Published: March 16th, 2012 at 9:57 am ET
|
Title: 14-Year Cleanup at Three Mile Island Concludes
Source: New York Times
Date: August 15, 1993
How US ‘Got Rid’ of 2+ Million Gallons of Radioactive Water After TMI
The cleanup at the Three Mile Island nuclear plant has ended after 14 years with a final puff of radioactive steam from the evaporator used to get rid of contaminated water from the 1979 accident.
For two years the electric evaporator had been getting rid of the 2.23 million gallons of water at Three Mile Island’s No. 2 reactor, which was destroyed in the nation’s worst nuclear plant accident. The steam, released at various times by the electric evaporator, carried tritium, a radioactive form of hydrogen.
No Rush to Clean It All Up
The cleanup removed the radioactive material that could be reached, leaving other material in Unit No. 2. Plant engineers said that taking apart the unit would have been difficult with a reactor operating nearby. They also said the level of radiation in the No. 2 unit would decline naturally, so there was no reason to rush.
Worst Type of Accident is a Melt-out and Explosion
In the worst type of reactor accident, experts say, the nuclear fuel would melt and burn through the vessel and the reactor basement, then into the earth. The result would be a steam explosion that would spew vast amounts of radiation.
Read the report here
Published: March 16th, 2012 at 9:57 am ET
|
sending...
Wow, EXCELLENT find Admin!! "We have met the enemy and he is us," DAIICHI NPP's in Fukushima.
Report Comment
SORRY OT! George Clooney arrested in D.C. After Protest Outside Sudanese Embassy! http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/03/16/george-clooney-arrested-dc-_n_1353441.html
Report Comment
Wow Whoopie! Go George!
I buried this in an earlier post,…did anyone hear that the comedian Gallager had a heart attack during one of his shows yesterday? He was doing his veg-o-mallet routine with a mallet and water mellon! He is reported in satisfactory condition,…at least that's what 'Coast to Coast" said late last night.
Report Comment
Here's some more OT news I saw on CBS this a.m. SJ. http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-505267_162-57398637/gop-freshmen-big-bucks-donors-hobnob-at-resort/?tag=cbsContent;cbsCarousel
TEABAG Mother flackers caught redhanded!
Report Comment
According to the second paragraph, they left radioactive material in Unit #2, to decay "naturally", without saying how much.
Since 1993, this would have become corium. In 21 years, it most certainly would have melted through the floor, regardless of the amount.
So, TMI has corium under the plant, with no admission of monitoring from the NRC, or anyone else, for that matter.
Does anyone think this might be a problem?
Report Comment
There is no corium left at TMI-2. All the fuel, corium and removable equipment was shipped out during the initial cleanup. The material that is referenced in the article is embedded in the concrete of the building and the holding tanks that held the contaminated reactor coolant. The unit will be demolished sometime after 2034 when the license extension runs out on TMI-1.
http://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/doc-collections/fact-sheets/3mile-isle.html
Since you seem a bit confused about what corium is and how it is formed.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corium_(nuclear_reactor)
There are lost of good links at the bottom to further your research.
Report Comment
So the NRC was able to completely insure the removal of 41,900 lbs of highly radioactive corium (19,000 kilograms per Wikipedia)at TMI, in addition to all the failed equipment, with 1979 technology. By the same people that built all these poorly constructed plants in the first place.
They were also able to safely dispose of 2.3 million gallons of radioactive wastewater.
The NRC would never lie to us. I feel so much better. Not.
All the skeletons in all the closets are going to come out, and fast. This is gonna be great! (for all the wrong reasons)
And my heart goes out to you, StillJill.
Report Comment
The only reason they were able to remove the damaged fuel at TMI was due to the fact that the fuel melt was contained to the RPV and the supporting facility remained intact. The reactor vessel maintained it integrity and it was possible to work on the melted fuel with water shielding the equipment and workers. They didn't exact dispose of it, they do the only thing they can do, shove it in big stainless steel cans and put it somewhere else. They didn't really safely dispose of the water either, they just boiled it off. The condensate went in more cans for someone else to deal with for the next 10,000 years.
TMI was a bad accident, but there is really no comparisons that can be made to Fukushima or Chernobyl. All 3 have been unique in their reason for, mode of and response to their respective disasters. These are inherently dangerous, building sized machines whose margins of safety grow smaller and smaller the longer they are operated. On a long enough timeline the survival rate for all of them approaches zero. The question is, how long can we collectively roll the nuclear dice?
It's sad to say, but it will probably take the massive failure of a NPP with core melt out, facility destruction and massive population exposure(think Indian Point or Dresden)without operator error or natural disaster to blame for a cause before the industry and governments will even begin to admit the massive problems these machines present to humanity. Until then, they will kick the can down the road for the next generation to deal with.
Report Comment
My Mother lived very near TMI,…Carlisle, Pa near Hershey. She got cancer three times in 10 years,…the last killing her in 2004. She was only 68. TMI killed my Mother. Weapons testing, particularly in 1963 near Chicago, Ill, irradiated my sisters and I. Of the three,…two had severely handicapped firstborns.
The first time I visited my Mother near TMI,…my nose became full of sores within the first 36 hours there. That was 1983.
I have not felt well since 1994, when I was 34 years old.
I think it's nuclear. I know it's nuclear!
Report Comment
I also blame tmi for the early death of my mom. I was in 10 grade during tmi. The busses would not take the kids that lived withn 10 miles home that day. I now have bad RA. Now live by san onefre…the hits keep coming!
Report Comment
Admin, Whoopie, StillJill, Time is Short,
Thanks for this, it is crucial information, especially for those who live near TMI.
StillJill, I am so sorry for the fatal damage that TMI did to your family. I grew up near the Pilgrim Plant in Massachusetts, and realize now that my childhood-adulthood thyroid disease and my own Californian daughter's birth defects can be traced back to Pilgrim.
You know what? I never would have known that without Enenews. I never put it together before, I always thought that my anti-nuclear conviction was theoretical, because of a concern for others, I was so thoroughly conditioned since childhood that Pilgrim was harmless, not a "real" NPP, that it posed "no health threat," I didn't consciously register that my own family had already been damaged.
Whoopie, today will be easier knowing that Clooney is in jail
. Maybe getting arrested for your resistance will become trendy!
Report Comment
Just a question: If it was estimated as the worst case scenario by SMS, how is it possible for them to say Fukushima takes the second place after Chernobyl? With multiple melt down/throughs?
Thanks, Admin, for picking their stones! We need them to defend our own sense of sanity, and refresh the memory of the sleeping ones.
Report Comment