Three Mile Island

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TMI is the location of the worst U.S. nuclear power accident to date. General Public Utilities Corporation of Pennsylvania has a nuclear power plant at Three Mile Island on the Susquehanna River, near Harrisburg PA. Due to a combination of design flaws, mismanagement, and operator errors, a nuclear reactor was destroyed by a partial meltdown on March 28, 1979. Although there were no lives lost at the time of the accident; the radiation released is expected to increase the cancer death rate for the region downwind of the plant. This event caused a profound change in American public attitude toward nuclear power.  

The websites linked by the highlighted entries below provide an introduction to many aspects of this event. Read carefully. There are numerous examples of faulty or misleading arguments, and selective presentation of facts displayed in many of the sources. Also note that many of the sites have links to other useful sources of related information.

LIBRARY RESOURCES

·  Three Mile Island BIBLIOGRAPHIC REFERENCES
Books and government reports, NOT ONLINE MATERIALS
 

BACKGROUND AND OVERVIEW

·  Inside Three Mile Island
Background information and a detailed narrative of the accident. Exhaustively researched and presented in layman's terms.
http://www.wowpage.com/tmi/

·  Three Mile Island - The Disaster
Chaos in the control room. Alarms, flashing lights, gauges that make no sense. What could the operators do?
http://psych.hanover.edu/classes/hfnotes/sld004.html

MORE WEB SITES

  1. The Three Mile Island 2 (TMI-2) Reactor Accident
    On March 28, 1979 at 4:00 AM, a minor malfunction occurred in the system which feeds water to the steam generators ...
    http://www.libraries.psu.edu/crsweb/tmi/accidnt.htm
  2. Three Mile Island Incident
    Background of the worst accident in the history of nuclear power in the United States.
    http://www.ee.rochester.edu:8080/programs/399Projects/TMIStudy/TMIIncident.html
  3. Three Mile Island Alert
    For two years before the accident, our concerned citizens group warned the Nuclear Regulatory Commission and Pennsylvanians that Three Mile Island Reactor Unit 2 was dangerous
    http://www.tmia.com/
    http://nuke.westlab.com/Plants/Operating/Babcock_Wilcox/Three_Mile_Island.html
  4. What happened at Three Mile Island A note about the back room activities at the Pennsylvania Governor;s Office, from Pa. state EPA archive.
  5. American Experience | Meltdown at Three Mile Island
    Website to support a PBS documentary on TMI. (WGBH-TV Boston)
    http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/three/filmmore/index.html
  6. Three Mile Island Data Revisited
    NIEHS Contact: Bill Grigg FEB. 24, 1997 919-541-2605 NIEHS Adv. #4-97 THREE MILE ISLAND Link to Environmental Health Perspectives, journal discussions of research by S. Wing.
    http://www.niehs.nih.gov/oc/news/thremile.htm
  7. New Generation: AP-600 A new safer design of a PWR by Wesstinghouse
    http://www.agroeco.nl/~wise/492/4881.html
  8. GPU Nuclear Corporation; Three Mile Island Nuclear Station
    Example of an environmental impact statement to NRC, re. use of a new alloy for fuel rod tubing.
    http://www.epa.gov/EPA-IMPACT/1995/July/Day-03/pr-1051.html
    http://www.anbex.com/test6.htm
  9. Reports of the President's Commission on the Accident at TMI , Site dedicated to publishing Commission's reports, some of which were not published previously, just buried in the National Archives.
    href="http://stellar-one.com/nuclear/index.htm


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Last Updated on Sept 20, 2002 by Charles D. Sigwart