Talk:Three Mile Island Nuclear Generating Station/Archive 1

Archive 1

Viva la Bam scene?

Wasn't the power station shown in Viva la Bam once?--[jonrev] 05:56, 9 December 2006 (UTC)

Containment considerations

It should be noted that there was a hydrogen explosion inside the containment as evidence and various instruments recorded the over-pressure. During the incident, the media portrayed a nuclear explosion with a huge mushroom cloud. What happened was a metal-water reaction that created hydrogen gas which did explode but was contained by the containment building which was exactly what the containment was designed to do. The interior of the containment was a mess and it took years to clean up but, again, it did was it was designed to do. Because the nuclear fuel was deprived of cooling water, it melted. It did not burn through the reactor vessel nor the concrete slab of the reactor building as predicted by some ("The China Syndrome") Instead, it melted into chunks similar to a to a load of rocks on a pick-up truck and fell to the bottom of the reactor vessel. Because the pressure boundary of the reactor had been compromised, radioactive gas (Iodine was one) was released inside the containment and was processed by the scubbers before being vented. Some fission products were released to the atmosphere and and some were released to the Susquehanna River. The manner in which the products were released diluted the concentrations and exposure to radiation. Test equipment and permanent instrumentation offsite indicated that exposure to anyone was well below established threshold values. It can, and should be, argued that there should be no release of radiation, that the experts said there would be none. The experts were wrong.

At every juncture in the design of a nuclear reactor, the possibility (indeed, statistical inevitability) of a Loss of Coolant Accident (LOCA) is studied. That's what happened at TMI-2. Because of poorly designed instrumentation in the control room, operators thought a valve had closed when it had remained open. They allowed the cooling water level in the reactor to go down (uncovering the fuel) for what would have been good reasons had the valve been closed. Had the operators left things alone, automatic systems would have kicked in so as to avoid exactly what happened.

There were many "Lessons Learned" at TMI and it cost close to $1 Billion to clean it up. However, despite everything, the safety systems worked as designed and the last line of defense (the containment structure)worked exactly as it was supposed to work. Human beings reacted to the initial indications as they were trained; when logic told them something had gone very wrong they worked long hours under tremendous pressure to mitigate the accident.

During an exit interview, one of the operators commented on the difficulty of concentrating while an alarm klaxon sounded off at better than 120 decibels and couldn't be turned off. The design engineer evidently thought that nobody should be allowed to turn it off in an extreme situation. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.248.251.73 (talk) 08:49, 11 October 2008 (UTC)

All sounds good, but we'd need to write it in an encyclopaedic style, with references. Thanks, Verbal chat 09:10, 11 October 2008 (UTC)

Article cleanup

I cleaned up the article a bit, added missing sections and references. I copyedited the article a bit for better flow and readability. I have marked the places that still need references. I may come back to locate these. Kgrr (talk) 14:39, 15 December 2008 (UTC)

"Rogue economists"?

I removed the word "rogue" because it's so obviously biased (and certainly unsupported by the reference at the end of the sentence). If anyone has any objections, please provide ample evidence that describing these authors as "rogue" is justified and not a blatant violation of NPOV. 70.226.78.119 (talk) 19:23, 31 January 2009 (UTC)

The entire sentence has been removed -- didn't belong in this article to begin with. Cgingold (talk) 15:46, 28 March 2009 (UTC)

Tags added

This article has no citations or references, so i added the wiki tags, Please add references and citations to prove this article is not solely original research. CrazyRob926 12:18, 12 October 2007 (UTC)

Reference 10 cited does not mention anything about 20 workers being treated? Where is the source of this? No other source says anything about 20 workers needing treatment. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 161.154.235.101 (talk) 14:28, 23 November 2009 (UTC)

Where is it?

The article says Three Mile Island is in Londonderry Township, Pennsylvania, but that links to a disambiguation page. Can someone clarify which Londonderry it's in? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 96.238.45.90 (talk) 16:25, 14 April 2009 (UTC)

Clearly, reading the actual article can be helpful in situations like this, since the introduction indicates which county it is in. However, it goes to show how important continuity of information and thoroughness in detail is in these articles. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 96.238.45.90 (talk) 16:40, 14 April 2009 (UTC)

Piped link in lead fixed. Qpm (talk) 15:23, 24 November 2009 (UTC)

Vague statement

"The reactor core of TMI-2 has since been removed from the site, but the site has not been decommissioned"

This statement is vague, ambiguous and nonsensical. What does "decommissioned" mean here ? The plant is clearly no longer in service if the reactor has been removed. Is the intention of the statement "the site has not been decommissioned", mean, it has not been dismantled, demolished and remediated ? Or that it is still licensed as a power plant ? Iluustrates the problem where a cliched loan-word is used in an unsuitable context. It could even be taken to mean, the reactor has been replaced and it is still "in commission". Second and biggest issue, referring to "the site", it is entirely unclear whether this is meaning the TMI-2 plant, or both the TMI-1 and TMI-2 plants at the site.Eregli bob (talk) 03:33, 28 March 2010 (UTC)

---

The term "Decommissioned" is an official status deemed by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. It is far from nonsensical. The statement in the summary of this article is correct, and here is a paragraph from the TMI-2 accident page that describes this in more detail:

"Today, the TMI-2 reactor is permanently shut down and defueled, with the reactor coolant system drained, the radioactive water decontaminated and evaporated, radioactive waste shipped off-site to a disposal site, reactor fuel and core debris shipped off-site to a Department of Energy facility, and the remainder of the site being monitored. The owner says it will keep the facility in long-term, monitored storage until the operating license for the TMI-1 plant expires at which time both plants will be decommissioned.[6] In 2009 the NRC granted a license extension which means the TMI-1 reactor may operate until April 19, 2034."

