March 28, 1979​: ​​​Three Mile Island nuclear power plant accident

The worst nuclear power plant accident in U.S. history happened 40 years ago, when a series of mishaps caused the release of radiation from a reactor at Pennsylvania's Three Mile Island facility. Here is the original story, as reported on the CBS Evening News with Walter Cronkite.

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[madhijz]

Radiation at 8 times the deadly level. Not great, not terrible.

[SIStefanov]

I like how informative the news was. Today information is the last thing you get from news - mostly opinions and talking points.

[outpostorange]

0:11 Going to eat his words in seven years

[soulreaverfan]

The worst nuclear disasters in history:

The Three Mile Island accident in Pennsylvania, United States, in 1979.

The Chernobyl disaster at Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant, Ukraine, USSR, in 1986.

The Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster following the earthquake and tsunami in Japan, March 2011.

[X-Factor-bykz]

Nuclear energy is a risky business and quite frankly I don't think using it is worth the hazards.

[BrendanH_]

I could walk to three mile Island from here.

[jackwho]

Only 4 years later, the Soviets faced chernobyl.

[CPK]

Nuclear energy is the most efficient and clean way of producing electricity when done right.

[tstahler]

We moved to Reading just before this happened.

[ferallemur]

Does everybody remember the Ford Pinto? Of course you do. It's infamous. Get rear-ended in a fender-bender, and you were likely to puncture your gas tank, which, combined with sparks from the collision, could blow up your car. They were death traps on wheels! That's the story, anyway.

Well, with the hindsight of history, we now know a couple things about those death trap Pintos. For starters, it turns out that the risk of fiery explosion was actually pretty low. It's just that when it happened, it was noteworthy, so obviously we as a society were bound to latch onto that and freak out, because that's what we do. But in terms of an actual danger, there were plenty of other things about the car that were far more dangerous. Things like not wearing your seatbelt, for example, which was far more common in those days. Additionally, we've learned that the Pinto wasn't the only vehicle with the particular safety problem of the punctured fuel tank, and it wasn't really any more/less safe than other cars of its era. It's just the car that made the headlines, so it's the one that got demonized.

Here's the first comparison: The reactors involved in all the major nuclear disasters - Three Mile Island, Chernobyl, and Fukushima, ARE ALL OLDER THAN THE FORD PINTO.

Lots of people I talk to about nuclear energy find that fact surprising, and frankly, alarming.

But back to the Ford Pinto again for a bit longer...

When we as a nation decided that the Pinto was a deathtrap, that was the end of the Ford Pinto. But it wasn't the end of cars. Other cars did not inherit the same stigma, so the automobile industry continued. Ford discontinued the Pinto, went back to the drawing board, and came back with other cars.

But imagine for a moment if our reaction to the Ford Pinto had been, "Cars are inherently unsafe! We can never build another car again!" Try to imagine that world, and how different it would be. Could we have even done that? Probably not. We could have invested in other alternative forms of transportation - maybe there would be more bicycles and horses, with a lot more trains/mass transit for longer trips. But probably by the 1970's our infrastructure was such that people in the suburbs would NEED cars to get to work.

And if we had stopped making new cars, but some people still NEEDED cars, then what do you suppose those people would be driving today? They'd still be driving the newest technology that was available to them at the time. They'd probably be driving around in deathtrap Ford Pintos and similar cars of that era.

That's the situation today with our nuclear reactors. We abandoned nuclear because we were afraid of it, and there have been precious few reactors built since Three Mile Island. But people still NEED the electricity generated by those nuclear power plants. About 20% of our energy in the US still comes from nuclear power. And a lot of those plants should have been shut down a decade ago, but are still running because they're necessary and we don't have replacements for them. And of course when we DO have replacements for them, those replacements are fossil fuel plants whose waste products are far less scary, but are far greater in quantity, and every bit as deadly. Plus they involve carbon emissions, so... winner winner, chicken dinner.

But back to the Pinto for one last comparison, and this time it's good news. Here's the silver lining. When the Ford Pinto happened, we didn't stop making cars. We just made safer cars. We continue to make our cars better and safer, and we're all better off because of it. Today, instead of the Ford Pinto, we have the Toyota Prius. We have the Tesla Model 3.

And the nuclear energy industry? It didn't stop designing safer technology either. As a sector it's been woefully ignored and underfunded, but work has continued nonetheless, and today we have available to us right now the Toyota Prius and Tesla Model 3 of nuclear reactors. We have the technology to make sure that disasters like Three Mile Island never happen again because it would be physically impossible for them to happen again. And if it makes us world leaders in this technology again and also makes a huge impact in the fight against climate change, then that's a heck of an added bonus, right?

And all we have to do is to get over our fear of nuclear long enough to build them.

We need to stop talking about how dangerous the Ford Pintos we still drive are, and replace them with something newer, smarter, and safer.

[jones]

I remember this in real time. There was controversy around the movie 'The China Syndrome', which was released just 18 days before 3 mile Island. Michael Douglas and Jane Fonda were accused by the Nuclear Power Industry of fear mongering and smearing NP. Spokes people for the industry were saying no way a 'china syndrome' (melting of the core thru the steel containment barrier) could happen. They said that only a small part of the top of the core had been exposed, at 3 Mile. They said a lot of things.
Now we know, the only reason 3 Mile Island didn't go china syndrome was... well to this day experts still don't know. They surmise that water somehow got down between the melted core (about half the core as it turned out) and the steel containment. But, they can't be sure. Boils down to dumb, blind luck.

[bbush]

But same event and day in the same year including births of:Melissa Tribe (oldest sister of American-Australian Basketball Player is Benjamin David "Ben" Simmons/she graduated from Loreto Toorak and from Deakin University with a Bachelor of commerce in Human Resource Management.she is co-founder and COO of SixOne.she previously was Senior human resources business partner from National Australia Bank from 2014 to 2019. She had same job at MLV Australia from 2010 to 2014, Aviva from 2005 to 2010 and was a workforce specialist at Deloitte), Ant Anstead (television presenter and Automotive specialist of England, UK), Amy Humberman (actress of Ireland), Minai Petre (dancer of Romania), Sam House (DJ.who founded the company House Entertainment, and father of two), Crystal Cox (track and field athlete and mom), Jason Saldana (voice actor), Chae Rim (actress of South Korea), Danies Montenegro (soccer player of Argentina), Reche Caldwell (football player. Deceased: June 6, 2020 (age 41)), Eusebis McKaiser (broadcast and Author of South Africa), Stevie Morley (Guitarist of Indonesia/son of Jopie Item. who was 80's musician, he also a brother of singer Audy Item) &, Stefano Sorrentino (soccer player of Italy); Event of:"A Day in Hollywood/A Night in Ukraine" premieres in United Kingdom)

[aurelianthor]

They should make a movie about it, like Chernobyl. Nobody knows about this disaster.

[estebansteverincon]

Hey look: a news report where facts were disseminated, and no one was arguing or haranguing those being interviewed.

[jppatterson]

And this is why electricity is so expensive today. People over reacted

[NyuuMikuru]

China Syndrome was in theaters 6 months before this.

[MOCOHO-JONNY]

Why is this 40-year-old news story on my trending list.
YouTube is a joke.

[stevensurack]

Last year I went to Walnut Beach and when I was swimming in Lake Erie I was able to see the cooling towers.

[jasondeaver]

Im confused where is the democratic/republican spin the news gives today 🤷‍♂️

[robertbalibrera]

they're dealing with dangerous materials and they need to get smarter about the way they handle it