power Plants" (TMI Action Plan Reqmts.), NUREG-1435 Walker, J. Samuel, Three Mile Island: A Nuclear Crisis in Historical Perspective, Berkeley: University of California Press, 2004.

Glossary Auxiliary feedwater - (see emergency feedwater) Background radiation - The radiation in the natural environment, including cosmic rays and radiation from the naturally radioactive elements, both outside and inside the bodies of humans and animals. The usually quoted average individual exposure from background radiation is 300 millirem per year. Cladding - The thin-walled metal tube that forms the outer jacket of a nuclear fuel rod. It prevents the corrosion of the fuel by the coolant and the release of fission products in the coolants. Aluminum, stainless steel and zirconium alloys are common cladding materials. Emergency feedwater system - Backup feedwater supply used during nuclear plant startup and shutdown; also known as auxiliary feedwater. Fuel rod - A long, slender tube that holds fuel (fissionable material) for nuclear reactor use. Fuel rods are assembled into bundles called fuel elements or fuel assemblies, which are loaded individually into the reactor core. Containment - The gas-tight shell or other enclosure around a reactor to confine fission products that otherwise might be released to the atmosphere in the event of an accident. Coolant - A substance circulated through a nuclear reactor to remove or transfer heat. The most commonly used coolant in the U.S. is water.

Other coolants include air, carbon dioxide, and helium. Core - The central portion of a nuclear reactor containing the fuel elements, and control rods. Decay heat - The heat produced by the decay of radioactive fission products after the reactor has been shut down. Decontamination - The reduction or removal of contaminating radioactive material from a structure, area, object, or person. Decontamination may be accomplished by (1) treating the surface to remove or decrease the contamination; (2) letting the material stand so that the radioactivity is decreased by natural decay; and (3) covering the contamination to shield the radiation emitted. Feedwater - Water supplied to the steam generator that removes heat from the fuel rods by boiling and becoming steam. The steam then becomes the driving force for the turbine generator. Nuclear Reactor - A device in which nuclear fission may be sustained and controlled in a self-supporting nuclear reaction. There are several varieties, but all incorporate certain features, such as fissionable material or fuel, a moderating material (to control the reaction), a reflector to conserve escaping neutrons, provisions for removal of heat, measuring and controlling instruments, and protective devices.

Pressure Vessel - A strong-walled container housing the core of most types of power reactors. Pressurizer - A tank or vessel that controls the pressure in a certain type of nuclear reactor. Primary System - The cooling system used to remove energy from the reactor core and transfer that energy either directly or indirectly to the steam turbine. Radiation - Particles (alpha, beta, neutrons) or photons (gamma) emitted from the nucleus of an unstable atom as a result of radioactive decay. Reactor Coolant System - (see primary system) Secondary System - The steam generator tubes, steam turbine, condenser and associated pipes, pumps, and heaters used to convert the heat energy of the reactor coolant system into mechanical energy for electrical generation. Steam Generator - The heat exchanger used in some reactor designs to transfer heat from the primary (reactor coolant) system to the secondary (steam) system. This design permits heat exchange with little or no contamination of the secondary system equipment. Turbine - A rotary engine made with a series of curved vanes on a rotating shaft. Usually turned by water or steam. Turbines are considered to be the most economical means to turn large electrical generators.

Plant Diagram Page Last Reviewed/Updated Friday, December 12, 2014 Home Chernobyl: Twenty-Five Years of Wormwood Chernobyl: Twenty-Five Years of Wormwood Chernobyl: Twenty-Five Years of Wormwood 05/01/2011 | Kennedy Maize Save to myPOWER Twenty-five years ago last month, engineers and technicians were running low-power tests at the 1,000-MW Reactor No. 4 of the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant outside Kiev. They quickly, inexplicably, lost control of the light-water-cooled, graphite-moderated reactor. In an instant, the critical chain reaction flared out of control. The plant exploded like a small, dirty bomb, the graphite caught fire, and the worst catastrophe in civilian nuclear power was under way. The immediate fallout, using the term broadly, not only killed brave first responders—who faced brutal radiation doses as they flew helicopters over the smoking carcass to drop sand, clay, boron, and lead to suffocate the beast—but also a photographer who documented their bravery and plant workers unlucky to be working the early morning shift when the unit went wild. How many died?

