Today marks the twenty-ninth anniversary of the Three Mile Island nuclear accident that occurred on 28 March 1979 at 4:00 am. This was the worst accident in the history of the U.S. nuclear power industry, and not a single new nuclear power plant has been built in the United States since that date.
The Three Mile Island nuclear power plant was built in 1974 on a sandbar on Pennsylvania’s Susquehanna River, just 10 miles downstream from the state capitol in Harrisburg. In 1978, a second state-of-the-art reactor began operating on Three Mile Island, which was lauded for generating affordable and reliable energy in a time of energy crises. Now the Bush administration seeks to jump-start an industry that has been stagnant for almost three decades, one that the NRC (Nuclear Regulatory Commission) hasn’t improved since 1979.
Unfortunately, much of the Three Mile Island disaster was caused by human error, a problem that never can be quantified before or after an incident such as this. For more information about how this situation was handled (including information about the individuals who were affected by radiation), visit these links or search for more information with the keywords “Three Mile Island”:
- Metldown at Three Mile Island
- Fact Sheet on the Three Mile Island Accident
- News Results for Three Mile Island
- PBS Special Report on Three Mile Island
- Three Mile Island Emergency from Dickenson College
Posted by ewoman at 7:42 AM PDT
