J. Samuel Walker – Three Mile Island: A Nuclear Crisis in Historical Perspective via Resolute Reader

For a few brief years following the 1979 incident at the Three Mile Island plant, it was known as the world’s worst nuclear accident. The far greater disaster at Chernobyl in 1986 soon rightly took that accolade. Three Mile Island has however gone down in infamy. J. Samuel Walker’s account of the event is an attempt both to describe the accident as part of the history of nuclear power and to try to separate the real story from the myths.

In the public perception TMI lead to large releases of radiation into the surrounding atmosphere. While there were some releases both controlled, as the technicians struggled to stabilise the damaged reactor, and uncontrolled. The amounts released were not as great as many thought. Walker’s summary of health studies afterwards errs on the side of those that argue there were few, if any humans injured or made sick by the accident in the short or long term. That said, one thing the book does make clear is that at TMI the United States came close to a situation which could have had very severe consequences for the population surrounding the plant.

Continue reading at J. Samuel Walker – Three Mile Island: A Nuclear Crisis in Historical Perspective