Former USSR President Mikhail Gorbachev was running the Soviet government when the reactor exploded. Writing in the March-April 2011 issue of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, Gorbachev’s estimate 25 years later remains imprecise: “Some 50 workers died fighting the fire and reactor core meltdown, and another 4,000 or more deaths may eventually be shown to have resulted from radioactive releases. The radiation dosage at the power plant during the accident has been estimated at over 20,000 roentgens per hour, about 40 times the estimated lethal dosage, and the World Health Organization identified 237 workers with Acute Radiation Sickness.” 1. Days after. This is an aerial view of Reactor No. 4 at the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant just days after it caught fire and exploded on April 26, 1986, sending a radioactive cloud of dust over Ukraine, Belarus, Russia, and other parts of Europe. Courtesy: Reuters 2. Buried trouble. A concrete sarcophagus was erected by December 1986 to seal off the reactor and halt the further release of radiation into the atmosphere.

The heat inside the reactor remains over 200C today, and the concrete structure is showing signs of stress. At the time of the explosion, only 3% of the nuclear material in the plant was expelled, leaving about 216 tons of uranium and plutonium buried in the reactor. Courtesy: Reuters The Accident was Local… A radioactive cloud spread westward over much of Europe. For weeks, the release fell over cities and fields. The atomic industry coined a euphemism to describe the event: “rapid disassembly of the core.” Chernobyl dominated newspaper, radio, and television news. In countries with nuclear power programs, a political tussle broke out among those who ran—and advocated—nuclear plants and those who sought to shut them down. Opponents of nuclear power sought to make Chernobyl a symbol of the evils of the atom. Proponents stressed the inherently flawed, one-off design of the RBMK plants, unlike the West’s typically water-cooled and -moderated plants. There was satisfaction for the supporters of civilian atomic power plants that the machines the Soviets provided to their captive satellite countries were similar to, and perhaps stolen from, modern U.S. and European light water reactors.

Western engineers, with tongue in cheek, often described the Soviet VVER designs as “Eastinghouse” reactors. The Russians were reluctant to supply their conquered Warsaw Pact allies with units that could make both electricity and weapons-grade plutonium, fearing that Poles and Czechs and Hungarians might get ideas about turning plowshares into swords. Predictably, the Chernobyl disaster had cultural echoes. In 1988, Marvel Comics produced a “Meltdown” series of comic books, featuring the superhero Wolverine and using the Chernobyl accident a plot device. In 2005, crime writer Martin Cruz Smith, author of the best-selling Gorky Park, wrote Wolves Eat Dogs, which also featured Chernobyl in the back story. For those interested in nuclear energy history, nuclear accidents have figured in popular culture at least since the 1954 Castle Bravo H-bomb test on Bikini Atoll. That incident accidentally exposed a Japanese fishing boat, the Fukuryu Maru, sickening all 23 crew members, one of whom died within seven months of radiation sickness. That episode set off a firestorm of controversy in Japan and inspired the Godzilla monster movies.

The 1959 French movie Hiroshima Mon Amour, dealing with the lasting and evanescent qualities of memory, started a motion picture genre known as “new wave.” In 1979, The China Syndrome, starring Jane Fonda, Jack Lemmon, and Michael Douglas, eerily preceded the Three Mile Island accident. About the Cover: Looking Backward and Forward For months, we had planned to run a story about the 25th anniversary of the Chernobyl disaster in our May issue. Then a massive earthquake and tsunami hit Japan. Among the devastating consequences was critical damage to several nuclear reactors (and gas plants, including the Sendai Plant shown on last month’s cover). Shortly after learning about the events in Japan, during discussions about the cover for this issue, we considered working with the concept of “25 Years Later,” to tie together the Chernobyl and Fukushima disasters. However, the circumstances, technologies, causes, and likely outcomes differ greatly. Instead, we believed the larger, more important goal should be to draw attention to the dual nature of nuclear power. Nuclear plant catastrophes are low-probability/high-impact events. When they happen, they naturally remind us of the generation technology’s risks.

But until the Daiichi plant disaster, nuclear power was enjoying its highest popularity in decades, thanks to its ability to supply reliable, baseload, emissions-free electrons. The financial aspect of nuclear energy also has its two sides: plants are relatively expensive to build, but the electricity they produce is relatively cheap. As for nuclear’s lifecycle, the raw fuel is fairly easy to obtain, but its waste is difficult to store indefinitely. Nuclear power can bring life—or at least the necessities of life, like warmth—to its users. It can also bring death. When a catastrophe happens, it’s easy to focus just on the negatives of nuclear power. After a few decades, when the impact of disaster has faded for many, it’s easy to focus just on its benefits. That’s why we chose the image of the mythological Janus, the Roman god whose two faces depict his power to see both the past and the future. Over time, the Janus face has also come to represent someone or something with contrasting attributes. The Janus image should remind us all of the importance of being able to simultaneously remember and apply the lessons taught by past tragedies while looking toward the future.

