On March 28, 1979, there was a transient event at the second reactor at the Three Mile Island (TMI) nuclear plant just south of Harrisburg, the capital city of Pennsylvania. A transient event. It was the term used by a plant spokesman to describe the fact that all hell was on the verge of breaking loose.

 

A broken pump, a stuck valve, a false reading, and operator error drained the water out of the second reactor, exposing the superheated core and threatening a meltdown and massive radiation release. The reactor core partially melted, but after three tense days, the containment system held. The nuclear industry’s credibility didn’t.

 

At first, Metropolitan Edison, the plant’s owners, said the problem was under control and that only one percent of the reactor’s fuel had melted. It was later revealed that about half the fuel was gone, and TMI was perilously close to disaster. Pennsylvania Lieutenant Governor William Scranton relayed the utility’s reassurances that no radiation had escaped, when in fact contaminated water had poured into an adjoining building. “And it was at that point that I realized … that we could not rely on Metropolitan Edison for the kind of information we needed to make decisions,” Scranton later said.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Dueling studies came to different conclusions in the 1990s. A Columbia University study published in 1990 saw no impact on cancer rates from TMI. Seven years later, a University of North Carolina team, using the same data as the Columbia researchers, found an increase in lung cancer and leukemia in areas downwind from the reactor.

 

In 1983, Metropolitan Edison was busted for falsifying documents related to the accident and reactor safety. They pled guilty to six, and no contest to one, of the 11-count indictment.

 

Today, the industry is ready for its comeback: Gone are the days of too-cheap-to-meter propaganda. (My favorite is a 1966 short film by Northeast Utilities: The Atom and Eve shows an alluring dancer, pirouetting around household appliances and fondling a refrigerator — all brought to you by clean, safe nuclear energy.) In its place is a global warming-based sales pitch: Carbon-free nukes, now providing about 20 percent of the nation’s electric supply, could replace a big chunk of the 50 percent provided by coal, and several utilities have plants on the drawing board.

 

All that remains to be conquered are the environmental risks throughout every stage of the nuclear fuel cycle: Uranium mining is inalterably destructive; its legacy was reported in a remarkable series in the Los Angeles Times two years ago; and the end of the cycle — dealing with nuclear waste — is barely closer to resolution than it was 30 years ago. Then there’s winning the faith of Wall Street — and the public. That’s all that’s left to do after the lie of TMI.

 

Peter Dykstra is the former executive producer of CNN's Science, Tech and Weather Unit. He writes three columns for MNN: Media Mayhem on Mondays, Political Habitat on Wednesdays, and Green States on Fridays. (Yes, he writes a lot.)