Three Mile Island: A Nuclear Crisis in Historical Perspective

by J. Samuel Walker

Twenty-five years ago, Hollywood released The China Syndrome, featuring Jane Fonda and Michael Douglas as a TVnews crew who witness what appears to be a serious accident at a nuclear power plant. In a spectacular coincidence, on March 28, 1979, less than two weeks after the movie came out, the worst accident in the history of commercial nuclear power in the United States occurred at Three Mile Island. For five days, the citizens of central Pennsylvania and the entire world, amid growing alarm, followed the efforts of authorities to prevent the crippled plant from spewing dangerous quantities of radiation into the environment. This book is the first comprehensive account of the causes, context, and consequences of the Three Mile Island crisis. In gripping prose, J. Samuel Walker captures the high human drama surrounding the accident, sets it in the context of the heated debate over nuclear power in the seventies, and analyzes the social, technical, and political issues it raised. His superb account of those frightening and confusing days will clear up misconceptions held to this day about Three Mile Island.

The heart of Walker's suspenseful narrative is a moment-by-moment account of the accident itself, in which he brings to life the players who dealt with the the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, the state of Pennsylvania, the White House, and a cast of scientists and reporters. He also looks at the aftermath of the accident on the surrounding area, including studies of its long-term health effects on the population, providing a fascinating window onto the politics of nuclear power and an authoritative account of a critical event in recent American history.

Genres: History, Nonfiction, Politics, Science, Cultural

316 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2004

Reviews

[Jeffrey Williams · Rating 4 out of 5]

The first few chapters bring up a lot of context regarding the controversy surrounding the Three Mile Island incident in 1979. Unfortunately, there was literally "TMI" as in "too much information" in the set up, that it made for a dull and painstakingly slow read.

Walker's brilliance shines in the meat of the book when writing about TMI, the major players, the controversies and the ramifications. It's technical enough to hold our interest but not too technical to bore us to tears.

Above all, the TMI situation is a primer in crisis communications for anybody working in the public affairs career field. This is a treatise that shows how breakdowns in communications impacts the larger community, and how such breakdowns are, on one hand, problematic, while unavoidable on the other.

I highly recommend this four-star read. I deducted a star because of the long and wordy lead-in.

[Jacob Foster · Rating 4 out of 5]

I think nuclear energy is cool. I find generating heat from an unstable chemical reaction cool. I think managing that flow of heat to spin a turbine is cool.

What’s odd about TMI, and I knew it before but in not much detail, is that it gets spoken of alongside Chernobyl, Titanic, Challenger, as one of these catastrophic moments in history… but literally no one died from the immediate or after effects.

The story of TMI chiefly surrounds a very standard operator error followed by a valve error, but the “fallout” is legitimately just mass mismanagement of information either from ignorance, or in the pursuit of power from either the anti or pro nuclear sides in the US. In reading the book, you see how similar it was then to how it is now, with the news trying desperately to generate a story, rather than the truth. And really the victims were the public pulled eighty different directions, living in fear. Fear of seemingly… nothing.

Interesting to dive into the geopolitical landscape of power generation in he 70s and 80s. Good read if you want a boring, detailed one :)

[Martin Empson · Rating 3 out of 5]

The more recent tragedy at Fukushima has only underlined the inherent problems of nuclear power. This is a source of power that is not needed either to generate electricity or to combat climate change. The alternatives exist, yet the obsession with nuclear energy from governments around the world remains. At times, Walker's detailed, moment-by-monent account of events at Three Mile Island is both fascinating and nerve-wracking. But it should also give food for thought for those who continue to advocate this extremely dangerous way to boil water.

Full review: http://resolutereader.blogspot.co.uk/...

[Edward Taylor · Rating 2 out of 5]

After reading books about Chernobyl and Fukushima, I expected something along those lines but instead, I got a diatribe about how much the NRC, AEC, and the PA Government were at fault for the coverup, lies, and deception in regard to how this was handled. Honestly, they all were at fault, as was the plant management and techs. A comedy of (t)errors ensued and people got about 100-300 chest x-rays of damage over a short time and no amount of restitution. The book also reads like stereo instructions or an IKEA format that just does not please or wet the palate...

[RebL · Rating 4 out of 5]

I selected this one because I read the other day that the remaining functioning reactor at Three Mile Island is set to be shut down. Billing itself as "the first comprehensive scholarly account of the Three Mile Island", this book is dense but fascinating. The first chapter is extremely dry but once you get through that, things get interesting.
Fun fact: the reactor of Unit One at Arkansas Nuclear One is of the same type as the unit which failed at Three Mile Island.

[Helen]

I read this book mostly for class and it is very dense but in this case I think that’s a good thing because it is literally a NRC commissioned work to document nuclear incidents in the US. About Page 75 is when TMI happens and then the last ~150 pages are discussing the affects the incident had on the views of the public regarding the NRC and nuclear power.
It was good!

