nuclear-news

One Week in the Carter Presidency: Brokering Peace and a Nuclear Crisis.

[In 1979 Carter] woke up to news of the worst commercial nuclear accident
in U.S. history. A partial meltdown at the Three Mile Island nuclear plant
in Pennsylvania resulted in the release of above-normal radiation into the
countryside and sent tremors through a nation nervous about the safety of
nuclear energy.

As it happened, unlike peace treaties, this was a challenge
that Mr. Carter had some preparation for before his presidency. He was a
nuclear engineer, having taken courses in nuclear physics at Union College
in New York and worked for the renowned Adm. Hyman G. Rickover, the father
of the Navy’s nuclear program.

While in the Navy, Mr. Carter served on a
military team that helped dismantle parts of a nuclear reactor at the Chalk
River Laboratories in Ontario, Canada, after a partial meltdown in 1952.
Mr. Carter and other personnel donned protective gear and worked in
90-second intervals to limit their exposure to radiation.

Twenty-seven years later, the nuclear engineer-turned-president decided to visit the
Three Mile Island site in Middletown, Pa., to calm public fears, even
though the danger had not passed. Just as he prepared to enter the plant,
he was told that a bubble of gases in the core vessel could expand so much
that it would push away coolant water, resulting in an explosion that would
spew more radiation into the air. Officials were contemplating evacuating
thousands of people.

New York Times 29th Dec 2024
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/12/29/us/politics/carter-peace-egypt-israel-nuclear-three-mile.html

December 31, 2024 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | PERSONAL STORIES, USA