Product Description

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 Web site. Anthony Baratta is a nuclear engineer who worked with the d

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #1244317 in Books
• Published on: 2004-01-01
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 194 pages

Review
"The accident at Three Mile Island Unit 2 in 1979 is historically important for understanding the development of nuclear power in the United States. This book is a concise, well-written, documented account of the accident and its cleanup, but it also provides welcome insight into the media coverage and public understanding of nuclear energy matters. With valuable primers on nuclear energy basics and energy options for the future, TMI 25 Years Later is well worth reading by professionals as well as laypersons." - Forrest J. Remick, Commissioner (Retired), Nuclear Regulatory Commission

About the Author
Anthony J. Baratta is Professor of Nuclear Engineering and Head of the Nuclear Safety Center at The Pennsylvania State University.

Thomas W. Conkling is Head of the Engineering Library at The Pennsylvania State University.

Bonnie A. Osif is the Engineering Referenceand Instruction Librarian and the Pennsylvania Transportation Institute Librarian at The Pennsylvania State University.

Customer Reviews

Excellent Information In An Easy-To-Read Format
"Objective knowledge will help provide guidance for the decisions that will need to be made as we go forward into the next quarter-century." So ends the book TMI 25 Years Later, an objective, inclusive compilation of information regarding the March 28, 1979 Loss-of-Coolant Accident in Reactor 2 of the Three Mile Island Nuclear Plant near Middletown, PA.
The book, written by three Penn State University staffers, offers a balanced, condensed history of the events of the accident and the years of follow-up that have occurred. Sections cover all aspects of the accident, including rather extensive review and analysis of the role played by the media in the event. Other topics covered include short- and long-term physical and psychological health effects, industry regulatory and financial impacts, and environmental consequences, along with current and future power requirements in the United States and the options for meeting those requirements.
In order to properly understand exactly what caused the accident and what it's effects meant to the local population, a rudimentary understanding of nuclear processes and power generation are needed. Complex nuclear concepts are presented in an illustrated, easy-to-understand manner, and an in-depth minute-by-minute timeline of the accident is presented along with causes, effects, and notes that only the luxury of extensive investigation and hind-sight can provide.
An excellent book for anyone interested in nuclear power generation, the TMI accident or the local populace of the plant, TMI 25 Years Later provides condensed information in an easy-to-read format. The information is not watered down (the book is well cited), but instead provided in a format that allows anyone to understand what happened on that fateful Wednesday morning, and more importantly what it means to our future.

The Best Overview Of The Long-Term Effects Of TMI
I have read extensively on the Three Mile Island accident and believe that this book is probably the best introduction to the accident I have yet seen. The book is accurate and is scrupulously unbiased, which is a rarity in any book dealing with nuclear power. The first 32 pages of the book provide the best and most concise general overview of the accident I have read, and anyone wanting to understand the accident should start here.

The book is accessible to non-specialists, but does not make inaccurate generalizations simply for ease of explanation. There is information presented on the basic concepts of nuclear energy, which makes the book extremely valuable to someone just beginning to read on the issue. More knowledgeable readers, industry professionals, and policymakers benefit from this book as well, as it has chapters on the health effects of the accident (including recent data on ongoing longitudinal studies), environmental effects of the accident, policy effects of the accidents, and perhaps most usefully, excellent appendices which include a useful glossary, an accident timeline, and a list of common misconceptions about the TMI accident.

The authors have done an admirable job of writing a book that is useful to both professionals and the general public. It is extremely well documented, non-political, unbiased, and scrupulously accurate. I highly recommend this book to anyone interested in nuclear power.

20 minutes from a complete core melt down.
1. The main feedwater system that supplies water to the steam generator malfunctioned and shutoff flow. "Water must be fed continually to the steam generators to make up for the flow of steam from the steam generators to the turbine.

2. Maintenance was being performed on the condensate polishing system. The polishing system is used to purify water in the feedwater system.

3. Alarms went off. An auxiliary feedwater system should have started automatically but it did not. The auxiliary system was to provide emergency source of cooling water to the steam generators, however, critical valves in the system were left closed. Without this critical water supply, the boiling water in the steam generators would boil away completely. A rapid rise in temperature and pressure occurred in the reactor's cooling system.

4. The turbine shutdown automatically.

5. Within seconds, the reactors control system shut down the reactor by dropping the control rods which insulate the neutrons generated from the U235 from striking other U235 atoms in adjacent fuel rods. The fission process stopped.

6. As temperatures and pressures rose water flowed into the pressurizer. The pressurizer is normal half full providing a cushion for expansion from the reactor. A power-operated relief valve also help control pressure during abnormal events.

7. A pressure-regulating valve opened to reduce pressure in the reactor and associated reactor systems.

8. Steam began flowing from the valve through piping into a collecting tank in the basement of the reactor containment building. The water was containinated with radioactive material. The flow caused the pressure to decrease.

9. The pressure regulating valve should have closed but it didn't. The operators had no way of monitoring the valve and therefore did not know it remained open.

10. Vital cooling water was flowing from the reactor out through the valve to the basement collecting tank. The tank overflowed spilling water on the basement floor and was pumped to storage tan in the adjacent building outside the containment building.

11. The emergency core cooling system started automatically.

12. The water level and volume in the reactor system was not measured directly. The operators relied on a measurement of the water level in the system's pressurizer. The operators thought there was adequate water inventory in the primary cooling system. Fearing the system might go solid (rupture from the reactor being 100 filled with water), they turned off the emergency core cooling system.

13. Pressure dropped from the escaping core water. By 5:30 am, the pressures had dropped so low that the large reactor coolant pumps used to circulate the water through the reactor and primary system began to vibrate.

14. The operators began shutting down the pumps to reduce damage.

15. Water began pouring onto the floor of the auxiliary building and radioactive gases found their way from the cooling water through the auxiliary building ventilation system to the outside world.

16. Despite the shutdown of the fission process at the beginning of the accident, energy was still being released in the fuel by the decay of the fission products generated during the operation of the reactor.

17. The rods eventual burst and melted, releasing large quantities of radioactivity into the cooling system.

18. When the fuel overheats the result is rapid oxidation of the zirconium alloy from which the fuel rods tubes are made. The process releases hydrogen. A hydrogen pocket formed at the top of the reactor, but did not ignite.

19. Radioactive gases normally contained in the rods were released into the cooling system, through the stuck valve, and to the reactor building. High radiation alarms began to sound. Radiation alarms began to sound at many points throughout the plant.

20. 6:22 am, the operators realized the power-operated relief valve was stuck open.

21. 6:55 am, a site emergency had been declared.

22. 9:00 am , TMI personnel discover water in the auxiliary building and stop the pumping from the containment building.

23. While operators were restoring the cooling system, the relief valve continued to release hydrogen into the containment-building atmosphere. The hydrogen combined with the oxygen and this mixture ignited. The building did not breach under the pressure of the igniting hydrogen.

24. The reactor system was cooled to a point where the reactor coolant pumps could be turned on and the normal process of heat removal resumed.