Though we mortals can only see the past, if we fail to learn from that past, future generations will have us to blame. We hope this month’s cover and cover story will get you thinking, talking about, and exploring new and better ways of reconciling nuclear power’s Janus-faced nature. — Gail Reitenbach, PhD is POWER’s managing editor. … But Was Felt Globally Chernobyl ultimately had little impact on worldwide nuclear development. The unique design of the Russian reactors meant that the event had few specific implications for most of the designs employed then and now in the rest of the world. Economics and national politics continued to drive nuclear power development, as they had before Chernobyl. But the Ukrainian atomic explosion did have important impacts on attitudes within the industry, much as the March 1979 Three Mile Island (TMI) accident had reinforced the message that safety in nuclear power is Job 1. In the U.S., TMI resulted in the formation in December 1979 of the Institute for Nuclear Power Operations (INPO), the industry’s self-policing watchdog. That organization was the forerunner of a dramatic turnaround in performance at U.S. nuclear plants.

In 1989, in the aftermath of Chernobyl, the world’s nuclear nations formed the World Association of Nuclear Operators (WANO). Both INPO and WANO were largely the fruits of efforts made by the late William States Lee III, legendary CEO of Duke Power who worked at Duke for four decades. Bill Lee often said that both TMI and Chernobyl were key events in improving the safety and performance record of nuclear power. Chernobyl, by many accounts, also played an important role in the demise of the USSR, by undermining much of the mythology behind communist ideology. One of the tenets of Russia’s Bolshevik version of communism was the idea of the “new Soviet man.” This was a doctrine of the perfectibility of mankind, a belief that social and political forces could mold individual behavior.

Here’s how Leon Trotsky put it in his 1924 book Literature and Revolution: “Man will make it his purpose to master his own feelings, to raise his instincts to the heights of consciousness, to make them transparent, to extend the wires of his will into hidden recesses, and thereby to raise himself to a new plane, to create a higher social biologic type, or, if you please, a superman.” 25 Years Later, Fukushima This article was completed two days before the March 11 disaster at the six-unit Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power complex in northeastern Japan. Our goal with this story was to provide a perspective on the lasting importance of Chernobyl on the 25th anniversary of the partial meltdown of Reactor 4, especially for the large number of POWER readers who were not part of the power generation industry at the time of that accident. Ken Maize does an admirable job of achieving that goal.

My only caveat is that the IAEA statement quoted at the end of his story could now be revised to say, “One single major accident in a power plant could—in a matter of minutes—ruin twenty-five years of considerable effort.” Recent events in Japan demand additional comment, not concerning the cause of the largest nuclear disaster since Chernobyl, but rather on the potential for the multi-unit Fukushima Daiichi accident to further chip away at the fragile foundation of the “nuclear renaissance.” Maize painted a picture last month (“Nuclear Fever Breaks,” April 2010) of an industry metaphorically standing on a street corner with a tin cup, begging the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE), “Brother, can you spare a loan guarantee?” Without loan guarantees, many of the 20 or so projects in the Nuclear Regulatory Commission’s (NRC’s) approval queue will not mature into real projects. Perhaps in most immediate peril is the plan by Nuclear Innovation North America (NINA) to add two new units to the South Texas Nuclear Project (STNP). NINA is a company jointly owned by NRG Energy and Toshiba Corp. to develop the expansion project. Tokyo Electric Power Co.

(TEPCO), owner of the Fukushima Daiichi plant, is also a 9% owner of the two new STNP reactors and has an option to purchase another 10% of that project. The expansion of STNP is dependant not only on a DOE loan guarantee but also the largesse of the Japanese government. “TEPCO will be instrumental in helping to secure Japanese financing support through Japan Bank for International Cooperation and Nippon Export and Investment Insurance,” said Steven Win, CEO of NINA, in a May 2010 interview. I suspect that TEPCO’s viability as a technical and financial partner in STNP may soon become politically untenable. I also believe Maize’s closing words may, unfortunately, prove prophetic. Days after Japan’s accident, a USA Today/ Gallup Poll taken March 15–16 found that the number of U.S. adults who support new reactors slipped from 62% in March 2010 to 46% a year later.

