Gov Docs: Three Mile Island Crisis  

Prepared for the U.S. Department of Energy
Assistant Secretary for Nuclear Energy

The accident at the Three Mile Island Unit 2 (TMI‑2) nuclear power plant near Middletown, Pa., on March 28, 1979, was the most serious in U.S. commercial nuclear power plant operating history, even though it led to no deaths or injuries to plant workers or members of the nearby community.

General Information about the Three Mile Island Incident.

For three days beginning on March 28, 1979, a series of mechanical, electrical, and human failures led to a severe meltdown of the reactor core at the Three Mile Island Nuclear Power Plant.

This volume, produced shortly after the accident at the Three Mile Island nuclear reactor, presents a detailed analysis of the accident by Los Alamos researchers as well as discussions of reactor safety for both traditional light water reactors as well as fast breeder reactors. LANL expertise in reactor-safety analysis and multiphase fluid-flow simulation is amply demonstrated through tutorial-like presentations.

EMD-82-90 July 20, 1982

Archived Webcast from Tuesday, March 24, 2009, 10:30 AM EDT, EPW Hearing Room - 406 Dirksen

Information maintained by the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection.

Powerpoint of the local perspective of the Three Mile Island Crisis

The Three Mile Island nuclear power plant accident March 28, 1979, in Pennsylvania happened 2,200 miles away from the Idaho National Engineering Laboratory (now Idaho National Laboratory) near Idaho Falls, Idaho. But employees and facilities at INL played a key role during the following decade helping the U.S. Department of Energy and the TMI owner GPU Nuclear recover and gain knowledge from the accident, remove the damaged core material, ship it across country and temporarily store it.

Reactor Type: Pressurized Water Reactor
Electrical Output: 786 MWe
Reactor Vendor/Type: Babcock & Wilcox Lowered Loop
Containment Type: Dry, Ambient Pressure

Editorial by Jay Boudreau in the publication, Los Alamos Science concerning Three Mile Island.

EMD-80-89 July 7, 1980

EMD-80-109 September 9, 1980