WEBVTT - Three Mile Island 0:00:01.480 --> 0:00:07.680 Welcome to stuff you should know, a production of iHeartRadio. 0:00:11.760 --> 0:00:14.200 Hey, and welcome to the podcast, don Josh, And there's 0:00:14.320 --> 0:00:16.439 Chuck and Jerry's here too, And this is stuff you 0:00:16.480 --> 0:00:16.880 should know. 0:00:19.440 --> 0:00:23.239 The whoops addition, that's right. You know it's not a 0:00:23.280 --> 0:00:23.720 woops though. 0:00:24.280 --> 0:00:27.000 Oh, I can guess where this is going. 0:00:27.960 --> 0:00:29.040 Stuff at sea voyage. 0:00:29.080 --> 0:00:32.440 That's right. It's the most deliberate voyage ever created. 0:00:33.240 --> 0:00:35.080 It's completely unaccidental. 0:00:35.159 --> 0:00:35.559 That's right. 0:00:36.159 --> 0:00:41.559 Five night adults only sailing trip and says, and we're 0:00:41.600 --> 0:00:44.520 gonna be doing our live podcast from New York City 0:00:44.520 --> 0:00:46.800 to Bermuda, not the whole way, just like one time. 0:00:47.360 --> 0:00:50.560 Right. Yeah, there's gonna be other stuff too. We're gonna 0:00:50.560 --> 0:00:54.720 be meeting and greeting, and I'm guessing there'll be other 0:00:55.240 --> 0:00:58.720 opportunities to hang out with us maybe rather than yeah, 0:00:58.880 --> 0:00:59.920 just the one meet and greet. 0:01:00.880 --> 0:01:04.280 Yeah, for sure. This all goes down October second through 0:01:04.360 --> 0:01:08.600 seventh of this year, aboard the Valiant Lady, and you 0:01:08.640 --> 0:01:11.640 can go check everything out at virgin Voyages dot com. 0:01:11.640 --> 0:01:12.720 Slash stuff. 0:01:13.120 --> 0:01:16.839 Very nice, Chuck, let's see, so you want to start 0:01:16.880 --> 0:01:18.320 talking about Three Mile Island. 0:01:19.760 --> 0:01:26.000 Yeah, the nuclear I guess it's still the worst nuclear 0:01:26.080 --> 0:01:28.440 disaster in American history, right. 0:01:29.040 --> 0:01:32.800 Yeah, I can't think of anything worse. I mean, as 0:01:32.800 --> 0:01:37.920 far as actual disasters go, it wasn't that bad. But 0:01:38.240 --> 0:01:40.959 how close it came to being like a true Nobyl 0:01:41.080 --> 0:01:44.720 level is kind of breath taking, actually. 0:01:45.160 --> 0:01:48.000 Yeah, for sure. And this all went down when I 0:01:48.080 --> 0:01:51.880 had just turned eight years old, yep, on March twenty eighth, 0:01:52.000 --> 0:01:53.080 nineteen seventy nine. 0:01:53.640 --> 0:01:58.480 Yeah, And really interestingly, just twelve days before this accident 0:01:58.560 --> 0:02:01.400 happened at Three Mile Island, a movie called The China 0:02:01.440 --> 0:02:04.240 Syndrome came out, Yeah, starring Michael. 0:02:03.960 --> 0:02:06.400 Douglas, crazy timing, Yeah. 0:02:06.040 --> 0:02:10.520 And Jane Fonda, which makes it even weirder because The 0:02:10.600 --> 0:02:12.919 China Syndrome, if you've never seen it, it's pretty good movie. 0:02:12.919 --> 0:02:18.080 I would say go watch it it. It was basically this. 0:02:18.720 --> 0:02:21.079 It was essentially what happened, what happened to the movie 0:02:21.240 --> 0:02:24.320 China Syndrome happened at Three Mile Island twelve days later. 0:02:24.400 --> 0:02:25.440 It's really bizarre. 0:02:26.560 --> 0:02:31.359 Yeah, And the term China syndrome comes from I don't 0:02:31.400 --> 0:02:32.880 know if it's a term they still use, but I 0:02:32.919 --> 0:02:35.959 guess it was a term back then for a reactor 0:02:36.000 --> 0:02:40.120 melting down and melting all the way through to China. 0:02:40.320 --> 0:02:44.480 Yeah, pretty folksy term for something as horrific as that. 0:02:45.360 --> 0:02:47.359 Yeah, because you know, when you grow up in the seventies, 0:02:47.400 --> 0:02:50.320 everyone knows if you dig deep enough, you will reach China. 0:02:50.360 --> 0:02:52.840 Sure, I tried a couple of times and gave up 0:02:52.880 --> 0:02:54.240 after a few hours. 