Download or read book Three Mile Island written by J. Samuel Walker and published by Univ of California Press. This book was released on 2004-03-22 with total page 344 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 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.
Download or read book TMI 25 Years Later written by Bonnie A. Osif and published by Penn State Press. This book was released on 2004 with total page 202 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 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.
Download or read book Three Mile Island written by Grace Halden and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2017-06-27 with total page 240 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 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.
Download or read book Three Mile Island A Nuclear Crisis in Historical Perspective written by J. Samuel Walker and published by Nuclear Regulatory Commission. This book was released on 2017-03-10 with total page 320 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The author presents a bit of history about nuclear power that began in 1954 when the U.S. Congress signed the Atomic Energy Act, a law that made the development of nuclear power possible by allowing basic information about atomic energy for civilian applications to be available in hopes it would building an industry that could provide a new source of electrical power. The author explores the initial political, business, construction, reactor safety, and environmental elements with the debates to build nuclear plants within the United States as a source of energy then leads into regulation of nuclear power. This scholarly text, coupled with some black and white illustrations, provides some insights to other nuclear plants that were build within the United States and some reactor faults prior to Three Mile Island's accident. Majority of this book centers around Three Mile Island's accident, evacuation of employees, causes, political crisis aftermath at State and Federal levels, NRC (US Nuclear Regulatory Commission) and business community response, and the growing public concerns are covered. Related products: Permissable Dose ISBN: 9780160949432 The Road to Yacca Mountain ISBN: 9780160949425 Other products produced by the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission (USNRC) can be found here:https://bookstore.gpo.gov/agency/nuclear-regulatory-commission-nrc
Download or read book Three Mile Island written by Michael D. Cole and published by Enslow Publishing. This book was released on 2002 with total page 52 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An informative, well-researched account of the disaster that affected the development of nuclear power plants in this country.
Download or read book The Meltdown at Three Mile Island written by Susie Derkins and published by The Rosen Publishing Group, Inc. This book was released on 2002-12-15 with total page 54 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Presents an overview of how nuclear power plants function, the history of nuclear energy use in the United States, and describes the nuclear accident at the Three Mile Island Nuclear Power Plant in Pennsylvania and the aftermath of that disaster.
Download or read book Three Mile Island Nuclear Disaster written by Marcia Amidon Lusted and published by ABDO. This book was released on 2012-01-01 with total page 114 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This title examines an important historic event - the Three Mile Island nuclear disaster near Middletown, Pennsylvania. Easy-to-read, compelling text explores the history of nuclear power in the United States, how a nuclear plant works, details of the emergency at Metropolitan Edison Company's nuclear power plant, handling of the disaster by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, President Jimmy Carter's visit to Three Mile Island, the investigation into the disaster, and the effects of this event on society. Features include a table of contents, glossary, selected bibliography, Web links, source notes, and an index, plus a timeline and essential facts. Aligned to Common Core Standards and correlated to state standards. Essential Library is an imprint of Abdo Publishing, a division of ABDO.
Download or read book The Three Mile Island Accident written by Charles River Charles River Editors and published by Createspace Independent Publishing Platform. This book was released on 2017-12-19 with total page 80 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: *Includes pictures *Includes accounts of the meltdown by officials and local civilians *Includes a bibliography for further reading "On Wednesday, March 28, 1979, 36 seconds after the hour of 4:00 a.m., several water pumps stopped working in the unit 2 nuclear power plant on Three Mile Island, 10 miles southeast of Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. Thus began the accident at Three Mile Island. In the minutes, hours, and days that followed, a series of events --compounded by equipment failures, inappropriate procedures, and human errors and ignorance -- escalated into the worst crisis yet experienced by the nation's nuclear power industry. The accident focused national and international attention on the nuclear facility at Three Mile Island and raised it to a place of prominence in the minds of hundreds of millions. For the people living in such communities as Royalton, Goldsboro, Middletown, Hummelstown, Hershey, and Harrisburg, the rumors, conflicting official statements, a lack of knowledge about radiation releases, the continuing possibility of mass evacuation, and the fear that a hydrogen bubble trapped inside a nuclear reactor might explode were real and immediate. ... The reality of the accident, the realization that such an accident could actually occur, renewed and deepened the national debate over nuclear safety and the national policy of using nuclear reactors to generate electricity." - Findings in a report by the Presidential Commission established to investigate the accident Uranium is best known for the destructive power of the atom bombs, which ushered in the nuclear era at the end of World War II, but given the effectiveness of nuclear power, plants like those at Three Mile Island in Pennsylvania were constructed to generate energy for Americans during the second half of the 20th century. While nuclear power plants were previously not an option and thus opened the door to new, more efficient, and more affordable forms of energy for domestic consumption, the use of nuclear energy understandably unnerved people living during the Cold War and amidst ongoing nuclear detonations. After all, the damage wrought on Hiroshima and Nagasaki made clear to everyone what nuclear energy was capable of inflicting, and the health problems encountered by people exposed to the radiation also demonstrated the horrific side effects that could come with the use of nuclear weapons or the inability to harness the technology properly. Thus, it seemed that everyone's worst fears were realized on March 28, 1979 when the nuclear plant at Three Mile Island suffered a partial meltdown. Since it occurred years before Russia's Chernobyl disaster took place, the accident, a combination of mechanical and management failures, was at the time the worst civilian nuclear disaster yet, and the predictions of its consequences were dire. Given the release of radioactive material, nearby residents feared for their lives, and the nature of the radioactive contamination meant it would take nearly 15 years and $1 billion to fully clean up after the disaster. Fortunately, the human cost was eventually ruled insignificant, but the scare forced the implementation of new regulations in an effort to ensure the use of nuclear energy was safer. As a result, Three Mile Island, while still well-known among Americans today, remains more of a caution tale than a tragedy. The Three Mile Island Accident chronicles the worst nuclear meltdown in American history and the changes made in the aftermath of the accident. Along with pictures and a bibliography, you will learn about Three Mile Island like never before, in no time at all.
