‘Bringing calm and hope’: President Carter’s role at Three Mile Island

As plans continue to recommission the Three Mile Island nuclear power plant in Pennsylvania, the Nuclear Free Local Authorities wish to reflect on the actions of the late President Jimmy Carter following the accident which occured at the plant 46 years ago today.

The Three Mile Island accident is considered the worst in the history of the United States nuclear industry. On this date in 1979, the Unit 2 reactor (TMI-2) suffered a partial meltdown as a consequence of equipment failure and operator error. The reactor lost cooling water, exposing the core which led to the release of some radioactive gas.

The United States was at that time at least fortunate in having in President Carter a head of state with knowledge of nuclear fission and a history of responding calmly in a nuclear crisis.

28th March 2025

‘Bringing calm and hope’: President Carter’s role at Three Mile Island

As plans continue to recommission the Three Mile Island nuclear power plant in Pennsylvania, the Nuclear Free Local Authorities wish to reflect on the actions of the late President Jimmy Carter following the accident which occured at the plant 46 years ago today.

The Three Mile Island accident is considered the worst in the history of the United States nuclear industry. On this date in 1979, the Unit 2 reactor (TMI-2) suffered a partial meltdown as a consequence of equipment failure and operator error. The reactor lost cooling water, exposing the core which led to the release of some radioactive gas.

The United States was at that time at least fortunate in having in President Carter a head of state with knowledge of nuclear fission and a history of responding calmly in a nuclear crisis.

In October 2024, on the former President becoming a centenarian, the NFLAs sent him our warm birthday wishes but used the occasion to highlight President Carter’s past as a nuclear engineer and his brave, though largely unknown, contribution repairing a reactor in Canada following a serious nuclear accident.

As a young US Navy Lieutenant, Jimmy Carter had graduated in engineering and taken courses in nuclear technology. After training, he became part of the nuclear submarine service. As one of only a few officers authorised to enter a nuclear reactor, Carter led a contingent of 22 fellow submariners in dismantling and repairing a badly damaged reactor following an accident at the Chalk River plant in Canada in 1952. Each team member was in turn lowered into the reactor to work for no more than ninety seconds. Carter took his turn, receiving in this short time the full dose of radiation permitted for a full year and therefore joked that for six months his urine when regularly tested was found to be radioactive! [i]

Only four days after the Three Mile Island disaster, President Carter visited the plant bringing ‘calm and hope to central Pennsylvanians in the wake of the most serious accident at a commercial nuclear plant in U.S. history.’[ii]  Donning distinctive yellow boots, the President toured the control room in the damaged plant, accompanied by Harold Denton, Director of the Office of Nuclear Reactor Regulation in the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, and Dick Thornburgh, Governor of Pennsylvania.

After being elected in 1977, President Carter had established a new Department of Energy, in part to seek more nuclear power as “an energy source of last resort” to lessen the United States’ reliance on foreign oil. However, in his short speech following his visit to the striken nuclear plant on April 1, the President recognised the technology’s shortcomings promising to initiate a ‘thorough inquiry’ into the circumstances that led to the accident and make the results public; this would help make plain “the status of nuclear safety in the future”.

Local officials at the time said Carter’s visit helped to dispel immediate panic and boost morale amongst people living near the plant, but, subsequently, public disquiet manifested after perceptions of a partial cover-up by nuclear industry officials and regulators. In response six inquiries were established at federal, state and local level, and other specialist government agencies also initiated investigations into the accident. This clearly represented an uncoordinated and duplicated effort and, true to his word, the President appointed John Kemeny, president of Dartmouth College, to lead a President’s Commission on the accident.

The Kemeny Commission did not take a stance on nuclear power’s future; instead in its report[iii], the Commission lambasted the lax attitude that had permeated the nuclear industry in the years before the accident. For its egregious deficiencies, the principal finger was pointed at the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, the federal agency responsible for regulating the nuclear power industry. This was charged as being so dysfunctional that its five-member panel should be abolished and restructured as an independent agency in the executive branch.

The NRC had morphed only five years earlier from the Atomic Energy Commission. Ironically Carter had worked with the AEC as a young naval officer, but the AEC was responsible for both nuclear promotion and regulation, with many staff having industry sympathies and connections; consequently, it left the industry largely unfettered in its operations. Recognising this unfortunate conflict in its dual role, the US Congress in 1974 split the AEC, creating the NRC to oversee the role of regulation. However, many of the AEC’s staff moved across so little changed.

In 1975, the new agency published the Rasmussen Report, which downplayed the risk of any nuclear accident, stating that people and property would only suffer minimally. This complacency was attacked by the Kemeny Commission, which found that the agency overlooked small, and more subtle, industry failures, the sort of shortcomings that ultimately led to the disaster at Three Mile Island.

On the publication of the Commission’s report, President Carter made a commitment to implement “almost all” of the recommendations and set out a series of actions that he expected agencies of the Federal Government and the industry to carry out to would implement the findings and outlined a series of actions to “ensure that nuclear power plants are operated safely”. Fortunately, most people in Washington recognised that action needed to be taken and even the NRC acknowledged that the Commission’s recommendations were ‘necessary and feasible’.

Although its five-member board was not abolished, after the accident, Carter replaced the NRC Chairman and ensured that his successor was granted increased Congressional authority in accordance with his personal wishes. The NRC budget was also significantly increased and, within ten years, many of the Kemeny Commission’s recommendations had been implemented to make the NRC more effective in a regulatory role.

The Three Mile Island accident had a significant impact on the fortunes of the US nuclear industry. According to the US Energy Information Administration, plans for 67 new nuclear power plants were cancelled between 1979 and 1988.

The Unit 2 reactor (TMI-2) never restarted after the accident with the Utah-based company Energy Solutions being commissioned with cleaning up the site. The Unit 1 reactor (TMI-1) continued power generation until September 20, 2019, when it was shut down because it became economically uncompetitive to generate electricity at the plant against other energy sources such as natural gas.

Ironically there are now plans to restart generation at the plant, this time backed by a deal to supply electricity to Microsoft to power data centres.

President Carter’s speech following his visit to the plant: https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/documents/middletown-pennsylvania-remarks-reporters-following-visit-the-three-mile-island-nuclear

…………………………………………… https://www.nuclearpolicy.info/news/bringing-calm-and-hope-president-carters-role-at-three-mile-island/

April 1, 2025 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | history, PERSONAL STORIES, USA