0:02:54.720 --> 0:02:56.440 Yeah, that was that was on the playground at least. 0:02:56.440 --> 0:03:00.240 But yeah, this happened March twenty eight, seventy nine. When 0:03:00.280 --> 0:03:01.760 you said it wasn't as bad as it could have been, 0:03:02.360 --> 0:03:05.640 you're dead right, because that means there were no casualties 0:03:06.240 --> 0:03:10.480 and they did avert completely that complete and total meltdown. 0:03:10.560 --> 0:03:15.359 But there's a lot of sort of I guess, skepticism 0:03:15.400 --> 0:03:19.280 still that like, hey, it was fine. There was the 0:03:19.360 --> 0:03:22.520 air spine, and that everything around there is just spine 0:03:22.560 --> 0:03:24.200 and nobody ever got sick because of this. 0:03:24.560 --> 0:03:26.920 Yeah. And one reason that it does pay to be 0:03:26.960 --> 0:03:29.600 skeptical of that, and you can't really blame people who are, 0:03:29.680 --> 0:03:32.160 especially people who live in the area like in Middletown 0:03:32.240 --> 0:03:38.720 or Pennsylvania, is that at the time, the atomic energy industry, 0:03:39.000 --> 0:03:42.440 including the businesses that ran the place, the businesses that 0:03:42.520 --> 0:03:45.840 built these places, the agencies that regulated it, all of 0:03:45.880 --> 0:03:51.960 them had nothing but pollyanna ish optimistic views of all 0:03:52.000 --> 0:03:55.320 of the amazing things that nuclear power could do and 0:03:55.560 --> 0:03:59.520 how safe it was. Like they were diluted as a 0:03:59.520 --> 0:04:03.120 group about the safety of nuclear power, and even throughout 0:04:03.160 --> 0:04:06.400 this whole accident as it was unfolding, they were just like, no, 0:04:06.520 --> 0:04:08.400 it's not that bad. Oh, it's a little worse than 0:04:08.400 --> 0:04:10.080 we thought, but it's still not that bad. And it 0:04:10.120 --> 0:04:12.760 just kept going and going like that. Every time something 0:04:12.800 --> 0:04:14.920 new came out, they were like, oh, it's a little 0:04:14.960 --> 0:04:17.560 worse than we thought. Finally, in the mid eighties they 0:04:17.560 --> 0:04:20.880 were like, Okay, this was really bad. It took that 0:04:21.040 --> 0:04:23.279 long for them to admit it because they were just 0:04:23.320 --> 0:04:26.040 that optimistic about it. They couldn't believe that this could happen. 0:04:26.800 --> 0:04:29.080 Yeah, for sure. And as we'll see, it was a 0:04:29.080 --> 0:04:34.560 combination of human error and poor instrumentation and redundancies that 0:04:34.760 --> 0:04:37.640 didn't work and stuff that I mean, it's crazy, like 0:04:37.680 --> 0:04:40.520 some of the stuff I was almost ready to read, like, well, 0:04:40.520 --> 0:04:43.760 and this thing just wasn't labeled correctly, and that never happened, 0:04:43.760 --> 0:04:46.719 But it was getting a little absurd at some point 0:04:46.760 --> 0:04:48.320 when you were looking at all the sort of things 0:04:48.360 --> 0:04:49.560 that happened that led to. 0:04:49.520 --> 0:04:53.400 This Yeah, totally agreed. Yeah, I think that was a 0:04:53.600 --> 0:04:57.159 consequence of that over optimistic view too. 0:04:58.680 --> 0:05:02.080 So should we start as Night Ranger did at four 0:05:02.120 --> 0:05:04.200 in the morning without a warning? 0:05:04.760 --> 0:05:07.320 Is that, Sister Christian? That's the only Night Rangier song 0:05:07.400 --> 0:05:07.599 I know? 0:05:08.320 --> 0:05:10.000 No, it's the song they have a song called four 0:05:10.040 --> 0:05:12.640 in the morning. Oh, four in the morning came without 0:05:12.640 --> 0:05:15.479 a warning, That's all I remember. But that's what happened. 