In Washington, several of our representatives are haranguing the NRC about nuclear plants built near faults, and others are pushing for distribution of potassium iodide pills for residents who live within 20 miles of any nuclear plant, rather than within the existing 10-mile zone. Other anti-nuclear groups aren’t waiting for the figurative smoke to clear in Japan before demanding the closure of all 23 General Electric Mark I boiling water reactors in the U.S., calling their “design flaws fundamental.” Other activists are lambasting the NRC for allowing those reactors to operate, some for four decades, in the first place, ignoring the fact that 21 or the 23 have already received license renewals to operate another 20 years. I suspect that the NRC doesn’t consider a 9.0 seismic event rapidly followed by a tsunami a reasonable design condition for U.S. owners of Mark I reactors, such as Fermi 2 (located in Monroe, Mich.) or Peach Bottom 2 and 3 (Lancaster, Penn.). It appears that many opponents of nuclear energy are not letting this crisis to go to waste. The courts have also jumped into the fray. On March 21, the U.S.

Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit ruled that the NRC must “advise the court what impact, if any, the damages from the earthquake and tsunami at the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station have on the propriety of granting the license renewal application for the Oyster Creek Generating Station.” The relicensing of Oyster Creek has been a very contentious issue over the past few years. I have no doubt the plant will eventually be relicensed, as have all those that have proceeded Oyster Creek through the NRC relicensing gauntlet. In the U.S., the fallout from the Fukushima Daiichi plant disaster won’t be measured by a dosimeter badge but rather by poll results that are a reflection of the public’s concern about events in Japan, a predictable short-term response to the tragedy. On the other hand, could it be these poll results are indicative of a more lasting attitudinal reversal, after a decade-long rise in the public’s support of nuclear power? Only time will tell. — Dr. Robert Peltier, PE is POWER’s editor-in-chief One corollary of the “new Soviet man” doctrine was a religious fealty to technology. In that religious pantheon, electricity ranked high.

One of the early slogans of Bolshevism reads: “Communism equals Soviet power plus electrification of the entire country.” In his fine 2000 book Red Atom, historian Paul Josephson wrote that in the USSR, technology “had become a panacea for the great economic, social and political challenges facing the nation as it embarked of the path of modernization. Many peasants and workers embraced the new technology, naming their sons ‘Tractor’ ( Traktor) their daughters ‘Electrification’ ( Elektrifikatsiia) or ‘Forge’ ( Domna).” Chernobyl dashed that technology worship and the concept of the perfectibility of Soviet man. But by April 1986, the foundation of Soviet communism had already begun to crack. Gorbachev had contributed with his policy of “glasnost” or openness, implemented before Chernobyl as an antidote to rampant corruption. Among the fruits of glasnost was an invigorated Russian press that began highlighting the major problems of the Soviet Union, including alcoholism, malingering, food shortages, and environmental destruction. The events of late April 1986 and their aftermath administered a stern test to glasnost.

At first, the Soviets retreated to form, dissembling and covering up events in Ukraine. But soon, probably under Gorbachev’s orders, the Soviet government came clean about the accident. By September, the USSR delivered a full report on the accident to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) in Vienna, acknowledging terrible errors in operating the plant. Time magazine described the Soviet accident report as “one of the more startling examples of a new Soviet openness.” 3. Today. This photograph of the sarcophagus covering the damaged Reactor No. 4 was taken on February 24, 2011. Belarus, Ukraine, and Russia will mark the 25th anniversary of the nuclear reactor explosion in Chernobyl, the place where the world’s worst civil nuclear accident took place, on April 26. Courtesy: Reuters In a Chernobyl 20th anniversary assessment, the IAEA commented, “Under heavy pressure from the West to provide open information on the accident, Gorbachev imposed full glasnost, thereby annihilating one of the strongest pillars of the Soviet regime. That regime fell apart soon after.

Chernobyl was a major catalyst in triggering the chain reaction of events that would soon lead to the disintegration of the Soviet Union.” (For more on the event and its aftermath, see the multimedia page assembled by the IAEA at .) A New Perspective Now, 25 years later, what is one to make of the bitterness of Chernobyl and what it begat? The IAEA’s conclusion of 2006 remains valid. The agency observed that “the public seems to have gradually changed its perception of nuclear energy, against the backdrop of what is often referred to as ‘the nuclear renaissance’. This could be seen as evidence of the maturity of nuclear technology, of the adequacy of the safety culture, of effective regulations etc…. But it may also be proof of loss of memory.” The IAEA also cautioned, “One single major accident in a power plant could—in a matter of minutes—ruin twenty years of considerable effort.” — Kennedy Maize is a POWER contributing editor and executive editor of MANAGING POWER. Get POWER e-letters FREE!