[Sheila Myers · Rating 5 out of 5]

I was too young at the time of the event to understand it so I'm glad I found this book. I think J Samuel Walker did a good job of providing an unbiased look at what happened before, during, and after the crises.

[Emily · Rating 3 out of 5]

a little jargony

[Linda Gaines · Rating 3 out of 5]

Extremely informative and detailed but also very dry book. It reads like a court narrative.

[Noel Johnson · Rating 2 out of 5]

Very thorough.

[Meg - A Bookish Affair · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5 stars

[Beth666ann · Rating 4 out of 5]

A cogent, well-written, and extensively researched look at the role of the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) in the Three Mile Island disaster, with an emphasis on how the accident revealed the need for better regulations and stopgaps in nuclear plant management and safety policy. The book also gives an interesting portrayal of the nuclear power debate that raged in the 1970s and 1980s. This accident stopped the nuclear power industry in its tracks in many ways.

The primary cause of the Three Mile Island crisis was not that the plant malfunctioned. A valve did stop working, but this triggered the plant's automatic shutdown/recovery system, and had it been left alone, a disaster would not have happened. However, Walker says, workers intervened and made a series of bad decisions that resulted in there being no water/cooling of the core. Therefore, there was a partial meltdown. The user error came in part from the misreading of confusing instruments/indicator lights/alarm systems and in part from bad problem solving (employees were under extreme stress and had not been trained to handle situations like this). Management and training of the employees had not sufficiently equipped them to deal with unforeseen situations.

Moreover, once the accident happened, communication between the plant and the government, and the government and the press, was very, very poor. Also, the NRC and the government (both at the federal level and the state government of PA) had not developed a sufficient evacuation plan for such a disaster. So when the problem occurred, there was chaos and no clear plan on what to do to protect or evacuate people. Very chilling.

The author of this book is the historian of the NRC (I did not know they had one!), and he uses many primary NRC and govt documents/reports when discussing responses to the disaster and actions during the crisis. He is a lively writer of scholarly prose: that is very hard to do well. Congratulations to him and to his copyeditor. The one quibble I might have is on whether the views of the antinuclear folks are fully represented. It seemed that they mostly were--but I do not know since have not read much on it. Anyway, this was a fascinating read. Excellent scholarly book that a general audience can also enjoy.

[May Ling · Rating 4 out of 5]

A brilliant piece that is both a historical and technical account of the real excitement and near disaster that was Three Mile Island. While it is stands as a sad moment in history, it could have been so much worse. Instead of engaging in fingerpointing, the author has taken the high road and portrayed how human error is possible when time is short and events are unfolding quickly. It's hard to believe that so much passed in a mere four days. You get the sense that the author could have easily doubled the size of the book and it still would have been interesting and exciting.



I really like that he did not go easy on the science. Instead, he explains exactly what the technical failures were. He takes great care to do so in a manner that a layman can understand.



A great account of an important event in American History.

[Rebecca · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is exactly the kind of book you would expect from a man who was a Historian for the NRC. I wouldn't consider this book dry. I would say it is "information dense." I don't think this is the best book for a casual reader. This book is certainly something that would be at home in an academic library. The book follows the accident from multiple perspectives, including technical and political. It is very interesting and highly detailed. I would recommend this book to someone interested in the subject. This book is not designed like a popular non-fiction book. I don't think this would be the appropriate title for someone looking for a popular history of TMI. Still, I really did enjoy this book. I look forward to reading more of this author.

[Gert · Rating 2 out of 5]

as dry as the sand in the Sahara desert. It gives some good background on the AEC and the NRC on regulating nuclear power, the nuclear power debate. During the description of the accident, the technical aspect is completely sent to the background in favour of the political and social dimension. Although there is much information in the book, it can be summarized in a couple of pages...

[Trailhoundz · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book gave a fair, albeit quite dry, account of the Three Mile Island incident. It was quite technical and I didn't understand a lot of the nuclear fusion/fission explanations that went on- and the political aspects were rather boring! But if you like that sort of thing, this is the book for you.

[Heather · Rating 3 out of 5]

Nice over view of what happened, and how it was handled. Ultimately the accident influenced the regulatory guidelines used today.

[RYD · Rating 3 out of 5]

This history is a well-written, well-researched and very fair telling of the Three Mile Island accident of 1979.

[Mike · Rating 2 out of 5]

I suppose I was more interested in the technical details of the disaster than the politics of it.

[John · Rating 3 out of 5]

Even now, 42 years later, the nuclear power “debate” hasn’t ended. I live within 30 miles of TMI and most people under the age of 30 are clueless about it.