0:05:16.320 --> 0:05:19.760 There was a small mouth function in the secondary cool 0:05:20.400 --> 0:05:24.560 cooling system, and there was a mechanical that they still 0:05:24.600 --> 0:05:27.200 don't know if it was a mechanical or an electrical air. 0:05:27.960 --> 0:05:30.000 And the long and short of it was the water 0:05:30.040 --> 0:05:33.760 pump started sending water to the steam generators. And as 0:05:33.920 --> 0:05:36.920 you know from listening, I mean, we've done episodes on 0:05:37.000 --> 0:05:42.120 nuclear energy and on the one the meltdown in Japanshima, 0:05:42.400 --> 0:05:45.039 like water and keeping that reactor core cool is the 0:05:45.080 --> 0:05:47.599 whole key to keeping things safe. 0:05:47.839 --> 0:05:50.800 Yeah, exactly, because once it starts heating, it's really tough 0:05:50.800 --> 0:05:52.760 to get it cooled down again, and all sorts of 0:05:52.760 --> 0:05:55.880 bad things happen when it overheats. And I think by 0:05:55.920 --> 0:06:00.960 the time they had shut the system down, by the 0:06:01.000 --> 0:06:04.799 time they finally intervened. It was at four thousand degrees 0:06:05.120 --> 0:06:09.200 farent height, so a thousand degrees short of a total meltdown. 0:06:09.880 --> 0:06:12.440 And just to kind of go into a little more 0:06:12.480 --> 0:06:16.840 detail of exactly what happened, because you basically kind of 0:06:17.200 --> 0:06:21.800 got the point across. There was a fault in I 0:06:21.839 --> 0:06:27.200 think a mechanical or electrical part that kept the water 0:06:27.480 --> 0:06:31.080 that you needed to cool all that stuff from flowing in. 0:06:31.600 --> 0:06:34.120 That was the thing that kicked it all off. But 0:06:34.560 --> 0:06:40.240 this nuclear reactor, the control panel was designed to sense 0:06:40.400 --> 0:06:42.839 like when it started to overheat, and it did overheat 0:06:42.839 --> 0:06:45.599 because there wasn't enough coolant, and it shut itself down 0:06:46.000 --> 0:06:50.400 and everything with that was working properly. The control ruds 0:06:50.400 --> 0:06:52.880 went in, nobody had to do anything. The system shut 0:06:52.920 --> 0:06:54.600 itself down because it was overheating. 0:06:55.920 --> 0:07:00.279 Right, So, so far, so good in a certain sense. Yeah, 0:07:00.839 --> 0:07:03.440 but things really kind of went pear shaped after this. 0:07:03.560 --> 0:07:06.560 As you used to say a lot, you don't say 0:07:06.560 --> 0:07:08.119 that much anymore. I miss paar shaped. 0:07:08.279 --> 0:07:09.640 I'll try to bring it back then. 0:07:09.680 --> 0:07:11.920 I'm bringing it back. So they had to lower the 0:07:11.920 --> 0:07:16.760 pressure in the system, so a pilot operated relief valve opened. 0:07:17.320 --> 0:07:19.520 And that's great. This thing should have stayed open for 0:07:19.560 --> 0:07:21.960 about ten seconds or so just to let a little 0:07:22.000 --> 0:07:26.520 pressure out, and it was designed to close automatically when 0:07:26.520 --> 0:07:29.840 it returned to normal. It did not close automatically. It 0:07:29.880 --> 0:07:32.440 got stuck. But they didn't know it that it got stuck. 0:07:32.680 --> 0:07:34.600 That was the big problem up front. 0:07:34.760 --> 0:07:37.320 Yeah, and that caused another problem. So first of all, 0:07:37.320 --> 0:07:40.640 remember it's overheated because there's not enough water. Now, the 0:07:40.680 --> 0:07:45.280 pressure's lower in the whole reactor, and lower pressure means 0:07:45.320 --> 0:07:47.920 that water will boil at a lower temperature. So the 0:07:47.960 --> 0:07:50.680 water's boiling more and more, so you're losing more and 0:07:50.720 --> 0:07:53.920 more and it's creating more and more steam. That's also 0:07:54.040 --> 0:07:57.600 raising the temperature. That's another thing that the operator should 0:07:57.600 --> 0:07:59.720 have noticed, right, or they did notice. They were like, oh, 0:08:00.000 --> 0:08:03.120 I'm for sure, and the reactors really going up. But 0:08:03.240 --> 0:08:07.440 they all generally agreed that it was just wrong. There 0:08:07.480 --> 0:08:11.640 had been problems with that pilot operated relief valve for 0:08:11.720 --> 0:08:14.280 apparently weeks, and they rather than fix it, they were 0:08:14.280 --> 0:08:16.920 just falsifying the information and dealing with it like just 0:08:16.960 --> 0:08:18.200 living with the problem. 