• rtxn@lemmy.world
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    2 months ago

    I know certain sentiments are coming, so I’ll put this here: Three Mile Island wasn’t the unmitigated disaster that fearmongers would have you believe. It was an ultimately harmless accident that was highly publicized because of poor communication and irresponsible sensationalist journalism.

    More on the topic: https://youtu.be/cL9PsCLJpAA

    • ilinamorato@lemmy.world
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      2 months ago

      Yep. And underscoring that more than almost anything else is the fact that the TMI facility continued to operate without incident for forty years after that accident.

    • shalafi@lemmy.world
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      2 months ago

      Posted this earlier:

      A poof of radioactive steam let loose. That’s it, the whole incident. People freaked out on March 28, 1979.

      In totally unrelated news, The China Syndrome, a popular movie about a reactor meltdown, came out March 16, 1979.

    • Maggoty@lemmy.world
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      2 months ago

      I thought the Netflix show was pretty clear it wasn’t as bad as popular history made it out to be.

  • MissJinx@lemmy.world
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    2 months ago

    A nuclear plant is not a bad thing, that’s one of the cleanest eneegy sources BUT being Microsoft I’m glad it’s at least on an island

    • rtxn@lemmy.world
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      2 months ago

      It’s on an island, yes. In a river, ten kilometres from a dense urban region.

      • SuperIce@lemmy.world
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        2 months ago

        It’s a nuclear power plant that provided clean and safe energy for many decades.

        • gravitas_deficiency@sh.itjust.works
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          2 months ago

          While that is true, it was also the site of the worst nuclear disaster on US soil.

          Don’t get me wrong - I’m not scaremongering, and I support nuclear power. It’s just a bit darkly ironic, imo.

          Edit: I gotta go down these Wikipedia rabbit holes you guys are pointing me towards, because I’m clearly somewhat misinformed here. Seriously, thanks for sharing!

          • SuperIce@lemmy.world
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            2 months ago

            It was partial meltdown and the failsafe worked. No one was injured or had their health negatively affected by the incident. The worst nuclear disaster still had less negative effects than even a single modern coal plant does.

          • rtxn@lemmy.world
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            2 months ago

            Calling it “the worst nuclear disaster” is not just incorrect but stupid. Just off the top of my head, I can name a worse reactor accident and a worse non-reactor nuclear accident on US soil.

            SL-1, a low-power reactor in Idaho, exploded because of poor design and human error. An operator retracted the manually operated control rod too far. The reactor went prompt critical, causing a steam explosion, destroying the reactor vessel and killing all three operators. To this day, SL-1 is the only fatal reactor accident on US soil.

            Cecil Kelley, a worker at Los Alamos, was fatally irradiated when a plutonium reclaimer machine went critical. The machine contained an aqueous mixture of plutonium slag of a much higher concentration than it should have, causing an excursion when the stirring was turned on. He died two days later. His autopsy was performed by one Dr. Lushbaugh, who removed several organs for experiments without permission.

            TMI had zero fatalities, minimal release of radiation, and no measurable effect on health. Area residents were exposed to less radiation than the yearly background dose.

        • reddig33@lemmy.world
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          2 months ago

          There is nothing clean or safe about three mile island. The place had a meltdown and created tons of nuclear waste. Next you’ll be trying to tell me Fukushima and Chernobyl were safe, clean, and cheap.

          • rtxn@lemmy.world
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            2 months ago

            TMI had zero fatalities, minimal release of radiation, and no measurable effect on health. Residents of the area were exposed to less radiation from the accident than the yearly background dose.

            Some layers of safety failed, but the rest did their job. That’s why we call it an accident and not a disaster. The plant continued to operate for decades with no issues. The only reason it’s so prevalent in the public consciousness is because of faulty reporting and irresponsible, ignorant people (like you) parroting the first thing they hear from sensationalist media.

    • linearchaos@lemmy.world
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      2 months ago

      Unfortunately it’s like the lottery, and fear of flying. You can explain the odds and the history until you’re blue in the face but it doesn’t mean anything when somebody sees a documentary and it fills their whole psyche with terror. And you can try to explain that there are safer plant designs out there and that being careful about where you put a plant is a big deal, but the only thing they’re going to walk away from the conversation with is Chernobyl, Fukushima in Three Mile Island.

  • HowManyNimons@lemmy.world
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    2 months ago

    ELI5 please why they don’t just put their server farms in a desert, roofed with solar panels and a big-bum battery?