EPISODE 544 A CHILL SPREADS AROUND THE WORLD: CONSIDER THE NUCLEAR REACTORSTHREE MILE ISLAND DISASTER. FUKISHIMA , CHERNOBYL
Note: I considered this story too frightening to send initially and replied it with a nice
story about horses. Now I have changed my mind. Sorry to scare you as much as
I am scared.
alan
EPISODE 544: A CHILL SPREADS AROUND THE WORLD: CONSIDER THE NUCLEAR REACTORS
alan skeoch
March 2022
Marjorie and I…SITE OF THREE MILE ISLAND NUCLEAR DISASTER,
“WHAT CAN HAPPEN, WILL HAPPEN”
Nuclear power plants are constructed with provision for things to go wrong. SAFETY CHECKS. We need their power. We cannot
survive without electricity. It powers everything we do. Electricity is wonderful.. But
getting electricity is dangerous. Dangerous indeed.
THREE MILE ISLAND, 1979
ON MARCH 28, 1979, a human error occurred at Unit 2, Three Mile Island nuclear power
plant. A valve was open allowing a huge amount of radioactive water to escape. This event
remains the worst nuclear accident to happen in the United States. No one was killed
fortunately but the resultant radiation will remain forever.
That worried me in 1979. And it worries me to this day. When we took a busload of music
students from Parkdale Collegiate to perform in Boston we arranged a short side trip
to Three Mile Island. Around 1985. Purpose? To spread fear? Partly, I suppose. Our reasoning was
that these students would shortly be adults. Soon running our country. They should be
aware of the danger of nuclear accidents. Cheap electricity could come at a terrible cost
if future managers of nuclear sites were unaware of Three Mile Island, Unit 2.
CHERNOBYL, 1986
Such a disaster must never happen again. But it did. The Chernobyl meltdown in Ukraine
happened just seven years after Three Mile Island. On April 26, 1986 nuclear reactor Number 4
exploded. The site will remain radioactive for thousands of years. The immediate site was
evacuated so hastily that the local carnival rides stand there today as do the apartment buildings
where people once lived. 335,000 people were evacuated and a wide belt of land was no longer livable.
Wild animals returned and now wander through Chernobyl.
“The explosion at Chernobyl sent radiation as far away as the United Kingdom, and the Soviet Union’s delayed response to the events is considered by some to be a contributing factor to the fall of the Soviet Union. “
As a direct result of Chernobyl nuclear power plants were redesigned so that accidents were thought to be less likely.
Wild horses wander through the ruins of Chernobyl on Oct. 18, 2018
FUKISHIMA, 2011
Then there were decades of quiet. Nuclear power plants multiplied. Safety systems
were put in place. Extra holding tanks for nuclear coolant. Burials of nuclear waste.
Comfort. An earthquake off the coast of Japan shook the Fukishama reactor on March 11, 2011
A huge tidal wave, Tsunami, swept inland. Radiosctivity increased to Level 7 on the International
Nuclear Event Scale…Fukishama and Chernobyl were similar disasters. 154,000 Japanese residents
were evacuated.
ZAPOREZHSKAYA, LARGEST PPWER PLANT IN EROPE WITH SIX REACTORS
Today, March 2022 we face the possibility of s grave nuclear accident in Ukraine where the largest
nuclear power station in Europe has become a war zone. War zones are places of unimaginable
insecurity. The Zaporezhskaya nuclear power plant has 6 reactors.
“March 2, 2022
6:05 a.m.: Russia claims its military has taken control of the area around Ukraine’s largest nuclear power plant.
That’s according to the Vienna-based International Atomic Energy Agency, the U.N. nuclear watchdog.
It said Wednesday it had received a letter from Russia saying personnel at the Zaporizhzhia plant continued their “work on providing nuclear safety and monitoring radiation in normal mode of operation.”
The letter added: “The radiation levels remain normal.”
Zaporizhzhia is the largest of Ukraine’s nuclear sites, with six out of the country’s 15 reactors.
Already, Russia has seized control of the decommissioned Chernobyl nuclear power plant, scene of the world’s worst nuclear disaster in 1986.”
alan skeoch
March 7, 2022
Let us hope and pray this is not the end result of this terrible war.
