The Three Mile Island (TMI) Nuclear Accident: Revisited

Abstract

At 0400 hours on Wednesday, March 28, 1979, an extremely small and initially thought unimportant malfunction occurred at the nuclear power plant at Three Mile Island (TMI). Within a short period of time, that malfunction would turn into an event of momentous impact with repercussions felt over most of the world. The events of that malfunction would cause TMI to be labelled as the worst commercial nuclear incident in history and transform it into the nuclear test tube of the universe. What really happened at Three Mile Island? Thirty-six seconds after 0400 hours, several water pumps stopped functioning in the unit 2 nuclear power plant. In the minutes, hours and days that followed, a series of events—compounded by equipment failure, inappropriate procedures and human errors—escalated into the worst crisis yet experienced by the nation's nuclear power industry. This resulted in the loss of reactor coolant, overheating of the core, damage to the fuel (but probably no melting) and release outside the plant of radioactive gases. Hydrogen has was formed, primarily by the reaction between the zirconium casing that holds the radioactive fuel and steam. There, however, was no danger of the bubble inside the reactor vessel exploding, because of the absence of oxygen within the reactor.