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TMI 3 mile Island

uber boss

TheBrain

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Three Mile Island

Whilst Hill & Knowlton flacked for Metropolitan Edison, the plant’s operators, B-M conducted crisis PR for Babcock & Wilcox, the company that built the reactor at Three Mile Island[54].

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MICROSOFT RESTARTING FOR AI

https://www.nirs.org/wp-content/uploads/reactorwatch/accidents/tmipowerpoint.pdf

Based on core temperature, it's clear that Hydrogen is being generated by 10am. 2. 12:20 - NRC asks 'what is core temperature?' 3. TMI responds 'computer is printing question marks', 'that means the computer is messed up'. In fact, the computer was working and the question marks indicated that the temperature had exceeded 700 degrees.

...

. Hydrogen Explosion. Informed NRC two days later. 5. Plant manager in control room, when detonation occurred, four operator affidavits confirmed his awareness of the explosion. 6. Control room shook.

LB used bad method: "THE NET EFFECT IS THAT THE NRC'S 10,000,000 CURIES IS DEFINATELY LOW. THE ACTUAL RELEASES COULD BE 100 AND 1000 TIMES HIGHER THAN THE NRC'S ESTIMATE.

...Recently released records from Hershey Chocolate, as quoted by Dr. Hellen Caldicott, in her book, “Nuclear Power is Not the Answer”, shows that Iodine-131 was measured in milk as far as 150 miles away from TMI in the several days immediately after the accident. This can not be explained using the NRC's presumed radiation releases....

A thorough analysis of the TMI accident indicates that releases were 100 to 1000 times higher than the NRC estimated and that the containment failed after the hydrogen detonation.

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netflix 5 22 very good meltdown

https://www.netflix.com/tudum/articles/meltdown-three-mile-island-release-date-cast-news

Rick Parks was a nuclear power plant operator and naval man with extensive knowledge of radioactive energy. In June 1980, he moved to Middletown to join the cleanup crew for Three Mile Island. However, as things progressed, he became concerned that Bechtel was ignoring major safety issues to stay on schedule for General Public Utilities payments.

When Bechtel announced they would be lifting the [missel shield?]  lid off the Unit 2 core to repair it without testing the newly rebuilt polar crane, Parks’ concerns became dire. He knew that if the crane broke, the entirety of the East Coast of the United States would be contaminated and forced to evacuate.

As his superiors continued to dismiss his concerns, Parks decided that he had to go public with what he knew. His testimony would change everything for the energy industry.

cancer rates in river where wind blew 3x; rick concludes not safe if profit motive

dismissive of drama, weasel words

pix of him on polar crane use? a year later?

http://lbarrett.com/resume.html

Barrett Containment Entry to Lift Reactor Missile Shields with Refurbished Polar Crane: February 22, 1984

lake Barrett is an independent consultantin the energy field serving in both government and commercial capacities in the nuclear energy and nuclear materials management areas for more than five decades. He currently actively supports the recovery of the Fukushima nuclear reactor accident,serving as a senior advisor to the Japanese government’s International Research Institute for Nuclear Decommissioning and the Tokyo Electric Power Co. Barrett has testified before the U.S. Congress and has provided extensive public media explanations.

At the Department of Energy, Barrett served as the principal deputy (10 years) and acting director (five years) of the Office of Civilian Nuclear Waste Management reporting directly to five different secretaries implementing the Nuclear Waste Policy Act of 1982, which involved complex scientific repository site evaluations and statutory processes, utility contract management and litigation, the integration of spent fuel storage and transportation considerations for existing reactor sites and for separate central storage facilities, and international and regulatory programs. Also, he served in Defense Programs (currently the National Nuclear Security Administration) as a director to change and improve national security, safety, and environmental protection cultures and operations at the Rocky Flats nuclear weapons plant, leading to the successful restoration of plutonium operations and safe decommissioning.

At the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, Barrett served at multiple senior technical and executive positions including being theonsite director and senior federal official for the cleanup of the Three Mile Island reactor accident in the early 1980s. [blew off rick --> whistleblower GAP

Barrett also served in multiple reactor design, construction, operation, and decommissioning positions for both submarine and commercial power reactors atBechtel Power and Electric Boat Division of General Dynamics, including the last nuclear refueling of the SSN Nautilus. 

Barrett has both bachelor of science and master of science engineering degrees from the University of Connecticut. He is a registered professional engineer, Fellow of the American Nuclear Society, served on many national and international committees, and has received various honors such as the President’s Meritorious Excellence Award, Secretary of Energy’s Gold Award, DOE and NRC Meritorious Service Awards, and the Congressional Award for Exemplary Service Finalist. 

