Three Mile Island is within 100 miles
of Philadelphia, Baltimore, and Washington, DC.
Nuclear power provides almost 15 percent of the world’s electricity.
On March 28, 1979, Three Mile Island Nuclear Generating Station near Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, a pressure valve suddenly malfunctioned and the reactor suffered a partial meltdown. The Three Mile Island accident was the most serious accident in the history of commercial nuclear power in the U.S.*
The accident resulted in the release of some radioactive material into the containment building and the surrounding environment.
“We were told that there had been a leak and things took off from there,” said Bob Reid, mayor of the nearby town of Middletown.
More than 100,000 people fled the area and schools and businesses across the region closed.
The accident still haunts many Americans. It increased public fears about the safety of nuclear reactors and dealt a crippling blow to the nation’s nuclear power industry.
Three Mile Island is still radioactive, but the levels are not considered dangerous to humans or the environment. All demolition and cleanup expected to be finished by 2052.
In September 2024, Constellation Energy, announced plans to invest $1.6 billion to bring the facility back online. The plant is expected to resume operations in 2028. The entirety of the plant’s energy output will be sold to Microsoft Corporation who entered into a 20-year agreement to purchase as much electricity as possible from the plant, which will support the company’s growing energy needs for its expanding network of data centers.
Despite years of research into the science and technology of geologic disposal, no permanent disposal site is in use anywhere in the world.
- The Chernobyl disaster in 1986 at the Chernobyl nuclear power station, 65 miles north of Kyiv, Ukraine, was the worst disaster in the history of nuclear power generation. The radioactivity was spread by the wind over Belarus, Russia and Ukraine and soon reached as far west as France and Italy. Millions of acres of forest and farmland were contaminated.
- Plumer, Brad. Three Mile Island Plans to Reopen as demand for Nuckear Power Grows. New York Times. September 20, 2024.
