Three Mile Island

by J. Samuel Walker
Three Mile Island
Author: J. Samuel Walker
Publisher: Univ of California Press
Total Pages: 344
Release: 2004-03-22
Genre: History
ISBN: 9780520239401
GET BOOK

On March 28, 1979, the worst accident in the history of commercial nuclear power in the United States occurred at Three Mile Island. For five days, the citizens of central Pennsylvania and the entire world, amid growing alarm, followed the efforts of authorities to prevent the crippled plant from spewing dangerous quantities of radiation into the environment. This book is the first comprehensive, moment-by-moment account of the causes, context, and consequences of the Three Mile Island crisis. Walker captures the high human drama surrounding the accident, sets it in the context of the heated debate over nuclear power in the seventies, and analyzes the social, technical, and political issues it raised. He also looks at the aftermath of the accident on the surrounding area, including studies of its long-term health effects on the population.--From publisher description.

Radiation Nation

by Natasha Zaretsky
Radiation Nation
Author: Natasha Zaretsky
Publisher: Columbia University Press
Total Pages: 316
Release: 2018-02-13
Genre: History
ISBN: 0231542488
GET BOOK

On March 28, 1979, the worst nuclear reactor accident in U.S. history occurred at the Three Mile Island power plant in Central Pennsylvania. Radiation Nation tells the story of what happened that day and in the months and years that followed, as local residents tried to make sense of the emergency. The near-meltdown occurred at a pivotal moment when the New Deal coalition was unraveling, trust in government was eroding, conservatives were consolidating their power, and the political left was becoming marginalized. Using the accident to explore this turning point, Natasha Zaretsky provides a fresh interpretation of the era by disclosing how atomic and ecological imaginaries shaped the conservative ascendancy. Drawing on the testimony of the men and women who lived in the shadow of the reactor, Radiation Nation shows that the region's citizens, especially its mothers, grew convinced that they had sustained radiological injuries that threatened their reproductive futures. Taking inspiration from the antiwar, environmental, and feminist movements, women at Three Mile Island crafted a homegrown ecological politics that wove together concerns over radiological threats to the body, the struggle over abortion and reproductive rights, and eroding trust in authority. This politics was shaped above all by what Zaretsky calls "biotic nationalism," a new body-centered nationalism that imagined the nation as a living, mortal being and portrayed sickened Americans as evidence of betrayal. The first cultural history of the accident, Radiation Nation reveals the surprising ecological dimensions of post-Vietnam conservatism while showing how growing anxieties surrounding bodily illness infused the political realignment of the 1970s in ways that blurred any easy distinction between left and right.

TMI 25 Years Later

by Bonnie A. Osif
TMI 25 Years Later
Author: Bonnie A. Osif
Publisher: Penn State Press
Total Pages: 202
Release: 2004
Genre: History
ISBN: 9780271023830
GET BOOK

Three Mile Island burst into the nation's headlines twenty-five years ago, forever changing our view of nuclear power. The dramatic accident held the world's attention for an unsettling week in March 1979 as engineers struggled to understand what had happened and brought the damaged reactor to a safe condition. Much has been written since then about TMI, but it is not easy to find up-to-date information that is both reliable and accessible to the nonscientific reader. TMI 25 Years Later offers a much-needed &"one-stop&" resource for a new generation of citizens, students, and policy makers. The legacy of Three Mile Island has been far reaching. The worst nuclear accident in U.S. history marked a turning point in our policies, our perceptions, and our national identity. Those involved in the nuclear industry today study the scenario carefully and review the decontamination and recovery process. Risk management and the ability to convey risks to the general population rationally and understandably are an integral part of implementing new technologies. Political, environmental, and energy decisions have been made with TMI as a factor, and while studies reveal little environmental damage from the accident, long-term studies of health effects continue. TMI 25 Years Later presents a balanced and factual account of the accident, the cleanup effort, and the many facets of its legacy. The authors bring extensive research and writing The authors bring extensive research and writing experience to this book. After the accident and the cleanup, a significant collection of videotapes, photographs, and reports was donated to the University Libraries at Penn State University. Bonnie Osif and Thomas Conkling are engineering librarians at Penn State who maintain a database of these materials, which they have made available to the general public through an award-winning website. Anthony Baratta is a nuclear engineer who worked with the decontamination and recovery project at TMI and is an expert in nuclear accidents. The book features unique photographs of the cleanup and helpful appendixes that enable readers to investigate further various aspects of the story.

Three Mile Island, Chernobyl and Fukushima

by Thomas Filburn
Three Mile Island, Chernobyl and Fukushima
Author: Thomas Filburn
Publisher: Springer
Total Pages: 126
Release: 2016-11-08
Genre: Technology & Engineering
ISBN: 3319340557
GET BOOK

This book examines the three most well-known and socially important nuclear accidents. Each of these accidents had significant, yet dramatically different, human and environmental impacts. Unique factors helped shape the overall pattern and scale of each disaster, but a major contributing factor was the different designs used for each reactor. Fukushima was a boiling water reactor (BWR), Chernobyl was a graphite moderated boiling water reactor, and TMI was a pressurized water reactor (PWR). This book traces the history of nuclear power and the development of each reactor type. We examine how GE’s work with a sodium cooled design did not fare well with the US Navy, and led GE to promulgate the BWR design. We explore the Russian atomic bomb program, its use of graphite moderated reactors, and their design modifications to create power production units. We trace the developments in the US that led the US Navy to select the PWR design, and caused the PWR to be used for nearly 2/3 of all US commercial reactors. In sum, the book uses the three major nuclear accidents as a lens to trace the technological history of nuclear energy production and to link these developments with long-term societal and environmental consequences. The book is intended for readers with an interest in nuclear power and nuclear disasters. The detailed and compelling account will appeal to both the expert and the interested lay-person.

