Word: reactors
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...riveting days, the nation-and the world-watched a gas bubble build up in a nuclear reactor at Three Mile Island near Harrisburg, Pa., and threaten to cause a hydrogen gas explosion that would spew radiation into the atmosphere. When the bubble finally disappeared and the danger subsided, deep relief was mingled with grave concern about the nuclear future...
Preliminary findings by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission indicate that inexplicable human errors helped cause the breakdown at the reactor: valves carelessly closed, safety systems turned off. Said Morris Udall, chairman of the House Interior and Insular Affairs Committee: "It completely baffles me as to how this could have happened...
While Metropolitan Edison--one of the owners of Three Mile Island--worked with NRC technicians and nuclear engineers trying to stabilize the haywire reactor, local residents were left uninformed. Hazardous Xenon 131 gas seeped into the atmosphere, and high-level bursts of radiation escaped to the containment building as plant officials released steam from the overheating equipment. Such steam releases were made, initially, without notifying local civil defense officials, who later expressed outrage at the situation's handling. These releases may have left their cancerous mark on thousands...
Originally, the NRC said it suspected all Babcock & Wilcox reactors (the type of reactor in use at Middletown) had design defects that could promote problems similar to those encountered in Pennsylvania. Early this week, that claim was refuted, and B & W reactors got a clean bill of health...
...accident. The report singled out the same valves and cooling system apparatus that failed during the accident. The NRC inspection even cited "personnel error" as a problem, but no action was taken. Instead, Metropolitan Edison pressed for the scheduled December 30, 1978, date for full-power operation of its reactor--to gather precious federal tax depreciation gains...