The Lasting Effects of the Three-Mile Island Mishap - Essay Example

The Lasting Effects of the Three-Mile Island Mishap Introduction I have been hearing about the energy crisis facing by the international world for the last few decades. In my opinion, no country seems to be having surplus energy sources. It took me by little surprises that even amidst severe energy crisis; no country is taking any conscious effort to reduce their energy consumption. I am daily coming across with many articles in which the experts complaining about the shortage or exhausting of conventional energy sources, like oil, coal etc. I think, the world has found a new reliable energy source in nuclear energy and many countries were already developed technology needed to exploit this energy source. During my school days, I studied about processes like nuclear fission and nuclear fusion which are used to exploit the nuclear energy sources. Because of the practical difficulties, nuclear fusion is not used at present for liberating energy from matter. But many countries like India, China, America, France, Russia etc are currently using nuclear fusion processes to liberate nuclear energy with the help of nuclear reactors. In my opinion, the major obstacle in exploiting nuclear energy lies in the controlling of the liberated energy. I know, nuclear fission is a process of splitting a heavier nucleus into two different nuclei using a fast moving neutron. Along with the splitting of the nucleus, this neutron can liberate enormous amount of energy along with three other neutrons from a nucleus. These three neutrons strike another three nuclei and will liberate 9 neutrons in total which may hit another 9 nuclei and will liberate 27 neutrons. This chain reaction will continue till all the fuel material used for the nuclear fusion might be used up and a huge amount of energy might be liberated within few seconds. It is difficult for us to control such huge amount of energies liberated from nuclear fission process even though we are using some controlling mechanisms inside the nuclear reactor. In many cases, human made controls were broken by the nuclear energy and as a result Chernobyl and Three-Mile Island like mishaps happening occasionally. “On March 28, 1979, America experienced its worst nuclear accident - a partial meltdown of the reactor core at the Three Mile Island nuclear power plant near Middletown, Pennsylvania”(Powell). This paper briefly explains the lasting effects of Three-Mile Island Mishap. The lasting effects of Three-Mile Island Mishap In my opinion, the 1979 Three Mile Island nuclear power plant accident caused minor problems to the public life even though it could have been a disaster. I do not know whether the world took enough lessons from this incident or not. But one thing is clear to me that the American government has conducted massive efforts to learn more about the long lasting striking power of the radiations liberated from the disaster site. The concerns of the cancer like radiation oriented diseases caused major concern among the public, but after different studies, the above concerns were proved to be wrong. The Pennsylvania Department of Health for 18 years maintained a registry of more than 30,000 people who lived within five miles of Three Mile Island at the time of the accident. The states registry was discontinued in mid 1997, without any evidence of unusual health trends in the area. Indeed, more than a dozen major, independent health studies of the accident showed no evidence of any abnormal number of cancers around TMI years after the accident. The only detectable effect was psychological stress during and shortly after the accident (Three Mile Island Accident) I do not know whether the above findings were right or wrong. Sometimes the scholars and the government might have hidden the actual facts from the people in order to continue their efforts of exploitation of nuclear energy. I know that relation between cancer and harmful radiations like alpha, beta and gamma is not proved beyond doubt by the medical science. Even then, in my opinion, these radiations can cause numerous types of cancer on human body because of the high level of penetrating power and their ionizing power. It is a fact that these radiations are coming out in huge volumes when nuclear fission process occurs. Moreover, these radiations can travel huge distances without much problems because of its high degree of penetrating power even on opaque objects. These concerns kept the people around Three Mile Island anxious over the last few decades. Even small diseases which occurred due to other reasons during the last two three decades were suspected as the contributions of Three Mile Island mishap by the people. In short, I do believe that psychological problems caused more problems to the people around Three Mile Island than physical problems. Nobody can blame the people around Three Miles for that. At one side, studies and researches, claimed that the radiations caused little damages to the human being; on the other side, the people around Three Miles reported unusual problems to their cattle Farmers in the area started seeing symptoms in their cattle. They reported muscle and bone deficiencies never experienced before in the animals. Young steers could not stand up and dragged their hinds about. There were also increases in breeding problems and respiratory failures (Disasters: Three Mile Island). I do believe that no scientific studies can confront the emotions of the people when they have direct hands own experience of irregularities around them due to the radiation exposure. Apart from the reported unusual problems to the cattle some of the studies revealed that human infant deaths in the form of “miscarriages, stillbirths, and crib deaths soared for the period of April through September” in 1979. Moreover, Dr. Gofman and Dr. Tamplin calculated that minimum 333 deaths were caused from cancer as a result of the Three Mile Island disaster (Disasters: Three Mile Island).In other words, even though direct casualties were not reported due to the Three Mile Island mishap, plenty of indirect casualties were reported immediately after the mishap. I strongly believe that the Three Miles nuclear power plant operators had little ideas about nuclear disaster management. My conclusion is based on the fact that immediately after the Three Mile Island mishap, “at one point, the plant operators released the radioactive water into the Susquehanna river, which is a source of drinking water for nearby communities. No one is really sure what effects these radioactive releases might have had on people living near the power plant” (Nuclear Disasters and Accidents). I strongly believe that the above act was a premature one. Nobody has thought anything about the possible consequences to the environment when radioactive water was released to the river. In other words, the plant authorities had no clue, guidelines or any pre-planned procedures at all about what should be done in case of an emergency. Even though Three Mile Island mishap was an unfortunate one, I strongly believe that it was an eye opener for the government and the authorities. While there were few long-term health effects, there is no doubt that the accident at TMI permanently changed both the nuclear industry and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC). "Public fear and distrust increased," the NRC notes in a fact sheet on TMI, "Regulations and oversight became broader and more robust, and management of the plants was scrutinized more carefully" (Disasters: Nuclear Accidents) Earlier, governments showed no concerns about the density of population around an area while establishing nuclear power plants. The authorities thought that the chances of a mishap were negligible in a nuclear reactor because of the superior technology America has in the nuclear power filed. But they failed to realize that even the superior technologies were controlled by human brain which can commit mistakes any time. Earlier American government spent billions of dollars for establishing nuclear power plants across the country irrespective of populated or unpopulated areas. But Three Mile Island disaster taught the authorities a lesson and currently strict norms and regulations were enforced before identifying a place for establishing nuclear power plants. Moreover, America is currently shifted their attention more towards the utilising other energy sources like solar power, wind power, tidal power, geo thermal power etc for their energy needs. These energy sources are safer than the nuclear power reactors. Conclusions Fortunately, Three Mile Island Disaster has not caused many damages to the human life directly, but indirectly it caused some problems to the human life and the environment. This disaster succeeded in educating the authorities about the possible dangers and the consequences, if nuclear power plants were established near heavily populated areas. The necessity of well defined guidelines for nuclear disaster management was evident from the above disaster. Moreover, the public has realised the dangers of nuclear power more than ever after this disaster. Works Cited 1. “Disasters: Three Mile Island”. 1979. 24 September 2010. 2. “Disasters: Nuclear Accidents”. 24 September 2010. 3. “Nuclear Disasters and Accidents”. 1998. 24 September 2010. 4. Powell, Albrecht. 2010. “Three Mile Island - 25 Years Later”. 5. “Three Mile Island Accident”. 2001. 24 September 2010. Read More