Three Mile Island

Paper Summary:

In this essay, the author summarizes the Three Mile Island nuclear accident and discusses the environmental lessons we may draw from it.
The paper discusses the cause of the reactor explosion, effects on the environment and how the reactor was sealed.

From the Paper:

"Initially, a glitch in Reactor Number Two's cooling system around 4:00 am caused an operator to turn off a pump which cooled the core of the reactor since he believed the reactor contained too much water (Toth 26). A backup pump was then switched on but failed to operator correctly, since valves had been altered during testing but had not been realigned. At this point the nuclear reactor and turbine correctly shut down, as designed. However, heat from radioactive decay maintained the temperature of the reactor core at a high level. In order to cool the core, a valve on top of a pressurizer opened, causing hot water to move from the primary cooling system down into a drainage tank (Toth 28)."

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