0:08:18.960 --> 0:08:21.360 Yeah, and we should point out that there were two 0:08:22.280 --> 0:08:27.160 nuclear reactors there TMI not too much information, No, three 0:08:27.200 --> 0:08:30.840 Mile Island one and three Mile Island two. They built 0:08:30.840 --> 0:08:34.040 these things in nineteen sixty eight, and TMI one opened 0:08:34.040 --> 0:08:37.160 in seventy four, and tm I two and seventy eight, 0:08:37.240 --> 0:08:39.320 and TMI two, the one that had the issue here, 0:08:39.559 --> 0:08:43.360 had only been open for three months I think, yeah, 0:08:43.440 --> 0:08:46.080 just about three months when this accident occurred. So it 0:08:46.120 --> 0:08:49.160 wasn't even online that long, and so it must have 0:08:49.160 --> 0:08:50.599 had that leak. Kind of from the get go. 0:08:50.720 --> 0:08:53.800 It sounds like, yeah, I think you're right, because yeah, 0:08:54.520 --> 0:08:57.320 I must not have ever worked properly and they just 0:08:57.320 --> 0:08:58.760 didn't really know it or care. 0:09:00.040 --> 0:09:02.600 They already cut the ribbon too late. 0:09:03.400 --> 0:09:07.480 Yeah, So the system again is like, guys, I'm going 0:09:07.520 --> 0:09:11.800 to run another security safety thing. I'm going to I've 0:09:11.840 --> 0:09:14.040 noticed that things are really starting to go pear shaped 0:09:14.440 --> 0:09:18.200 in the reactor, and I'm going to start sending in 0:09:18.320 --> 0:09:22.760 emergency cooling. So the system opened up its own valves 0:09:22.800 --> 0:09:26.320 to let in emergency water flowing into the reactor try 0:09:26.360 --> 0:09:32.200 to cool things down. That actually helped make things worse 0:09:32.240 --> 0:09:35.880 to an extent, where like water kept like bubbling and 0:09:35.920 --> 0:09:38.440 boiling and it was now spilling out of the open 0:09:38.520 --> 0:09:42.040 relief valve out of the reactor, which is not good. 0:09:42.520 --> 0:09:46.000 But it still would have helped keep things cool sooner. 0:09:46.679 --> 0:09:49.800 The problem is the operators again were like, that shouldn't 0:09:49.800 --> 0:09:53.720 be happening. The pressure seems fine in here, and now 0:09:53.720 --> 0:09:56.280 there's water flowing in. We got to turn off these 0:09:56.320 --> 0:09:59.679 emergency pumps. And they did. They turned off the emergency 0:09:59.679 --> 0:10:03.840 pump and that was the final straw. The system was like, 0:10:03.920 --> 0:10:06.200 I'm not helping anymore. You guys are on your own. 0:10:07.280 --> 0:10:10.480 Yeah. So the water, the water level was dropping, which 0:10:10.520 --> 0:10:13.880 is very key to keeping that thing you stable and cool, 0:10:14.520 --> 0:10:18.080 and it actually exposed the reactor's core, the top of 0:10:18.120 --> 0:10:20.920 that thing. Yeah, and once the core is exposed, that's 0:10:21.160 --> 0:10:25.480 very very bad news that happened. I think everything started 0:10:25.520 --> 0:10:28.199 at four a m. Night Ranger time, and then at 0:10:28.200 --> 0:10:32.760 six am, this is two hours later. An operator finally 0:10:32.960 --> 0:10:35.720 was like, wait a minute, that release valve that was 0:10:35.720 --> 0:10:39.640 supposed to close automatically, looks like that thing didn't close. 0:10:40.280 --> 0:10:43.400 So he ordered it to be closed off. But one 0:10:43.480 --> 0:10:47.040 hundred thousand liters of coolant had already leaked out of 0:10:47.040 --> 0:10:48.000 the system at this point. 