In 1979 there was a partial core meltdown at Pennsylvania’s Three Mile Island Nuclear Generating Station. Following a non-nuclear secondary system failure, a pilot-operated relief valve was stuck open allowing large amounts of nuclear reactor coolant to escape. In the end, the reactor was controlled, but the image of nuclear power as the future energy resource for America was tarnished forever. In fact, there hasn’t been a nuclear power plant commissioned since. For lessons that America learned from Three Mile Island, we speak to Richard Thornburgh, the governor of Pennsylvania at the time of the Three Mile Island meltdown. Gary Searer, a structural engineer for Wiss, Janey, Elstner and Associates, also joins us to share his childhood memories of the event.
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