Three-Mile Island power station

In 1979 a partial core melt-down occurred in a reactor at Three Mile Island power station (TMI), Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. Although the fission products released from the core were almost completely contained within the building, the Xe and Kr and some iodine ( 1 TBq I) were released. No deposition occurred on ground outside the building. 

Clearing any system with instrument air as a pressure source is a bad idea. Other pneumatic sources such as utihty air, plant air, or nitrogen should be used instead. However, the Three-Mile Island instrument air was at a lower pressure than the water stream on the resin polisher system. Despite the presence of check valves, there was a reverse flow, water entered the instrument air system causing several instruments to fail, and the turbine tripped. Through a series of other errors, the water covering of the radioactive core was uncovered, allowing an escape of a small amount of radioactivity. Due to the widespread negative public reaction, the US nuclear industry received a setback. If it were not for the improper hose coimection or the erroneous one-minute modification, it is unlikely that aityone outside of the Peimsylvania area would have heard of the Three-Mile Island power station [10]. 

The accident at unit II of the two pressurized-water nuclear power stations at Three Mile Island (located outside the town of Middletown, Pennsylvania, USA) occurred only three months after starting the commercial production of elec-... 

However, there are problems. The main problem associated with a nuclear power station is that the reactor produces highly radioactive waste materials. These waste materials are difficult to store and cannot be disposed of very easily. Also, leaks of radioactive material have occurred at various sites throughout the world. Accidents at a small number of nuclear power stations, such as Three Mile Island in the US (1979) and Chernobyl in the Ukraine (1986) have led to a great deal of concern about their safety. More recently, in March 2011 a major nuclear accident happened at the Fukushima nuclear power plant in northern Japan. On this occasion the accident was not caused as a result of the plant itself undergoing a problem, but as a result of an earthquake near Japan that gave rise to a tsunami. This damaged essential... 

After the severe accidents at the Three Mile Island and Chernobyl nuclear power stations, new designs with improved safety features have been proposed focusing on more intensive consideration of passive safety characteristics. A much more far-reaching demand for the introduction of innovative nuclear power plants in the future is made on a design such that fission product release is made impossible or, at least, restricted to the plant itself. 

Nuclear fission provides about 20% of the electricity generated within the UK. Economic womies about the decommissioning of old nuclear stations, and major accidents in Windscale UK (1957), Three Mile Island USA (1979) and Chernobyl Ukraine (1986) have caused many people to question whether or not more nuclear plants should be built. This is a photograph of the fourth reactor at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant where an explosion resulted in the world s worst nuclear accident. 

Regenerative biofilms have been tested under industrial conditions in the chill water system at the University of California, Irvine (UCI) and at Three Mile Island Nuclear Power Station (TMI) using EIS [123, 124]. Reciprocal polarization resistance (l//fp), considered to be directly proportional to the corrosion rate, was compared as a function of time for preexposed mild steel samples tested in unaltered (standard) service water and samples tested in service water inoculated with protective bacteria. Substantial differences in... 

Three Mile Island on the Susquehanna River is located about 16 km SE of Harrisburg Pa, USA. It is a flat island with a surface of several square kilometres. Some years ago it was chosen as the site for a nuclear power station with two units named TMI-1 and TMI-2. Each unit has its own reactor and turbine-generator group for the conversion of steam into electric energy. The two units could supply 1700 MW to the grid, sufficient for the needs of 300 000 families (based on the average consumption of a US family). 

Many see the commercial nuclear power station as a hazard to human life and the environment. Part of this is related to the atomic-weapon heritage of the nuclear reactor, and part is related to the reactor accidents that occurred at the Three Mile Island nuclear power station near Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, in 1979, and Chernobyl nuclear power station near Kiev in the Ukraine in 1986. The accident at Chernobyl involved Unit-4, a reactor that was a light water cooled, graphite moderated reactor built without a containment vessel. The accident resulted in 56 deaths that have been directly attributed to it, and the potential for increased cancer deaths from those exposed to the radioactive plume that emanated from the reactor site at the time of the accident. Since the accident, the remaining three reactors at the station have been shut down, the last one in 2000. The accident at Three Mile Island... 

The Rolls-Royce prefabricated nuclear plant is a 300 MW power station mounted on two barges. The nuclear Island is contained on one barge and the conventional plant on the other. Essentially the nuclear Island consists of a compact 4-loop PWR using standard components and designed to meet UK safety criteria with appropriate equipment redundancy and diversity (Fig. 1). The reactor has been designed to take full advantage of PWR safety Improvements since the Three Mile Island incident in 1979. Basic data are given in Table 1. 

The plate approach has been used in the development and operation of the process for the purification of the highly radioactive solutions that arose in the accident in the Three Mile Island nuclear power station [99]. In this process, a mixed zeolite bed (Linde IE-96 and A51) was used for the removal of Cs and °Sr. 

Collins ED, Campbell DO, King LJ, Knauer JB, Wallace RM (1985) Evaluation of zeolite mixtures for decontaminating high-activity-level water at the Three Mile Island Unit 2 nuclear power station. Technical Document 337, International Atomic Energy Agency, Vienna, p 43... 

There have been three notorious accidents at nuclear power stations. The first occurred at the Three Mile Island (TMl) generating plant near Middleton, Pennsylvania, in 1979. The TMI reactor is of the light-water type, in which water is used as the moderator and coolant. In this accident, some coolant (also the moderator) was lost the chain reaction in the reactor stopped because there were too few slow neutrons. However, radioactive decay of the fission fragments continued, causing the fuel rods to get very hot. A partial meltdown resulted and, in turn, caused a fracture in one of the reactors. The fracture permitted the venting of a small amount of radioactive steam into the atmosphere. The reactor is now sealed, but electronic robots have discovered substantial damage to the fuel rods. 

---