Fukushima Aftermath/Overview of the problematic history of nuclear energy - Wikibooks, open books for an open world Fukushima Aftermath/Overview of the problematic history of nuclear energy From Wikibooks, open books for an open world Jump to: navigation , search Fukushima I Unit 1 nuclear reactor before and after the hydrogen explosion. Anyone living downwind of a nuclear power plant would do well to carefully consider the possible consequences. It is helpful to have a perspective based upon a realistic assessment of the history of nuclear energy incidents. Remember that the nuclear plant in the area you study has its own specific issues in terms of engineering, geology and potential impact on the biosphere. By now, the most serious nuclear accident has been the Chernobyl disaster in 1986. Other serious nuclear accidents include Fukushima I Nuclear Power Station|Fukushima I accident, Three Mile Island accident, the Windscale fire, Mayak accident, and the SL-1 accident. In the period to 2007, 63 major nuclear accidents have occurred at nuclear power plants.

Twenty-nine of these have occurred since the Chernobyl disaster, and 71 percent of all nuclear accidents (45 out of 63) occurred in the United States. [1] [2] Contents 8 Notes Fukushima, Onagawa and Tōkai[ edit ] On 11 March 2011, the Magnitude 9.0 devastating 2011 Sendai earthquake and tsunami took place in Japan. As a result, Fukushima I Nuclear Power Station, Fukushima II Nuclear Power Plant II, Onagawa Nuclear Power Plant and Tōkai Nuclear Power Plant stations consisting of eleven (11) reactors were automatically shut down following the earthquake. [3] At Fukushima I and II tsunami waves overtopped seawalls and destroyed diesel backup power systems, leading to severe problems including two large explosions at Fukushima I and leakage of radiation. Over 200,000 people have been evacuated. [4] Seismic recordings at six assessed nuclear power plant facilities indicated the plants had been exposed to peak ground accelerations of 0.037–0.383 g and peak ground velocities of 6.18–52.62 cm/sec.

[5] Chernobyl disaster[ edit ] The Chernobyl disaster was a major accident at the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant on April 26, 1986, with an explosion at the plant and later radioactive contamination of the surrounding area. It is so far the worst nuclear accident in the history of nuclear power. A plume of nuclear fallout|radioactive fallout drifted over parts of the western Soviet Union, Eastern Europe|Eastern and Western Europe, Scandinavia, the UK, Ireland and eastern North America. Large areas of Ukraine, Belarus, and Russia were badly damaged, forcing the people in charge to have to evacuate and resettle more than 336,000 people. About 60% of the radioactive fallout landed in Belarus, according to official post-Soviet data. [6] The accident made many people worried about the safety of the Soviet nuclear power industry. As a result, plans for more nuclear plants were put on hold and the Soviet government, who were not very open with its data, had to make public more of its data.

The now-independent countries of Russia, Ukraine, and Belarus have had to spend a lot of money and time on decontamination and health care costs of the Chernobyl accident. Nobody knows how many people died because of this accident. This is because the Soviets covered up information, did not fully complete lists, and did not let doctors list "radiation" as the reason why some people died. Most of the expected long-term deaths, such as that from cancer, have not yet happened and it is hard to say that Chernobyl was the full reason for their deaths. At Fukushima I and II tsunami waves overtopped seawalls and destroyed diesel backup power systems, leading to severe problems including two large explosions at Fukushima I and leakage of radiation. [7] Three Mile Island accident[ edit ] Three Mile Island Nuclear Generating Station consisted of two pressurized water reactors each inside its own containment building and connected cooling towers. TMI-2 is in the background. On March 28, 1979, the Unit 2[nuclear power plant on the Three Mile Island Nuclear Generating Station (TMI-2) in Dauphin County, Pennsylvania near Harrisburg, Pennsylvania suffered a partial core nuclear meltdown.

The Three Mile Island accident was the worst accident in United States commercial nuclear power generating history, even though it led to no deaths or injuries to plant workers or members of the nearby community. [8] The accident unfolded over the course of five tense days, as a number of agencies at local, state and federal level tried to diagnose the problem and decide whether or not the on-going accident required a full emergency evacuation of the population. The full details of the accident were not discovered until much later. In the end, the reactor was brought under control. Although approximately 25,000 people lived within five miles of the island at the time of the accident, [9] no identifiable injuries due to radiation occurred, and a government report concluded that "the projected number of excess fatal cancers due to the accident... is approximately one". But the accident had serious economic and public relations consequences, and the cleanup process was slow and costly. It also furthered a major decline in the public popularity of nuclear power, exemplifying for many the worst fears about nuclear technology and, until the Chernobyl disaster seven years later, it was considered the world's worst civilian nuclear accident. Davis Besse Reactor Head Inspection.

