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Accident Title: Partial Meltdown and Radioactive Release at the Nuclear Facility on Three Mile Island
Major Damage: The partial meltdown of the radioactive core at one of the nuclear reactors onsite and uncontrolled release of steam containing radioactive components. The release occurred in a residential area due to the location of the plant and although no measurable health effects have been reported, cleanup of the site took almost two decades and cost over 200 million dollars. The reactor involved in the accident has been decommissioned permanently and the site it was located on put under perpetual storage and observation.
Date: Wednesday, March 28th, 1979 at 4am
Location: Three Mile Island, Pennsylvania
Events
1. Major accident scenario
In the early morning of March 28th 1979, the nuclear plant located on Three Mile Island in southeastern Pennsylvania was operating as usual. The plant itself had been operating for nearly a decade without incident. Around 4pm, a mechanical failure within the cooling system of the reactor occurred. This failure resulted in cooling water failing to flow adequately to cool the reactor. This resulted in the cooling water to be heated beyond safe operating limits of the process. As the cooling water heated, some of the liquid was converted to steam that increased the pressure within unit. Operators in the plant realized that cooling system had failed and began taking steps to protect the reactor and safely shut it down. In order to release the pressure from the cooling system and the reactor, the opening of an operator controlled pressure relief valve was required. This valve was opened using the control systems available to the operators, not through manually opening the valve as the valv...
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...ate the effects that an accident can have on both their company and the rest of their industry.
Bibliography
• Houts, Peter S., Paul D. Cleary, and Teh-wei Hu. The Three Mile Island Crisis: Psychological, Social, and Economic Impacts on the Surrounding Population. University Park: Pennsylvania State UP, 1988. Print.
• King, L. J., and J. H. Opelka. Three Mile Island Cleanup: Experiences, Waste Disposal, and Environmental Impact. New York, NY: American Institute of Chemical Engineers, 1982. Print.
• Three Mile Island Nuclear Powerplant Accident, Presidential Commission for Investigation:. Washington: United States Congress, 1979. Print.
• "Backgrounder on the Three Mile Island Accident." NRC:. United States Nuclear Regulatory Commission, 01 Feb. 2013. Web. 20 Apr. 2014. http://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/doc-collections/fact-sheets/3mile-isle.html
On March 28, 1979, at 4:00 A.M. Eastern time, the worst accident in commercial nuclear power history happened. It was a nice day in Dauphin county, Pennsylvania, and then it all happened. This accident was rated a 5 on a scale that only goes to 7. The scale is called International Nuclear Event Scale. It all started inside the secondary-system where the pilot-operated relief valve was stuck open releasing large amounts of nuclear reactor coolant. This horrific accident caused many scientists to worry about nuclear energy, as well as concerning scientists that it could be a danger to the world, so this caused many safety concerns among activists and the general public which resulted in in new regulations for the nuclear industry, and has been cited as a contributor to the decline of a new reactor construction program that was already underway in the 1970s. Even though this sounds like it should have caused many people to develop cancerous cells, epidemiological studies analyzing the rate of cancer in and around the area since the accident, determined there was a small statistically non-significant increase in the rate and thus no causal connection linking the accident with these cancers has been substantiated. After
Three Mile Island was a three month old nuclear power plant located in southeast Pennsylvania. On March 28, 1979, a series of mechanical and human errors led to above-normal levels of radioactive gas being released into the air. Subsequently 400,000 gallons of water from a holding tank containing xenon-133 and xenon-135 was released into the Susquehanna River. (Davis 313) By the end of Thursday, March 29, detectable levels of increased radiation were measured over a four-county area. Plant officials estimated that 180 to 300 of the 36,000 fuel rods in the reactor had melted. (Davis 313) The governor advised that pregnant women and small children evacuate and stay at least five miles away from the facility. They did this for good reason because almost 80% of the gas escaped the morning of the accident (Davis 313). After the accident people filed more than 2,200 law suits. But only 280 claims have been settled for $14 million (Freiham 290). Deaths from thyroid cancer have been monitored in Middletown, but no link to
On April 26th, 1986, operators at the Chernobyl Power Plant in Chernobyl, Ukraine, ran what they thought to be a routine safety test. But fate was not on the side of these operators. Without warning, reactor #4 became unstable, as it had been operating at a low power for a possible shutdown and the reactor’s design caused it to be unsafe at this level of power. Internal temperatures rose. Attempts to cool the system produced the opposite effect. Instantly, the nuclear core surged with power. At 1:23 p.m., the reactor exploded. The first blast ripped off the reactor's steel roof. The second blast released a large plume of radiation into the sky. Flames engulfed the building. For ten long days, fire fighters and power plant workers attempted to overcome the inferno. Thirty-one of them died of radiation poisoning. Chernobyl was the worst nuclear disaster in history. It unleashed radiation hundreds of times greater than the atomic bombs exploded over Japan during World War II. [1]
Leading the disaster, Nuclear reactors require an element cooling with a particular finished objective to uproot the created warmth delivered by radioactive rote. Despite when not delivering power, reactors still make some warmth, which must be cleared with a specific end goal to forestall harm to the reactor center. Cooling is by and large refined through fluid stream, water in Chernobyl s case. The issue at the Chernobyl plant was that taking after an emergency shutdown of all force, diesel generators were expected to run the cooling pumps. These generators took around a minute to fulfill full speed, which was respected an inadmissible long time for the reactor to be without cooling. It was recommended that the rotational power of the backing off steam
Jamaica Bay or also known as Dead Horse Bay has a toxic past filled with pollution and decaying carcasses (Roberts,2010). For over a decade, Jamaica Bay has been the main dumping site for waste treatments plants, oozing contaminants from a nearby landfill, runoff from the Belt Parkway and airplane fuel (Roberts,2010). To address this issue of pollution, finding the source of the contaminate would help reduce the continuous depletion of Jamaica Bay. One contaminate in particular has been an issue and it has proven hard to get rid of. Plastic waste litters the estuary and the bay area. The source of the plastic waste is the Combined Sewer Overflow(CSO). The discharge or overflow
I. (Gain Attention and Interest): March 11, 2011. 2:45 pm. Operations at the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant continued as usual. At 2:46 pm a massive 9.0 earthquake strikes the island of Japan. All nuclear reactors on the island shut down automatically as a response to the earthquake. At Fukushima, emergency procedures are automatically enabled to shut down reactors and cool spent nuclear fuel before it melts-down in a catastrophic explosion. The situation seems under control, emergency diesel generators located in the basement of the plant activate and workers breathe a sigh of relief that the reactors are stabilizing. Then 41 minutes later at 3:27 pm the unthinkable occurs. As workers monitored the situation from within the plant, citizens from the adjacent town ran from the coastline as a 49 foot tsunami approached. The tsunami came swiftly and flooded the coastline situated Fukushima plant. Emergency generators were destroyed and cooling systems failed. Within hours, a chain of events led to an explosion of reactor 1 of the plant. One by one in the subsequent days reactors 2, and 3 suffered similar fates as explosions destroyed containment cases and the structures surrounding the reactors (Fukushima Accident). Intense amount...
