Radiation leak at Three Mile Island

aristotle · Nov 22, 2009

The Drudge Report has a headline story today mentioning that a radiation leak was detected Saturday at Three Mile Island in Pennsylvania. A spokesperson for the nuclear facility says it was a small leak and contained. Who knows if that's the complete truth?

Let us hope no terrorist ever decides to fly a plane into a nuclear plant. I'm sure they have safeguards built in to contain catastrophes, but it is an unsettling scenario. Even if a direct hit failed to release harmful radiation into the atmosphere, I suspect it would interrupt electrical service to millions of customers for a long period of time. Our nation's electrical grid is stressed to the max under normal conditions. Either way, it would cause severe panic in the local vicinity.

I delivered parts to the nuclear plant in New Hill, NC last week. The security visible to the eye was unimpressive.

layoutshooter · Nov 22, 2009

Small releases of radioactive gas are not un-common as are small water leaks. It is almost always very low grade stuff. Most plants we deliver to have very high security, to the point of almost envasive. Did you go into the plant itself or to a warehouse outside the main security area?

aristotle · Nov 22, 2009

I was admitted through a security gate directly onto the main plant. I drove passed the cooling towers, maybe 100 feet from them, to a warehouse in the center.

I have delivered to several nuclear plants over the years. It usually takes 45 minutes to an hour for me to get cleared to enter. Meaning, they ask me to pull my van over... raise the hood, open all doors, look under the van with a long-handled mirror, bring out the sniffer dog, etc. Plus ask to see photo ID and make a few phone calls before sending me in. Sometimes, security armed security will escort my van in and out of the plant. Not this time. I've had more difficulty trying to enter a GM plant than the facility in New Hill.

Not saying security was actually lax... it just appeared to be lax.

Let me throw out a question on my mind: What IF Major Nidal Hasan had been a military aviator with unrestricted access to large aircraft? What would his targets have been?

layoutshooter · Nov 22, 2009

Most likely a "High Value Soft Target" These people are cowards and normally attack weak targets that are unable to defend themselves. Like the Twin Towers. They are also out to cause as many innocent deaths as possible. They are out more for effect rather than military advantage. I would expect to see them fly an aircraft into the stadium where the Super Bowl was being played than into a nuke plant.

layoutshooter · Nov 23, 2009

More on the Three Mile Island story. No outside radiation leak.

HARRISBURG, Pa. – Officials are trying to determine how workers cutting a pipe stirred up radioactive dust at the Three Mile Island nuclear power plant.

Plant spokesman Ralph DeSantis said Monday that the public was not endangered Saturday, when a dozen workers were exposed to radiation.

The central Pennsylvania plant has two reactors. One suffered a partial meltdown in 1979 and is mothballed. The other is still in use, but has been shut down since last month so steam generators could be replaced.

DeSantis says the radioactive dust emanated from reactor cooling system pipes the workers were cutting. He says a radiation monitor "temporarily went up" slightly, but a later survey detected no contamination outside.

The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission says the radiation isn't significant.