0:10:48.080 --> 0:10:51.760 Yeah, highly highly radioactive water just spilling out, and eventually 0:10:51.800 --> 0:10:55.480 it was pumped out of the reactor containment of building 0:10:55.559 --> 0:10:59.720 into other buildings. So that they were flooded with contaminated water. 0:10:59.760 --> 0:11:02.880 It was quite a mess. So these guys have now 0:11:03.080 --> 0:11:06.200 figured out the main issue. They've closed the relief valve. 0:11:06.480 --> 0:11:08.720 Now they can put more coolant in, and they started 0:11:08.760 --> 0:11:11.400 to do that. But you said that the top of 0:11:11.440 --> 0:11:15.120 the reactor core is exposed. That is never supposed to happen. 0:11:15.559 --> 0:11:20.040 That the core should never be exposed above water. And 0:11:20.320 --> 0:11:23.400 because it had been now pumping cooling and was not 0:11:23.679 --> 0:11:27.280 necessarily doing the trick, it certainly wasn't doing it fast enough. 0:11:27.760 --> 0:11:31.640 And they realized about forty minutes after they figured out 0:11:31.640 --> 0:11:34.800 that what the problem was that the core was really 0:11:34.840 --> 0:11:38.200 screwed up. Because remember all this time, for those two hours, Chuck, 0:11:38.400 --> 0:11:41.480 they were just like, oh, everything's fine. They thought their 0:11:41.520 --> 0:11:44.439 instruments were messed up or that everything was working correctly. 0:11:44.760 --> 0:11:47.880 And finally between six am and six point forty they're like, 0:11:48.160 --> 0:11:51.800 this is really, really, really bad. And five minutes after 0:11:51.800 --> 0:11:55.840 they figured that out, radiation alarms started ringing around the plant, 0:11:56.280 --> 0:11:58.640 which if they didn't know it was bad before, those 0:11:58.760 --> 0:12:00.040 alarms certainly. 0:12:01.240 --> 0:12:03.800 Yeah. And then about eleven minutes later, and this is 0:12:03.800 --> 0:12:06.679 almost seven o'clock, it was almost three hours later, they 0:12:06.760 --> 0:12:12.520 finally declared a site emergency right after that happened. You know, 0:12:12.559 --> 0:12:15.720 they tried to and you know, partially part part of 0:12:15.720 --> 0:12:18.280 the problem here was due to the being in the 0:12:18.360 --> 0:12:21.160 nineteen seventies and you can't get a hold of someone 0:12:21.360 --> 0:12:23.520 via cell phone like in a moment's notice. That's where 0:12:23.559 --> 0:12:25.719 this kind of comes into play. They tried to get 0:12:25.720 --> 0:12:29.559 in touch with the Nuclear Regulatory Commission kind of immediately 0:12:29.960 --> 0:12:32.760 they called. The office wasn't open yet, and so they 0:12:32.800 --> 0:12:35.120 had what you know, these things still exist, but what 0:12:35.160 --> 0:12:36.360 they used to have a lot more back in the 0:12:36.400 --> 0:12:39.000 day is like an answering service. Like humans had answered 0:12:39.040 --> 0:12:43.480 the phone and forward the call or call up the 0:12:43.520 --> 0:12:46.000 doctor or whoever they need to call and say, hey, 0:12:46.040 --> 0:12:48.800 I got I think what's probably a concerning message that 0:12:48.840 --> 0:12:51.200 you probably need to get right away. So they tried 0:12:51.240 --> 0:12:53.079 to do that. They tried to call the regional duty 0:12:53.120 --> 0:12:56.640 officer at home, but they're like, no, he already left 0:12:56.640 --> 0:12:59.560 for work. So this guy's in his car now, don't 0:12:59.559 --> 0:13:01.800 didn't listen to the radio on his way to work. 0:13:02.160 --> 0:13:04.720 He's listening to beautiful music on the AM dial. 0:13:05.480 --> 0:13:08.559 He probably is. And the long and short of it 0:13:08.600 --> 0:13:11.360 is it finally like I think it takes nearly forty 0:13:11.400 --> 0:13:16.320 minutes to even finally make contact with the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, 0:13:16.320 --> 0:13:19.600 and like time is crucial at this point, like every 0:13:19.640 --> 0:13:20.440 second matters. 