TMI
I chose to write my paper on an article about the near meltdown of a nuclear facility near my home, Three Mile Island. It was about 22 years ago, on March 28, 1979, in Middletown, Pennsylvania, when TMI almost had the worst commercial nuclear power accident in the history of the United States. Uranium was melting in the reactor, and hydrogen gas was exploding around the facility. No one knew whether to evacuate people in nearby towns, or to tell them to stay put. Evacuation could cause chaos on the roads, while keeping people there could have grave effects, whether right then, or in the future. Since this, 60 nuclear power plants across the U.S. have been shut down or abandoned. No new plants have been built since 1973. 103 reactors were still operating at the time this article was published. After Three Mile Island, new regulations have been made, like better trained plant operators, and more w
orkers, these requirements have made nuclear power more expensive than burning coal or hydroelectric power. In 1999, TMI still had one functioning unit. Operators said it was a model of efficiency and safety. But in a deal that summer, the plant was to be sold for $100 million, just one seventh of its book value. The reason for this price was that TMI's Unit 2 was dismantled just enough to reveal a steel skeleton under its cooling towers. Never to reopen, it cost $700 million to build, and $973 million to run. The book agrees with everything the article says. Both claim that there was not enough radioactive material that escaped to cause deaths or cancers. But neither really knows how much radiation was released into the atmosphere. When all this was taking place, I was in utero, and my parents have told me stories about it. They really didn't know what they should do, but they were about 20 miles from
Some common words found in the essay are:
North Carolina, Mile Island, United Uranium, Cancer Institute, TMI's Unit, Robert Reid, Dick Thornburgh, , Pennsylvania TMI, nuclear power, Columbia University, worst commercial, commercial nuclear, miles plant, worst commercial nuclear, mile island,
Approximate Word count = 622
Approximate Pages = 2 (250 words per page double spaced)
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