40 years ago today there was an "incident"
at Three Mile Island in Pennsylvania.
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According to a U.S. NRC Fact Sheet, it happened like this:
"The accident began about 4:00 a.m. on March 28, 1979, when the plant experienced a failure in the secondary, non‑nuclear section of the plant. The main feedwater pumps stopped running, caused by either a mechanical or electrical failure, which prevented the steam generators from removing heat. First the turbine, then the reactor automatically shut down. Immediately, the pressure in the primary system (the nuclear portion of the plant) began to increase.
"In order to prevent that pressure from becoming excessive, the pilot-operated relief valve (a valve located at the top of the pressurizer) opened. The valve should have closed when the pressure decreased by a certain amount, but it did not. Signals available to the operator failed to show that the valve was still open. As a result, cooling water poured out of the stuck-open valve and caused the core of the reactor to overheat."
In 1973 through 1976 I was a security guard for the company that built these nuclear power plants. This anniversary brought to mind a pair of anecdotes which I have carried in my memories. You can check them out by following this link to Medium. I have no doubt that you will find them memorable, too.
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My wife Susie used to do pottery. Sharing these stories brought to mind how some of her mugs had a similar appearance to these cooling towers. Here are two pictures for you. Interesting the different appearance based on the angle of the lighting. Memories sometimes work the same way, based on our vantage point.
Three Mile Island isn't the only nuclear disaster of the past 40 years. The 1986 Chernobyl event was an epic fail. And since writing about this ten years ago Japan experienced the Fukushima disruption.
At the end of my article on Medium are links to further details on these three events.
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