0:13:20.800 --> 0:13:22.920 Yeah, And the reason why they really needed to get 0:13:22.920 --> 0:13:25.920 in touch with the NRC is because they didn't know 0:13:25.960 --> 0:13:30.400 what to do. They weren't really trained for a situation 0:13:30.679 --> 0:13:34.960 like this. The NRC was the body that had this information. 0:13:35.120 --> 0:13:38.120 They needed to figure out how to handle this. So 0:13:39.360 --> 0:13:43.840 very quickly word starts to spread hits DC, the local 0:13:43.960 --> 0:13:47.839 journalists start showing up. Eventually national journalists started showing up, 0:13:48.160 --> 0:13:50.760 and by nine am, everybody knows that there's a big, 0:13:50.840 --> 0:13:55.000 big problem at Three Mile Island. The problem was no 0:13:55.040 --> 0:13:58.000 one knew how bad it was. Yeah, because on the 0:13:58.040 --> 0:14:00.600 one hand, the first people that started dress saying things 0:14:00.800 --> 0:14:05.720 was Metropolitan at Edison, the power company that ran and 0:14:05.760 --> 0:14:09.000 I believe owned Three Mile Island, both TM one and two, 0:14:09.760 --> 0:14:13.040 and they were just lying their faces off. They just 0:14:13.080 --> 0:14:15.560 said whatever they thought what people wanted to hear, and 0:14:15.600 --> 0:14:18.559 they would even do it in private, like the Governor 0:14:18.559 --> 0:14:22.560 Dick Thornburg and the Lieutenant Governor William Scranton. They were 0:14:22.600 --> 0:14:26.440 just lying to them about how like how not a 0:14:26.480 --> 0:14:29.960 big deal. This was from the outset. So they proved 0:14:29.960 --> 0:14:32.160 that they were just untrustworthy from the outset, and they 0:14:32.200 --> 0:14:34.840 got quickly pushed aside as far as the people who 0:14:34.840 --> 0:14:38.280 were really trying to handle this problem, when yeah, they 0:14:38.360 --> 0:14:40.240 just they were like, you go stand over there, we'll 0:14:40.240 --> 0:14:41.400 deal with you later. 0:14:42.000 --> 0:14:46.040 For sure. They on the twenty eight they briefly considered 0:14:46.040 --> 0:14:48.560 evacuating the area. This is SPEMA there on the scene now, 0:14:49.200 --> 0:14:51.320 but they said no, and then the governor, like you 0:14:51.320 --> 0:14:56.120 were saying, Governor Thornburg, he declined to evacuate again on 0:14:56.440 --> 0:15:00.360 March twenty ninth because they're getting reports that there was 0:15:00.400 --> 0:15:04.840 no radiation that had escaped and everything was like completely contained. Finally, 0:15:04.880 --> 0:15:07.720 on March thirtieth, the governor got a report that said, 0:15:08.160 --> 0:15:11.400 all right, well some radioactive gas has escaped the reactor. 0:15:12.120 --> 0:15:15.240 So he said he makes an announcement like all right, 0:15:15.280 --> 0:15:19.560 all pregnant women and preschool children need to evacuate and 0:15:19.640 --> 0:15:21.920 like get out of the area. And that caused a 0:15:21.960 --> 0:15:22.800 pretty big panic. 0:15:23.120 --> 0:15:25.760 It did. I think one hundred and forty thousand people left. 0:15:26.640 --> 0:15:30.600 Did you see the American experience of the PBS documentary 0:15:30.640 --> 0:15:33.480 on this yeah, melt, It's called meltdown at three Mile Island. 0:15:33.760 --> 0:15:36.120 So a lot of people were panicking and leaving, But 0:15:36.120 --> 0:15:37.920 there were also a lot of people around there like 0:15:37.960 --> 0:15:41.200 they can take my house out of my cold dead hands. 0:15:41.360 --> 0:15:42.160 I'm not leaving. 