Slumbering Behemoths - Three Mile Island

The large cooling towers with one of the reactors and turbine buildings peaking out from behind. 2024

The large cooling towers are the most prominent visual of Three Mile Island now. The two reactors and turbine buildings nestled in the middle of these cylindrical watchdogs.

The Three Mile Island accident, which occurred on March 28, 1979, is considered the most serious accident in U.S. commercial nuclear power plant history. It involved a partial meltdown of the Unit 2 reactor at the Three Mile Island Nuclear Generating Station in Middletown, Pennsylvania.

A series of equipment malfunctions and operator errors caused the reactor to overheat. leading to the partial meltdown of it's core. Radioactive gases, including radioactive iodine, were released into the surrounding environment.

Although the accident did not produce any detectable health effects on plant workers or the public, it had a profound impact on the nuclear power industry. It led to increased regulation and more strict safety standards for all nuclear power plants in the United States.

Clean up of the Unit 2 reactor took 13 years to complete.

Unit 1 reactor was in use until around 2017 and then was fully shut down in 2019.

Sources:

United States Nuclear Regulatory Commission

https://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/doc-collections/fact-sheets/3mile-isle.html

World Nuclear Association

https://world-nuclear.org/information-library/safety-and-security/safety-of-plants/three-mile-island-accident#the-tmi-2-clean-up