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https://www.mentalfloss.com/posts/three-mile-island-nuclear-accident-history-facts

...Among the artists inspired to action by the incident was Bruce Springsteen, who lived less than 100 miles from Three Mile Island. He wrote a song called “Roulette” about the incident and the ongoing debate at the time about whether the benefits of nuclear energy outweighed the potential environmental and health risks. The song, which says that "I've got a house full of things that I can't touch," opens with the lyrics:

"We left the toys out in the yard

I took my wife and kids and I left my home unguarded

We packed what we could into the car

No one here knows how it started ..."

Though Springsteen originally recorded the song in 1979, it remained generally unreleased (although available “through the miracle of bootlegging,” as the Boss himself once said) until his Tracks box set in 1998. He also joined Musicians United for Safe Energy (MUSE), and performed at their famed “No Nukes” concert. His version of the Detroit Medley was released on the No Nukes album, but Springsteen released his full concert set in 2021.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ypEmmZJXg10

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TMI 3 mi island

https://kpfa.org/episode/best-of-kpfa-archives-feb-6-2019/

Three Mile Island

Produced by: Aileen Alfandary, Alan Snitow and Helen Mickiewicz. Originally aired on KPFA-FM : July 30, 1979

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wiki

The Three Mile Island accident was a partial nuclear meltdown that occurred on March 28, 1979, in one of the two Three Mile Island nuclear reactors in Dauphin County, Pennsylvania, United States. It was the worst accident in U.S. commercial nuclear power plant history.[2] The incident was rated a five on the seven-point International Nuclear Event Scale: Accident With Wider Consequences.[3][4]

The accident began with failures in the non-nuclear secondary system, followed by a stuck-open pilot-operated relief valve in the primary system, which allowed large amounts of nuclear reactor coolant to escape.

The mechanical failures were compounded by the initial failure of plant operators to recognize the situation as aloss-of-coolant accident due to inadequate training and human factors, such as human-computer interaction design oversights relating to ambiguous control room indicators in the power plant's user interface.

In particular, a hidden indicator light led to an operator manually overriding the automatic emergency cooling system of the reactor because the operator mistakenly believed that there was too much coolant water present in the reactor and causing the steam pressure release.[5]

The accident crystallized anti-nuclear safety concerns among activists and the general public, resulted in new regulations for the nuclear industry, and has been cited as a contributor to the decline of a new reactor construction program that was already underway in the 1970s.[6]:

{ The partial meltdown resulted in the release of unknown amounts of }:radioactive gases and radioactive iodine into the environment.

Dire predictions were made by anti-nuclear movement activists;[7] however epidemiological studies analyzing the rate of cancer in and around the area since the accident, determined there was a small statistically non-significant increase in the rate and thus no causal connection linking the accident with these cancers can be made.[8][9][10][11][12][13] Cleanup started in August 1979, and officially ended in December 1993, with a total cleanup cost of about $1 billion.[14]

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Investigations

Several state and federal government agencies mounted investigations into the crisis, the most prominent of which was thePresident's Commission on the Accident at Three Mile Island, created by Jimmy Carter in April 1979.[63] The commission consisted of a panel of twelve people, specifically chosen for their lack of strong pro- or anti-nuclear views, and headed by chairman John G. Kemeny, president of Dartmouth College. It was instructed to produce a final report within six months, and after public hearings, depositions, and document collection, released a completed study on October 31, 1979.[64] 

The investigation strongly criticized Babcock and Wilcox, Met Ed, GPU, and the NRC for lapses in quality assurance and maintenance, inadequate operator training, lack of communication of important safety information, poor management, and complacency, but avoided drawing conclusions about the future of the nuclear industry.[65] The heaviest criticism from the Kemeny Commission concluded that "fundamental changes were necessary in the organization, procedures, practices 'and above all – in the attitudes' of the NRC [and the nuclear industry.]"[66] Kemeny said that the actions taken by the operators were "inappropriate" but that the workers "were operating under procedures that they were required to follow, and our review and study of those indicates that the procedures were inadequate" and that the control room "was greatly inadequate for managing an accident."[67]

The Kemeny Commission noted that Babcock and Wilcox's PORV valve had previously failed on 11 occasions, nine of them in the open position, allowing coolant to escape. More disturbing, however, was the fact that the initial causal sequence of events at TMI had been duplicated 18 months earlier at another Babcock and Wilcox reactor, the Davis-Besse Nuclear Power Station owned at that time by Toledo Edison. The only difference was that the operators at Davis-Besse identified the valve failure after 20 minutes, where at TMI it took 80 minutes, and the Davis-Besse facility was operating at 9% power, against TMI's 97%. Although Babcock engineers recognized the problem, the company failed to clearly notify its customers of the valve issue.[68]

Upon his return to Dartmouth, Kemeny addressed Dartmouth college students. When asked what caused the meltdown, he replied that the proximate cause would probably never be known. The Government Affairs Vice President confirmed that the Metropolitan Edison Company, which operated the company, had shortly before received a warning from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) that Babcock and Wilcox reactor valves were vulnerable to failure under certain conditions. He said he had sent it on to the Vice President of Engineering, who confirmed that he had read it.