Davis-Besse[ edit ] Davis-Besse Nuclear Power Station is a single reactor located on the southwest shore of Lake Erie near Oak Harbor, Ohio. According to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, Davis-Besse has been the source of two of the top five most dangerous nuclear incidents in the United States] since 1979. [10] SL-1 accident[ edit ] The SL-1, or Stationary Low-Power Reactor Number One, was a United States Army experimental nuclear reactor which underwent a steam explosion and meltdown in January 1961, killing its three operators. The direct cause was the improper withdrawal by a maintenance team of a single reactor control rod. The event is the only reported fatal reactor accident in the United States. [11] [12] Windscale fire[ edit ] On October 10, 1957, the graphite core of a British nuclear reactor at Windscale, Cumbria, caught fire, releasing substantial amounts of radioactive contamination into the surrounding area. The event, known as the Windscale fire, was considered the world's worst nuclear accident until the Three Mile Island accident in 1979.

The fire itself released an estimated 20,000 curies -(700 becquerel/terabecquerels) of radioactive material into the nearby countryside. Of particular concern was the radioactive isotope iodine-131, which has a Half-life of only 8 days but is taken up by the human body and stored in the thyroid. As a result, consumption of iodine-131 often leads to cancer of the thyroid. No one was evacuated from the surrounding area, but there was concern that milk might be dangerously contaminated. Milk from about 500km² of nearby countryside was destroyed (diluted a thousandfold and dumped in the Irish Sea) for about a month. Mayak accident[ edit ] Mayak is the name of a nuclear fuel reprocessing plants 150 km northwest of Chelyabinsk in Russia. Working conditions at Mayak resulted in severe health hazards and many accidents, [13] with a serious accident occurring in 1957.

The 1957 Kyshtym disaster occurred when the failure of the cooling system for a tank storing tens of thousands of tons of dissolved nuclear waste resulted in a non-nuclear explosion having a force estimated at about 75 tons of trinitrotoluene|TNT (310 joule|gigajoules), which released some 20 MCi (740 petabecquerels) of radiation. [14] Subsequently, at least 200 people died of radiation sickness, 10,000 people were evacuated from their homes, and 470,000 people were exposed to radiation. Contributors to this chapter are listed at this link. ↑ Benjamin K. Sovacool. The Costs of Failing Infrastructure Energybiz, September/October 2008, pp. 32-33. ↑ Benjamin K. Sovacool. The costs of failure: A preliminary assessment of major energy accidents, 1907–2007, Energy Policy 36 (2008), pp. 1802-1820.

↑ "Japan earthquake: Evacuations ordered as fears grow of radiation leak at nuclear plant; News.com.au" . News. AU. 2011. . Retrieved 13 March 2011. "According to the industry ministry, a total of 11 nuclear reactors automatically shut down at the Onagawa plant, the Fukushima No. 1 and No. 2 plants and the Tokai No. 2 plant after the strongest recorded earthquake in the country's history" Three Mile Island Disaster - Toxipedia Toxipedia Publish this draft for everyone to see. What changed? Other users have edits for this page: Proceed Anyway Permanently discard changes to this page. This cannot be undone. updated by Steven Gilbert (May 30, 2014) Lead author: Steven G. Gilbert Three Mile Island Nuclear Generating Station Three Mile Island Nuclear Generating Station is a civilian nuclear power plant located on Three Mile Island, south of Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, United States (Susquehanna River Londonderry Township, Dauphin County).

The plant is most well known for being the site of the worst civilian nuclear accident in United States history: in 1979 TMI-2 suffered a partial meltdown. According to the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission, the accident did not lead to deaths or injuries to plant workers or members of the nearby community. The core of TMI-2 has since been removed from the site, but the site has not been decommissioned. Three Mile Island is so named because it is located 3 miles downriver from Middletown, Pennsylvania. The plant was originally built by General Public Utilities Corporation, later renamed GPU Inc., and operated by Metropolitan Edison Company (Met-Ed), a GPU subsidiary. The accident On March 28 , 1979, there was a cooling malfunction that caused a partial meltdown of the reactor core. The malfunction resulted in the environmental release of a significant amount of radioactivity, an estimated 43,000 curies of radioactive krypton (1.59 PBq), but under 20 curies (740 GBq) of the particularly hazardous iodine-131.

