Nuclear reactor accidents in the United States: Difference between revisions

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Globally, sixty-three accidents have occurred at nuclear power plants. Twenty-nine of these have occurred since the Chernobyl disaster, and 71 percent of all nuclear accidents (45 out of 63) occurred in the United States.[1][2] The most serious accident in the U.S. was the Three Mile Island accident in 1979.

History

The Atomic Energy Act of 1954 encouraged private corporations to build nuclear reactors and a significant learning phase followed with many early partial core meltdowns and accidents at experimental reactors and research facilities.[3] This led to the introduction of the Price-Anderson Act in 1957, which was "an implicit admission that nuclear power provided risks that producers were unwilling to assume without federal backing".[3]

Nuclear accidents continued into the 1960s with a small test reactor exploding at the Stationary Low-Power Reactor Number One in Idaho Falls in January 1961 and a partial meltdown at the Enrico Fermi Nuclear Generating Station in Michigan in 1966.[3] The large size of nuclear plants ordered during the late 1960s raised new safety questions and created fears of a severe reactor accident that would send large quantities of radiation into the environment. In the early 1970s, a highly contentious debate over the performance of emergency core cooling systems in nuclear plants, designed to prevent a core meltdown that could lead to the "China syndrome", received coverage in the popular media and technical journals.[4][5]

In 1976, four nuclear engineers -- three from GE and one from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission—resigned, stating that nuclear power was not as safe as their superiors were claiming.[6][7] These men were engineers who had spent most of their working life building reactors, and their defection galvanized anti-nuclear groups across the country.[8][9] They testified to the Joint Committee on Atomic Energy that:

"the cumulative effect of all design defects and deficiencies in the design, construction and operations of nuclear power plants makes a nuclear power plant accident, in our opinion, a certain event. The only question is when, and where.[6]

Three Mile Island accident

President Jimmy Carter leaving Three Mile Island for Middletown, Pennsylvania, April 1, 1979

On March 28, 1979, equipment failures and operator error contributed to loss of coolant and a partial core meltdown of Unit 2's pressurized water reactor at the Three Mile Island Nuclear Power Plant in Pennsylvania. [10] The scope and complexity of this reactor accident became clear over the course of five days, as a number of agencies at the local, state and federal levels tried to solve the problem and decide whether the ongoing accident required an emergency evacuation, and to what extent.

The World Nuclear Association has stated that cleanup of the damaged nuclear reactor system at TMI-2 took nearly 12 years and cost approximately US $973 million.[11] Benjamin K. Sovacool, in his 2007 preliminary assessment of major energy accidents, estimated that the TMI accident caused a total of $2.4 billion in property damages.[12] The health effects of the Three Mile Island accident are widely, but not universally, agreed to be very low level.[13][11] The accident triggered protests around the world.[14]

The accident forced regulatory and operational improvements on a reluctant industry, but it also increased opposition to nuclear power.[15]

List of accidents

See also: Lists of nuclear disasters and radioactive incidents
Nuclear power plant accidents in the U.S.
with fatalities or more than US$100 million in property damage, 1952-2010[16][17]
Date Location Description Fatalities Cost
(in millions
2006 $)
January 3, 1961 Idaho Falls, Idaho, US Explosion at National Reactor Testing Station 3 $US22
July 16, 1971 Cordova, Illinois, USA An electrician is electrocuted by a live cable at the Quad Cities Unit 1 reactor on the Mississippi River 1 1
March 28, 1979 Middletown, Pennsylvania, US Loss of coolant and partial core meltdown, see Three Mile Island accident and Three Mile Island accident health effects 0 US$2,400
November 22, 1980 San Onofre, California, USA Worker cleaning breaker cubicles at San Onofre Pressurized Water Reactor contacts an energised line and is electrocuted 1 1
September 15, 1984 Athens, Alabama, US Safety violations, operator error, and design problems force six year outage at Browns Ferry Unit 2 0 US$110
March 9, 1985 Athens, Alabama, US Instrumentation systems malfunction during startup, which led to suspension of operations at all three Browns Ferry Units 0 US$1,830
April 11, 1986 Plymouth, Massachusetts, US Recurring equipment problems force emergency shutdown of Boston Edison’s Pilgrim Nuclear Power Plant 0 US$1,001
March 31, 1987 Delta, Pennsylvania, US Peach Bottom units 2 and 3 shutdown due to cooling malfunctions and unexplained equipment problems 0 US$400
July 15, 1987 Burlington, Kansas, USA Safety inspector dies from electrocution after contacting a mislabelled wire 1 1
December 19, 1987 Lycoming, New York, US Malfunctions force Niagara Mohawk Power Corporation to shut down Nine Mile Point Unit 1 0 US$150
March 29, 1988 Burlington, Kansas, USA A worker falls through an unmarked manhole and electrocutes himself when trying to escape 1 1
March 17, 1989 Lusby, Maryland, US Inspections at Calvert Cliff Units 1 and 2 reveal cracks at pressurized heater sleeves, forcing extended shutdowns 0 US$120
February 20, 1996 Waterford, Connecticut, US Leaking valve forces shutdown Millstone Nuclear Power Plant Units 1 and 2, multiple equipment failures found 0 US$254
September 2, 1996 Crystal River, Florida, US Balance-of-plant equipment malfunction forces shutdown and extensive repairs at Crystal River Unit 3 0 US$384
February 16, 2002 Oak Harbor, Ohio, US Severe corrosion of control rod forces 24-month outage of Davis-Besse reactor 0 US$143
February 1, 2010 Montpelier, Vermont, US Deteriorating underground pipes from the Vermont Yankee Nuclear Power Plant leak radioactive tritium into groundwater supplies 0 US$700

