Three Mile Island
Three Mile Island

Author: J. Samuel Walker

Publisher: Univ of California Press

Published: 2004-03-22

Total Pages: 344

ISBN-13: 9780520239401

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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.

Three Mile Island, Chernobyl and Fukushima
Three Mile Island, Chernobyl and Fukushima

Author: Thomas Filburn

Publisher: Springer

Published: 2016-11-08

Total Pages: 126

ISBN-13: 3319340557

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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.

Radiation Nation
Radiation Nation

Author: Natasha Zaretsky

Publisher: Columbia University Press

Published: 2018-02-13

Total Pages: 316

ISBN-13: 0231542488

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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.

Crisis Contained
Crisis Contained

Author: Philip Louis Cantelon

Publisher:

Published: 1982

Total Pages: 264

ISBN-13:

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"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.

Reflections on the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Accident
Reflections on the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Accident

Author: Joonhong Ahn

Publisher: Springer

Published: 2014-12-01

Total Pages: 456

ISBN-13: 3319120905

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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.

Accident At Three Mile Island
Accident At Three Mile Island

Author: David L. Sills

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2019-03-01

Total Pages: 223

ISBN-13: 0429724411

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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.

Three Mile Island
Three Mile Island

Author: Grace Halden

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2017-06-27

Total Pages: 240

ISBN-13: 1317419928

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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.

TMI 25 Years Later
TMI 25 Years Later

Author: Bonnie A. Osif

Publisher: Penn State Press

Published: 2004

Total Pages: 202

ISBN-13: 9780271023830

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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.