The section currently reads "The reactor core of TMI-2 has since been esophogus removed from the site, but the site has not been decommissioned." I have no idea what esophogus means...Google would seem to suggest that it's a misspelling of "esophagus." PurpleChez (talk) 15:50, 28 March 2011 (UTC)

Accident

Holy shit, what's happened to Wikipedia? Apparently now it's nothing but a shill for Special Interest Lobbyists. Three Mile Island was the worst nuclear incident in American history, and it gets a couple of paragraphs that basically boil down to "Oh, gee, it wasn't really THAT bad, it's just that hippies, communists, and the media blew it all out of proportion." God forbid there should be any actual information, and not just a huge snow-job for the Nuclear Power Industry.

It's easy to be the "worst nuclear incident in American history" when it happens to be the only one. Plus nothing bad really happens. In addition to that nothing bad really happens. Turns out Pennsylvania's high background radiation, due to radon gas, is a much bigger threat.

Exactly, it's the only one, because none of these ever happened.--L1A1 FAL (talk) 05:05, 24 February 2012 (UTC)

Legal settlement

There is a sentence in the <Accident> section which says:

However, almost $25 million was paid in insurance settlements to people who then agreed not to discuss their injuries in ongoing litigation.[27]

I have just read reference [27]. It does not mention $25 million and the statement that the plaintiffs agreed not to discuss their injuries is wrong. What it says is that they agreed not to reveal the amount of the settlement.

Unless anyone objects I propose to delete the sentence.

Prosopon (talk) 22:00, 9 March 2014 (UTC)

Vandalism

I noticed a huge increase lately in vandalism taking place in this article. It's coming from one user in particular: 66.154.143.119. I officially applied for page protection...I hope it solves our long-term issue. Wrightchr 12:40, 01 March 2007 (UTC)

I'm going to assume that by "Vandalism" you mean "people actually trying to add some relevant information". It's hard to believe that your idea of a decent wiki entry for Three Mile Island is "it wasn't as bad as the media made it out to be". —Preceding unsigned comment added by 209.180.91.207 (talk) 22:51, 17 September 2008 (UTC)

Noticed that again today, some moron copy-pasted huge blocks of text without even providing citations. Reverting everything back... will monitor that and apply for page protection if the guy is back... (Slb 07:34, 26 October 2014 (UTC)) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Slb (talk • contribs)

Article copied and pasted

What's with the news article that's been copy-pasted into the section on the accident?

"Investigation: Revelations about Three Mile Island disaster raise doubts over nuclear plant safety A special Facing South investigation by Sue Sturgis"

and etc.

Jdong8 (talk) 07:43, 19 October 2014 (UTC)

Obviously some vandalism. I'm not against referencing the usual dissenting voices, but a properly summarized paragraph citing the copy-pasted article is the only acceptable way to do it. Until people take care to edit things properly the only appropriate answer to this is to revert. (Slb 07:39, 26 October 2014 (UTC)) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Slb (talk • contribs)

Which is which?

Silly question, but which of the reactors is the dismantled one? The north or the south one? David.Monniaux 20:35, 30 May 2007 (UTC)

Unit 2 is the one that suffered the accident and is decommissioned. I do not know which unit is where geographically. Lwnf360 (talk) 05:43, 28 November 2007 (UTC)

I believe it is the southern one...Colonel Sev

Judging by the picture and text associated with it at the accident page ("TMI-2, which suffered a partial meltdown, is in the background.") and by looking at the satellite of Google maps I'll say your correct. --brother (accountless user) 2008-07-16 2:29 CEST —Preceding unsigned comment added by 193.11.184.2 (talk)

Seconded. While both containment buildings are shown, the cooling towers in the photo are the TMI-2 towers; the TMI-1 towers are in front of and slightly to the left of the photo. HIGHLY misleading. There's a perfectly good photo showing the full facility at the accident page (and denoting which is which); it seems like this photo would be much preferable to the one currently shown. I'm watching this page; if no one objects in a month or so, I'll make this change. --Grndrush (talk) 05:36, 6 December 2008 (UTC)

See reference 23 for confirmation (NRC web page). Unit -2 is not decommissioned as the wiki text states. It will be decommissioned with unit-1. Thanks.2601:245:4200:900:945B:E615:5D72:D30C (talk) 22:27, 7 October 2015 (UTC)SRL

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Scram Video Game

The SCRAM video game was released by Atari in 1980. The game is modeled after TMI Unit 2 and allows players to recreate the events of March 1979. The game also used differential equations to model accidents during regular gameplay. The game was quite advanced for its time and hardware. The video game may make an interesting note for this Wikipedia page, like "references in contemporary culture" or similar. Jeffrey Walton (talk) 04:35, 19 September 2018 (UTC)

Updates post-closure: Suggest review

I have made some relatively minor changes to reflect the plant’s closure. In doing so, I notice the article should be reviewed and edited more thoroughly, and some sections rewritten. Some of the information is redundant and/or irrelevant post-closure, in my view. Jusdafax (talk) 21:35, 30 September 2019 (UTC)

not real

Reactor 1 isn't decommisioned. It is planned to close in 2021. 73.230.178.114 (talk) 13:53, 30 June 2020 (UTC)

closed in 2019--Dwalin (talk) 09:08, 1 July 2020 (UTC)

Why does it say one unit is operational when it also says both units have been decommissioned? Is someone going to fix this? Philhal451 (talk) 23:42, 13 May 2022 (UTC)