The nuclear power industry claimed there were no deaths, injuries, or adverse health effects from the accident, although a peer-reviewed study by Steven Wing of the University of North Carolina found lung cancer and leukemia rates were 2 to 10 times higher downwind of TMI than upwind and that there was plant and animal chromosomal damage (the study did not consider the effects of stress or improved screening). Also, Radiation and Public Health Project, a nonprofit educational and scientific organization, reported a spike in infant mortality in the downwind communities two years after the accident. The incident was largely publicized. The China Syndrome, a movie about a nuclear meltdown, released just 12 days before the disaster, became a blockbuster hit. Economists and authors Stephen J. Dubner and Steven D. Levitt claim that the film stoked a widespread panic and blame the end of the nuclear power era on Jane Fonda (who starred in the movie).

No labels Fukushima Aftermath: Whither the Indian Point Nuke?/Nuclear power plants made simple - Wikibooks, open books for an open world Fukushima Aftermath: Whither the Indian Point Nuke?/Nuclear power plants made simple From Wikibooks, open books for an open world Jump to: navigation , search Fukushima I Unit 1 nuclear reactor before and after the hydrogen explosion. Nuclear accidents are measured on the International Nuclear and Radiological Event Scale (INES), which ranks events based on their level of severity. Currently, the only two events to have reached a Level 7: Major Accident (the highest level) on the INES scale are the Chernobyl disaster in April 1986 and the Fukushima Daiichi disaster in March 2011. Other serious nuclear accidents include the Three Mile Island accident, the Windscale fire, Mayak accident, and the SL-1 accident. In the period to 2007, 63 major nuclear accidents have occurred at nuclear power plants. Twenty-nine of these have occurred since the Chernobyl disaster, and 71 percent of all nuclear accidents (45 out of 63) occurred in the United States.

[1] [2] Contents Chernobyl disaster[ edit ] The Chernobyl disaster was a major accident at the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant on April 26, 1986, with an explosion at the plant and later radioactive contamination of the surrounding area. It is widely considered the worst nuclear accident in the history of nuclear power due to the casualty count and amount of land rendered uninhabitable by humans. A plume of radioactive fallout drifted over parts of the western Soviet Union, Eastern and Western Europe, Scandinavia, the UK, Ireland and eastern North America. Large areas of Ukraine, Belarus, and Russia were badly damaged, forcing the people in charge to have to evacuate and resettle more than 336,000 people. About 60% of the radioactive fallout landed in Belarus, according to official post-Soviet data. [3] The accident made many people worried about the safety of the Soviet nuclear power industry. As a result, plans for more nuclear plants were put on hold and the Soviet government was forced to be more transparent in its actions.

The now-independent countries of Russia, Ukraine, and Belarus have had to spend a lot of money and time on decontamination and health care costs of the Chernobyl accident. Nobody knows how many people died because of this accident. This is because the Soviets covered up information, did not fully complete lists, and did not let doctors list "radiation" as the reason why some people died. Most of the expected long-term deaths, such as that from cancer, have not yet happened and it is hard to say that Chernobyl was the full reason for their deaths.[ citation needed ] Fukushima, Onagawa and Tōkai[ edit ] On 11 March 2011, the Magnitude 9.0 devastating 2011 Sendai earthquake and tsunami took place in Japan. As a result, Fukushima I Nuclear Power Station, Fukushima II Nuclear Power Plant II, Onagawa Nuclear Power Plant and Tōkai Nuclear Power Plant stations consisting of eleven reactors were automatically shut down following the earthquake. [4] At Fukushima I and II tsunami waves overtopped seawalls and destroyed diesel backup power systems, leading to severe problems including two large explosions at Fukushima I and leakage of radiation.

Over 200,000 people have been evacuated. [5] Seismic recordings at six assessed nuclear power plant facilities indicated the plants had been exposed to peak ground accelerations of 0.037–0.383 g and peak ground velocities of 6.18–52.62 cm/sec. [6] Three Mile Island accident[ edit ] Three Mile Island Nuclear Generating Station consisted of two pressurized water reactors each inside its own containment building and connected cooling towers. TMI-2 is in the background. On March 28, 1979, the Unit 2 reactor on the Three Mile Island Nuclear Generating Station (TMI-2) in Dauphin County, Pennsylvania near Harrisburg suffered a partial core nuclear meltdown. The Three Mile Island accident was the worst accidents in United States commercial nuclear power generating history, even though it led to no deaths or injuries to plant workers or members of the nearby community. [7] The accident unfolded over the course of five tense days, as a number of agencies at the local, state and federal level tried to diagnose the problem and decide whether or not the on-going accident required a full emergency evacuation of the population.

