Customer Reviews

TMI 25 Years Later: The Three Mile Island Nuclear Power Plant Accident and Its Impact

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"Objective knowledge will help provide guidance for the decisions that will need to be made as we go forward into the next quarter-century." So ends the book TMI 25 Years Later, an objective, inclusive compilation of information regarding the March 28, 1979 Loss-of-Coolant Accident in Reactor 2 of the Three Mile Island Nuclear Plant near Middletown, PA.
The book, written by three Penn State University staffers, offers a balanced, condensed history of the events of the accident and the years of follow-up that have occurred. Sections cover all aspects of the accident, including rather extensive review and analysis of the role played by the media in the event. Other topics covered include short- and long-term physical and psychological health effects, industry regulatory and financial impacts, and environmental consequences, along with current and future power requirements in the United States and the options for meeting those requirements.
In order to properly understand exactly what caused the accident and what it's effects meant to the local population, a rudimentary understanding of nuclear processes and power generation are needed. Complex nuclear concepts are presented in an illustrated, easy-to-understand manner, and an in-depth minute-by-minute timeline of the accident is presented along with causes, effects, and notes that only the luxury of extensive investigation and hind-sight can provide.
An excellent book for anyone interested in nuclear power generation, the TMI accident or the local populace of the plant, TMI 25 Years Later provides condensed information in an easy-to-read format. The information is not watered down (the book is well cited), but instead provided in a format that allows anyone to understand what happened on that fateful Wednesday morning, and more importantly what it means to our future.

I have read extensively on the Three Mile Island accident and believe that this book is probably the best introduction to the accident I have yet seen. The book is accurate and is scrupulously unbiased, which is a rarity in any book dealing with nuclear power. The first 32 pages of the book provide the best and most concise general overview of the accident I have read, and anyone wanting to understand the accident should start here.

The book is accessible to non-specialists, but does not make inaccurate generalizations simply for ease of explanation. There is information presented on the basic concepts of nuclear energy, which makes the book extremely valuable to someone just beginning to read on the issue. More knowledgeable readers, industry professionals, and policymakers benefit from this book as well, as it has chapters on the health effects of the accident (including recent data on ongoing longitudinal studies), environmental effects of the accident, policy effects of the accidents, and perhaps most usefully, excellent appendices which include a useful glossary, an accident timeline, and a list of common misconceptions about the TMI accident.

The authors have done an admirable job of writing a book that is useful to both professionals and the general public. It is extremely well documented, non-political, unbiased, and scrupulously accurate. I highly recommend this book to anyone interested in nuclear power.

No one was killed and no homes destroyed, but TMI is one of our most famous disasters for the panic it created and the energy legacy it left us. Ignorant of the basics of nuclear power, thousands feared death for themselves and loved ones, or, pehaps, a Pennsylvania made uninhabitable for generations. Of course such fears proved groundless.

A quarter century on, these authors discuss the basic fundamentals of the crisis. they point out how things were made much worse by near universal ignorance, particularly in the media. Statements were taken out of context or misunderstood, futhering public anxiety. While the accident was not soley responsible for the decline of nuclear power in the US, it certainly contributed.

This is a very short read, and was intended to give readers a general overview of the subject. It is certainly not a blow by blow account of TMI. I suppose that book is yet to be written. For the time being this one will surely answer many of our questions.