Three Mile Island

by Grace Halden
Three Mile Island
Author: Grace Halden
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 240
Release: 2017-06-27
Genre: History
ISBN: 1317419928
GET BOOK

Three Mile Island explains the far-reaching consequences of the partial meltdown of Pennsylvania’s Three Mile Island power plant on March 28, 1979. Though the disaster was ultimately contained, the fears it triggered had an immediate and lasting impact on public attitudes towards nuclear energy in the United States. In this volume, Grace Halden contextualizes the events at Three Mile Island and the ensuing media coverage, offering a gripping portrait of a nation coming to terms with technological advances that inspired both awe and terror. Including a selection of key primary documents, this book offers a fascinating resource for students of the history of science, technology, the environment, and Cold War culture.

Three Mile Island

by Erik V. Fasick
Three Mile Island
Author: Erik V. Fasick
Publisher: Arcadia Publishing
Total Pages: 1
Release: 2019
Genre: History
ISBN: 1467102857
GET BOOK

Construction of the Unit 1 reactor began on Three Mile Island in May 1968, with the production of commercial electricity beginning in 1974. Approval for the construction of the Unit 2 reactor was granted in November 1969, and it was only producing commercial electricity for less than 90 days when on March 28, 1979, a loud roar erupted from the nuclear power plant that shook windows and awakened residents in the communities on both sides of the Susquehanna River. This loud warning was the result of a series of mechanical and human errors that contributed towards a partial meltdown of the Unit 2 reactor and the most severe nuclear power accident in the history of the United States. In the days that followed, many residents of the surrounding communities left their homes and possessions out of fear of radioactive plumes, meltdowns, and exploding hydrogen bubbles. Those who remained behind faced anxiety and uncertainty, as information flowing from the power plant circumvented the truth and lacked credibility. As the Unit 2 reactor cooled, protests and court battles ensued as attempts were made to restart the power plant's dormant Unit 1 reactor. The Three Mile Island Nuclear Generating Station symbolized the fight over nuclear power as a safe and viable energy source in the late 20th century.

The Warning

by Mike Gray
The Warning
Author: Mike Gray
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
Total Pages: 292
Release: 2003
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 9780393324693
GET BOOK

This factual, riveting thriller explores the accident at Three Mile Island and updates this jackhammer narrative of mechanical failure and human error with an analysis of the current threats to America's nuclear power plants.

Crisis Contained

by Philip Louis Cantelon
Crisis Contained
Author: Philip Louis Cantelon
Publisher:
Total Pages: 264
Release: 1982
Genre: History
ISBN:
GET BOOK

"What escaped at Three Mile Island was not only radiation, but, more importantly for the nuclear power industry, public confi­dence in technology and technocracy," report Cantelon and Wil­liams in their detailed account of the response of the Department of Energy to America's worst civilian nuclear power accident. What happened at Three Mile Island was a technological failure of monstrous proportions. "Yet," the authors contend, "the serious extent of the accident was caused by human error: technocrats blundered, lost control of technology, and, refusing to admit it, gave confusing, inconsistent, and jargon-laden explanations." There was a welter of information and misinformation. To sift out the truth that would enable them to write the history of this contem­porary event, Cantelon and Williams relied on unpublished archi­val materials--including logs of scientists and government officials--on oral interviews with participants, and on reports of other government agencies. The result is a significant history, one that shows how scientists and politicians responded to the un­believable and unexpected as they tried to deal with a highly tech­nical event in the glare of television lights and under the inquisitive and fearful eyes of the public. The danger was never real, yet for the nation and certainly for the immediate community around Three Mile Island, risk per­ceived was risk endured. Many of the residents of what became a "war zone" will never be the same, though radiation never touched them. Imagination and unconscious fears were far more important than any accurate perception of risk after a Nuclear Regulatory Commission official usedthe term meltdown at a Friday afternoon news conference.

Accident At Three Mile Island

by David L. Sills
Accident At Three Mile Island
Author: David L. Sills
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 223
Release: 2019-03-01
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 0429724411
GET BOOK

The nuclear accident at Three Mile Island in March 1979 was as much a social-systems failure as it was an engineering failure. It raised questions not only about the regulation and management of nuclear-power plants but also about the effects of nuclear accidents on the community, on society, and on the total controversy surrounding nuclear energy. Questions were also raised about public perceptions of the risks of high technology. At the request of the President's Commission on the Accident at Three Mile Island (the Kemeny Commission), the Social Science Research Council commissioned social scientists to write a series of papers on the human dimensions of the event. This volume includes those papers, in revised and expanded form, and a comprehensive bibliography of published and unpublished social science research on the accident and its aftermath.