The full details of the accident were not discovered until much later.[ citation needed ] In the end, the reactor was brought under control. Although approximately 25,000 people lived within five miles of the island at the time of the accident, [8] no identifiable injuries due to radiation occurred, and a government report concluded that "the projected number of excess fatal cancers due to the accident... is approximately one".[ citation needed ] But the accident had serious economic and public relations consequences, and the cleanup process was slow and costly. It also furthered a major decline in the public popularity of nuclear power, exemplifying for many the worst fears about nuclear technology and, until the Chernobyl disaster seven years later, it was considered the world's worst civilian nuclear accident. Davis Besse Reactor Head Inspection. Davis-Besse[ edit ] Davis-Besse Nuclear Power Station is a single reactor located on the southwest shore of Lake Erie near Oak Harbor, Ohio. According to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, Davis-Besse has been the source of two of the top five most dangerous nuclear incidents in the United States] since 1979.

[9] SL-1 accident[ edit ] The SL-1, or Stationary Low-Power Reactor Number One, was a United States Army experimental nuclear reactor which underwent a steam explosion and meltdown in January 1961, killing its three operators. The direct cause was the improper withdrawal by a maintenance team of a single reactor control rod. The event is the only reported fatal reactor accident in the United States. [10] [11] Windscale fire[ edit ] On October 10, 1957, the graphite core of a British nuclear reactor at Windscale, Cumbria, caught fire, releasing substantial amounts of radioactive contamination into the surrounding area. The event, known as the Windscale fire, was considered the world's worst nuclear accident until the Three Mile Island accident in 1979. The fire itself released an estimated 20,000 curies -(700 terabecquerels) of radioactive material into the nearby countryside. Of particular concern was the radioactive isotope iodine-131, which has a half-life of only 8 days but is taken up by the human body and stored in the thyroid.

As a result, consumption of iodine-131 often leads to cancer of the thyroid. No one was evacuated from the surrounding area, but there was concern that milk might be dangerously contaminated. Milk from about 500km² of nearby countryside was destroyed (diluted a thousandfold and dumped in the Irish Sea) for about a month. Mayak accident[ edit ] Mayak is the name of a nuclear fuel reprocessing plants 150 km northwest of Chelyabinsk in Russia. Working conditions at Mayak resulted in severe health hazards and many accidents, [12] with a serious accident occurring in 1957. The 1957 Kyshtym disaster occurred when the failure of the cooling system for a tank storing tens of thousands of tons of dissolved nuclear waste resulted in a non-nuclear explosion having a force estimated at about 75 tons of TNT (310 gigajoules), which released some 20 MCi (740 petabecquerels) of radiation.

[13] Subsequently, at least 200 people died of radiation sickness, 10,000 people were evacuated from their homes, and 470,000 people were exposed to radiation. Attribution[ edit ] This page was imported from Simple Wikipedia. It's original edit log may be found at Notes[ edit ] ↑ Benjamin K. Sovacool. The Costs of Failing Infrastructure Energybiz, September/October 2008, pp. 32-33. ↑ Benjamin K. Sovacool. The costs of failure: A preliminary assessment of major energy accidents, 1907–2007, Energy Policy 36 (2008), pp. 1802-1820. ↑ "Geographical location and extent of radioactive contamination" . Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation. . (quoting the "Committee on the Problems of the Consequences of the Catastrophe at the Chernobyl NPP: 15 Years after Chernobyl Disaster", Minsk, 2001, p.

5/6 ff., and the "Chernobyl Interinform Agency, Kiev und", and "Chernobyl Committee: MailTable of official data on the reactor accident") ↑ "Japan earthquake: Evacuations ordered as fears grow of radiation leak at nuclear plant; News.com.au" . News. AU. 2011. . Retrieved 13 March 2011. "According to the industry ministry, a total of 11 nuclear reactors automatically shut down at the Onagawa plant, the Fukushima No. 1 and No. 2 plants and the Tokai No. 2 plant after the strongest recorded earthquake in the country's history" 1000+ images about chimneys and fred on Pinterest | Sculpture, Tudor and Islands Forward At four in the morning on March 28, 1979, a malfunction in the cooling system at the Three Mile Island Nuclear Generating Station led to the most serious commercial nuclear accident in US history and paved the way for reforms in the way nuclear power plants are operated and regulated. It also made Americans question the safety of nuclear power and helped make The China Syndrome - which had been released three weeks earlier - one of the biggest movies of the year. See More

Question: The worst civilian nuclear accident in US history, what Penn. power plant suffered a partial core meltdown in 1979?
Answer: Three Mile Island