Gorinson, Stanley M., and Kevin P. Kane. “The Accidental Three Mile Island: The Role of
Accidents are an inevitable part of life. Children learn this at an early age by bumping their head, scraping their knees, or falling off the swings. They learn that sometimes painful experiences just happen, seemingly without cause or reason. These children carry these lessons into adulthood, and then project their tolerance for accidents onto their families and occupation. The chemical industry, while one of the safest industries, has the potential for catastrophic accidents. Through experience and renewed focus on the conservation of life, the chemical industry has improved its safety considerably. In 2005, chemical industry fatality rate (the number of fatalities per year per total number of people in the applicable population) was the third lowest when compared to industries such as agriculture, coal mining, and construction1. However, accidents still occur, sometimes with regrettable repercussions. In 2005, Formosa Plastics Corporation in Point Comfort, Texas experienced an accident with severe consequences.
Chernobyl was the greatest nuclear disaster of the 20th century. On April 26th, 1986, one of four nuclear reactors located in the Soviet Union melted down and contaminated a vast area of Eastern Europe. The meltdown, a result of human error, lapsed safety precautions, and lack of a containment vessel, was barely contained by dropping sand and releasing huge amounts of deadly radioactive isotopes into the atmosphere. The resulting contamination killed or injured hundreds of thousands of people and devastated the environment. The affects of this accident are still being felt today and will be felt for generations to come.
One of the most significant environmentally damaging instances in history was the Chernobyl incident. In 1986, the Chernobyl Nuclear Plant in Ukraine exploded. It became one of the most significant disasters in the engineering community. There are different factors that contributed to the disaster. The personnel that were tasked with operating the plant were unqualified. The plant’s design was a complex one. The RBMK reactor was Soviet design, and the staff had not be acquainted with this particular design. As the operators performed tests on the reactor, they disabled the automatic shutdown mechanism. After the test, the attempt to shut down the reactor was unsuccessful as it was unstable. This is the immediate cause of the Chernobyl Accident. It later became the most significant nuclear disaster in the history of the
Due to the fact that the environment provides many natural resources that are essential for human viability, California should establish and enforce policies that regulate toxic waste disposal, help clean up bodies of water, reduce contributions of carbon dioxide that contribute to global warming, plant more trees, and offer rewards to people who actively protect the environment in order to achieve citizen involvement. Toxic waste and chemical-filled waste pose a great threat to the environment for many reasons. Sadly, California—among other coastal U.S. states—is one of the most industrially polluted regions in the United States (Cooper, 1996). It is then of no surprise that it was found that improper disposal of the waste from industrial companies soon enough began affecting both wildlife, as well as humans. People had to evacuate their homes due to the fact that companies were burying their waste illegally, resulting in the contamination of water sources (Cooper, 1996).
As for employees, it is essential for them to work together and cooperate with one another to prevent any accidents from occurring and to not carry out any actions that may be reckless and bring harm to their fellow colleagues. They are ultimately responsible for the safety of their colleagues and themselves. Failing to do so will not only cause mishaps but it may also result in parties being convicted for breaching this act.
...ccident situation could cause an effect may not be simply possible since there are too many variables with different personalities. People who are affected by the accident may be involved in a complete range covering the hardened firefighters within airline "check-in" staffs. Those who get involved in such activities may suffer trauma and mental distress hence they require a lot of counseling, and other that have been deployed to the accident scene may require assistance, as well.
The nuclear power plant at Fukushima Dai-ichi was devastated by an earthquake and tsunami. This power plant is located in the large city of Tokyo where, on the morning of Friday, March 11, a magnitude 9.0 earthquake swept a 230-mile wide path northeast of Tokyo, Japan. This water laden earthquake was ranked fifth largest worldwide since records began (6). In a 225 page report by Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO), it was stated that the earthquake caused holes in the nuclear reactors as big as 2.8-3.9 inches. Although the report is mostly speculator, a consensus has been reached that whatever holes were caused by the earthquake have only grown larger with time. Expert opinion is that the reactor’s containers are badly damaged, and the fuel rods for three reactor...
Although workplace accidents are very common, the majority of them can be prevented. As a company, you are obliged by the law to protect your employees, so it is important to take the necessary actions that will minimize the risk of accidents (Intelligent HQ, 2015).