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VIRTUALISATION Reviving U.S. nuclear power 30 years after 3 Mile Island
VIRTUALISATION Reviving U.S. nuclear power 30 years after 3 Mile Island | Reviving U.S. nuclear power 30 years after 3 Mile Island |
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| by William Atkins | |
| Sunday, 29 March 2009 | |
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Although no deaths occurred to plant workers or nearby residents, the Three Mile Island nuclear power accident is considered the worst civilian nuclear accident in U.S. history. Three Mile Island Nuclear Generating Station is located on Three Mile Island in the Susquehanna River south of Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, and three miles downriver from Middletown, Pennsylvania. On March 28, 1979, its Three Mile Island 2 (TMI-2) nuclear reactor had a partial meltdown of its reactor core when a cooling malfunction occurred. The accident released an estimated 43,000 curies of radioactive krypton and less than 20 curies of iodine-131. Although no deaths or injuries were reported by the U.S. government later studies have shown higher rates of lung cancer and leukemia in people downwind of the nuclear reactor that day than people upwind of the reactor. The growing nuclear power industry dropped to nothing after the accident. Only the Watts Bar 1 nuclear plant went on-line between 1979 and 2007—it began commercial operations on February 7, 1996. Applications to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) from nuclear power companies to build new nuclear power plants stopped until 2007. Today, March 28, 2009, with growing concerns of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, nuclear power is generating a comeback because it can produce electricity without introducing greenhouse gases into the atmosphere. Page two continues with nuclear power in the past, present, and future. |
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