"The spent fuel rods must be stored in a pool of water for a long time while the radioactivity slowly decays, over a period of years to decades." "The spent fuel rods, however, are intensely radioactive: a human being standing close to an unshielded hot fuel rod would receive a lethal dose of radiation in just minutes," he continued. The fuel rods are used to generate electricity for a period of months and then replaced." "Regarding the spent fuel pool, the fuel in a nuclear reactor is not like the gasoline in an automobile, it's not used up until the tank is empty. "TMI-1 operated until 2019 (it was Unit 2 that melted down), so there is a huge inventory of radioactive material contained in a spent fuel pool at that site," he said. If it had not been for the rising pressure of the cheap natural gas and renewable energy sector and nuclear power, TMI-1 could have remained in operation until 2034 after the NRC granted an extension to keep the unit open.Īaron Datesman, a former Department of Energy scientist and NASA engineer, told Newsweek there is "very much" a risk of radiation exposure to the workers at Three Mile Island and those living close by. Office of Nuclear Energy, TMI-1 at its peak was generating more than 800 megawatts of carbon-free electricity and employed 675 people. It resumed operations from 1985 through to September 20, 2019, when the unit officially shut down. TMI-1 was not involved in the 1979 accident but did have its license temporarily suspended. The unit was placed into long-term monitored storage in 1993, awaiting decommissioning at the same time as TMI-1. All remaining reactor fuel and debris were shipped to the Department of Energy's Idaho National Laboratory. The TMI-2 reactor was permanently shut down after the 1979 accident, with the reactor's coolant system drained, the radioactive water decontaminated and evaporated, and the radioactive waste removed to an "appropriate disposal area," according to the NRC. The removal of spent fuel is currently being removed to dry storage, which is expected to complete by the summer of 2022.Īccording to Nuclear Engineering International Magazine, the two towers of TMI-1 and TMI-2 are set to come down in 2022. Every TV Show and Movie Coming to Netflix, Hulu, Prime and More in MayĪccording to the NRC, the overall process of decommissioning will not be complete until 2079.Tiny Reactors Could Spark a 'Nuclear Revolution' to Fight Climate Change.Is Three Mile Island Still Radioactive and Is It Operating Today?. Instead, two separate companies are working to decommission Three Mile Island, meaning the complete shutdown and dismantlement of its components, systems, and buildings which will take decades to complete.įirstEnergy, who owned TMI-2, sold it to Energy Solutions in December 2020 to help with the decommissioning process, while Constellation Energy continues to own TMI-1. Yes, people do still work at Three Mile Island, but not in the same way as they did in the 1970s. Do People Still Work at Three Mile Island? So, 43 years later, do people still work and live near Three Mile Island? Newsweek has everything you need to know. The four-part series explores the accident itself, the aftermath, the alleged cover-up, and the wider effects it had on the population living in the surrounding area. Unfortunately, plant operators failed to react quickly enough or find out what the issue was, leading to a loss-of-coolant accident (LOCA), resulting in a release of radioactivity. On March 28, 1979, there was a partial meltdown of the Unit 2 (TMI-2) reactor at the plant, caused by a series of mechanical failures. Meltdown: Three Mile Island is the spine-tingling new documentary series on Netflix about the worst nuclear accident on U.S.
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