Download or read book Three Mile Island Chernobyl and Fukushima written by Thomas Filburn and published by Springer. This book was released on 2016-11-08 with total page 120 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 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.
Download or read book Fukushima written by David Lochbaum and published by New Press, The. This book was released on 2015-02-10 with total page 350 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “A gripping, suspenseful page-turner” (Kirkus Reviews) with a “fast-paced, detailed narrative that moves like a thriller” (International Business Times), Fukushima teams two leading experts from the Union of Concerned Scientists, David Lochbaum and Edwin Lyman, with award-winning journalist Susan Q. Stranahan to give us the first definitive account of the 2011 disaster that led to the worst nuclear catastrophe since Chernobyl. Four years have passed since the day the world watched in horror as an earthquake large enough to shift the Earth's axis by several inches sent a massive tsunami toward the Japanese coast and Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant, causing the reactors' safety systems to fail and explosions to reduce concrete and steel buildings to rubble. Even as the consequences of the 2011 disaster continue to exact their terrible price on the people of Japan and on the world, Fukushima addresses the grim questions at the heart of the nuclear debate: could a similar catastrophe happen again, and—most important of all—how can such a crisis be averted?
Download or read book Normal Accidents written by Charles Perrow and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2011-10-12 with total page 464 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Normal Accidents analyzes the social side of technological risk. Charles Perrow argues that the conventional engineering approach to ensuring safety--building in more warnings and safeguards--fails because systems complexity makes failures inevitable. He asserts that typical precautions, by adding to complexity, may help create new categories of accidents. (At Chernobyl, tests of a new safety system helped produce the meltdown and subsequent fire.) By recognizing two dimensions of risk--complex versus linear interactions, and tight versus loose coupling--this book provides a powerful framework for analyzing risks and the organizations that insist we run them. The first edition fulfilled one reviewer's prediction that it "may mark the beginning of accident research." In the new afterword to this edition Perrow reviews the extensive work on the major accidents of the last fifteen years, including Bhopal, Chernobyl, and the Challenger disaster. The new postscript probes what the author considers to be the "quintessential 'Normal Accident'" of our time: the Y2K computer problem.
Download or read book Three Mile Island the Most Studied Nuclear Accident in History written by United States. General Accounting Office and published by . This book was released on 1980 with total page 88 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Idaho Falls written by William McKeown and published by ECW Press. This book was released on 2003-04-01 with total page 268 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The little-known true story of a mysterious nuclear reactor disaster—years before Three Mile Island, Chernobyl, or Fukushima. Before the Three Mile Island incident or the Chernobyl disaster, the world’s first nuclear reactor meltdown to claim lives happened on US soil. Chronicled here for the first time is the strange tale of SL-1, an experimental military reactor located in Idaho’s Lost River Desert that exploded on the night of January 3, 1961, killing the three crewmembers on duty. Through exclusive interviews with the victims’ families and friends, firsthand accounts from rescue workers and nuclear industry insiders, and extensive research into official documents, journalist William McKeown probes the many questions surrounding this devastating blast that have gone unanswered for decades. From reports of faulty design and mismanagement to incompetent personnel and even rumors of sabotage after a failed love affair, these plausible explanations raise startling new questions about whether the truth was deliberately suppressed to protect the nuclear energy industry.
Download or read book Three Mile Island written by Erik V. Fasick and published by Arcadia Publishing. This book was released on 2019 with total page 1 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 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.
Download or read book Reflections on the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Accident written by Joonhong Ahn and published by Springer. This book was released on 2014-12-01 with total page 454 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book focuses on nuclear engineering education in the post-Fukushima era. It was edited by the organizers of the summer school held in August 2011 in University of California, Berkeley, as part of a collaborative program between the University of Tokyo and UC Berkeley. Motivated by the particular relevance and importance of social-scientific approaches to various crucial aspects of nuclear technology, special emphasis was placed on integrating nuclear science and engineering with social science. The book consists of the lectures given in 2011 summer school and additional chapters that cover developments in the past three years since the accident. It provides an arena for discussions to find and create a renewed platform for engineering practices, and thus nuclear engineering education, which are essential in the post-Fukushima era for nurturing nuclear engineers who need to be both technically competent and trusted in society.
Download or read book Crisis Contained written by Philip Louis Cantelon and published by . This book was released on 1982 with total page 264 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "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.
Download or read book Atomic Accidents written by James Maheffey and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2021-08-31 with total page 464 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From the moment radiation was discovered in the late nineteenth century, nuclear science has had a rich history of innovative scientific exploration and discovery, coupled with mistakes, accidents, and downright disasters. Mahaffey, a long-time advocate of continued nuclear research and nuclear energy, looks at each incident in turn and analyzes what happened and why, often discovering where scientists went wrong when analyzing past meltdowns.Every incident has lead to new facets in understanding about the mighty atom—and Mahaffey puts forth what the future should be for this final frontier of science that still holds so much promise.