Nuclear safety

Nuclear safety in the United States is governed by federal regulations and continues to be studied by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC).

The safety of nuclear plants and materials controlled by the U.S. government for research and weapons production, as well those powering naval vessels, is not governed by the NRC.[18][19]

Licensees (organizations applying for construction licenses or operating licenses for nuclear facilities) are required to show before the license is issued that they meet the requirements of the regulations.

References

  1. ^ Benjamin K. Sovacool. The Costs of Failing Infrastructure Energybiz, September/October 2008, pp. 32-33.
  2. ^ Benjamin K. Sovacool. The costs of failure: A preliminary assessment of major energy accidents, 1907–2007, Energy Policy 36 (2008), pp. 1802-1820.
  3. ^ a b c Benjamin K. Sovacool. The costs of failure: A preliminary assessment of major energy accidents, 1907–2007, Energy Policy 36 (2008), p. 1808.
  4. ^ Walker, J. Samuel (2004). Three Mile Island: A Nuclear Crisis in Historical Perspective (Berkeley: University of California Press), pp. 10-11.
  5. ^ Wolfgang Rudig (1990). Anti-nuclear Movements: A World Survey of Opposition to Nuclear Energy, Longman, pp. 66-67.
  6. ^ a b Mark Hertsgaard (1983). Nuclear Inc. The Men and Money Behind Nuclear Energy, Pantheon Books, New York, p. 72.
  7. ^ Jim Falk (1982). Global Fission: The Battle Over Nuclear Power, Oxford University Press, p. 95.
  8. ^ The San Jose Three TIME, Feb. 16, 1976.
  9. ^ The Struggle over Nuclear Power TIME, Mar. 08, 1976.
  10. ^ World Nuclear Association (1999). Three Mile Island: 1979 Retrieved December 24, 2008.
  11. ^ a b World Nuclear Association. Three Mile Island Accident January 2010.
  12. ^ Benjamin K. Sovacool. The costs of failure: A preliminary assessment of major energy accidents, 1907–2007, Energy Policy 36 (2008), p. 1807.
  13. ^ Mangano, Joseph (2004). Three Mile Island: Health study meltdown, Bulletin of the atomic scientists, 60(5), pp. 31 -35.
  14. ^ Mark Hertsgaard (1983). Nuclear Inc. The Men and Money Behind Nuclear Energy, Pantheon Books, New York, p. 95 & 97.
  15. ^ Wellock, Thomas R. Three Mile Island: A Nuclear Crisis in Historical Perspective (Book review) The Historian, 22 September 2005.
  16. ^ Benjamin K. Sovacool. A Critical Evaluation of Nuclear Power and Renewable Electricity in Asia, Journal of Contemporary Asia, Vol. 40, No. 3, August 2010, pp. 393–400.
  17. ^ Benjamin K. Sovacool (2009). The Accidental Century - Prominent Energy Accidents in the Last 100 Years
  18. ^ About NRC, U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, Retrieved 2007-6-1
  19. ^ Our Governing Legislation, U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, Retrieved 2007-6-1
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