Shortly after that, the two men met at the water cooler where the Government Affairs VP asked the Engineering VP a question. The Government Affairs VP remembered the question as "Is there a problem here?" The Engineering VP thought the question was "Have you solved the problem?" Both VPs agreed that the answer was "no." One walked away believing that the problem was solved. The other believed that he had informed his bosses that there was a problem. The issue was never resolved. Kemeny told the students that he believed it never would be. The proximate cause of the meltdown remains unknown and no proof of negligence was ever uncovered.

The Pennsylvania House of Representatives conducted its own investigation, which focused on the need to improve evacuation procedures.

In 1985, a television camera was used to see the interior of the damaged reactor. In 1986, core samples and samples of debris were obtained from the corium layers on the bottom of the reactor vessel and analyzed.[69]

Effect on nuclear power industry[

Global history of the use ofnuclear power. The Three Mile Island accident is one of the factors cited for the decline of new reactor construction.

According to the IAEA, the Three Mile Island accident was a significant turning point in the global development of nuclear power.[70] From 1963–1979, the number of reactors under construction globally increased every year except 1971 and 1978. However, following the event, the number of reactors under construction in the U.S. declined every year from 1980–1998.[citation needed] Many similar Babcock and Wilcox reactors on order were canceled; in total, 51 U.S. nuclear reactors were canceled from 1980–1984.[71]

The 1979 TMI accident did not initiate the demise of the U.S. nuclear power industry, but it did halt its historic growth. Additionally, as a result of the earlier 1973 oil crisis and post-crisis analysis with conclusions of potential overcapacity in base load, forty planned nuclear power plants already had been canceled before the TMI accident.

At the time of the TMI incident, 129 nuclear power plants had been approved, but of those, only 53 (which were not already operating) were completed. During the lengthy review process, complicated by the Chernobyl Disaster seven years later, Federal requirements to correct safety issues and design deficiencies became more stringent, local opposition became more strident, construction times were significantly lengthened and costs skyrocketed.[72] Until 2012,[73] no U.S. nuclear power plant had been authorized to begin construction since the year before TMI.

Globally, the end of the increase in nuclear power plant construction came with the more catastrophic Chernobyl disaster in 1986 (see graph).

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Babcock & Wilcox Enterprises (NYSE: BW) is an American power generation company headquartered in Charlotte, North Carolina.

On June 30, 2015, Babcock & Wilcox completed a spinoff from BWX Technologies, its former parent which is now headquartered inLynchburg, Virginia. The two companies began trading separately on July 1.[2]

The company previously known as The Babcock & Wilcox Company provided design, engineering, manufacturing, construction and facilities management services to nuclear, renewable, fossil power, industrial and government customers worldwide. B&W's boilers supply more than 300,000 megawatts of installed capacity in over 90 countries around the world. A reactor from B&W was destroyed by a nuclear meltdown in theThree Mile Island accident. During World War II, over half of the US Navy fleet was powered by Babcock & Wilcox boilers.

The company has its headquarters in Charlotte, North Carolina. It has major operations in Lynchburg, Virginia; Barberton, Ohio; Euclid, Ohio; Lancaster, Ohio;West Point, Mississippi; Mount Vernon, Indiana; Oak Ridge, Tennessee;Erwin, Tennessee; Amarillo, Texas; Cambridge, Ontario; the Danish city of Esbjerg; and the German city of Straubing. B&W also has joint major joint venture companies in Beijing and the Indian city of Pune.[3]

B&W employs approximately 12,700 people, in addition to approximately 10,400 joint venture employees.[3]

The company was founded in 1867 by Stephen Wilcox and George Babcock as Babcock, Wilcox & Company to manufacture and market Wilcox’s patented water tube boiler.

B&W's list of innovations and firsts include the world’s first installed utility boiler (1881); manufacture of boilers to power New York City’s first subway (1902); first pulverized coal power plant (1918); design and manufacture of components for the USS Nautilus, the world’s first nuclear-powered submarine (1953-55); the first supercritical pressure coal-fired boiler (1957); design and supply of reactors for the first U.S. built nuclear-powered surface ship, the NS Savannah (1961).[4]

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