0:15:42.560 --> 0:15:45.040 Yeah, that always happens, right, Yeah. 0:15:44.560 --> 0:15:46.680 But so there were people that stayed, but a lot 0:15:46.680 --> 0:15:49.240 of people left because they were scared to death. No 0:15:49.240 --> 0:15:53.080 one knew exactly how bad this was, and so I 0:15:53.120 --> 0:15:57.680 think a lot of rumor and unsubstantiated stuff was really 0:15:57.720 --> 0:16:01.360 spreading very quickly. At at the same time, there was 0:16:01.400 --> 0:16:03.720 no one who really knew how bad it was that 0:16:03.800 --> 0:16:06.080 could say that's not true. That's not true. I can 0:16:06.160 --> 0:16:09.480 unequivocally say this is how bad it is. So you 0:16:09.600 --> 0:16:13.400 really couldn't say, like, don't worry. It was you don't 0:16:13.400 --> 0:16:16.000 think you should worry. We hope you don't have to worry. 0:16:16.000 --> 0:16:18.520 But there was nothing that they could really reassure the 0:16:18.560 --> 0:16:19.840 public with at this point. 0:16:20.640 --> 0:16:22.920 Yeah for sure, all right, that feels like a great 0:16:22.960 --> 0:16:25.320 time for a break, if you agree, I agree. 0:16:26.320 --> 0:16:26.440 Uh. 0:16:26.800 --> 0:16:29.080 So they are trying to get the thing cool down, 0:16:29.280 --> 0:16:31.880 and then very quickly another problem would pop up, and 0:16:31.920 --> 0:16:33.880 we're going to address that right after this. 0:16:54.160 --> 0:17:00.760 Stop you know, stop, stop, stop you shouldn't you know? No, 0:17:01.320 --> 0:17:08.720 stop you know stop stuff shouldn't know stuff you should know? 0:17:09.480 --> 0:17:12.160 Okay, Chuck. So where we last left off, three Mile 0:17:12.240 --> 0:17:17.199 Island TMI two reactor had reached a different shape of 0:17:17.240 --> 0:17:21.159 a certain kind of fruit. Things were going badly in 0:17:21.240 --> 0:17:22.160 other words. 0:17:21.840 --> 0:17:24.280 Right not yes, it's bad, but I'm just glad you're 0:17:24.320 --> 0:17:24.920 saying it again. 0:17:25.119 --> 0:17:27.600 So it went, it went from bad to worse. Actually, 0:17:27.640 --> 0:17:31.000 they're like, they wouldn't call it a meltdown. It took 0:17:31.119 --> 0:17:34.879 years before they officially started calling this a meltdown. It 0:17:34.920 --> 0:17:36.960 was an accident, it was a problem in issue, that 0:17:37.080 --> 0:17:40.359 kind of thing. But on top of that the reactor 0:17:40.480 --> 0:17:45.000 having huge problems. They now realized that there was a 0:17:45.080 --> 0:17:49.600 hydrogen gas bubble that during this two three hours of 0:17:49.680 --> 0:17:53.800 the accident had developed because it got so hot that 0:17:53.840 --> 0:17:59.520 the zirconium tubes that held the fuel pellets it reacted 0:17:59.560 --> 0:18:02.480 with the steam that was being generated and it actually 0:18:02.680 --> 0:18:06.080 tore the water molecules into oxygen and hydrogen, and the 0:18:06.160 --> 0:18:09.280 hydrogen just started to build up. Well, obviously, if you 0:18:09.320 --> 0:18:11.639 listen to our Hindenberg episode, you know that a big 0:18:12.240 --> 0:18:16.160 bunch of hydrogen gas in one place is very, very dangerous, 0:18:16.480 --> 0:18:19.159 especially when it's in the middle of a nuclear reactor. 0:18:20.160 --> 0:18:24.240 Yeah, so all of a sudden, there's this more concerning problem. 0:18:24.560 --> 0:18:26.640 They're like, if this thing explodes, you know, if this 0:18:26.760 --> 0:18:31.680 gas bubble explodes, it might rupture the actual building that 0:18:31.720 --> 0:18:34.200 this thing is housed in. And we're in real trouble 0:18:34.200 --> 0:18:38.680 if that happened. So from I think, well we should 0:18:38.720 --> 0:18:42.280 say that the World Nuclear Association they say that that 0:18:42.359 --> 0:18:44.160 never would have been possible. But of course they don't 0:18:44.200 --> 0:18:46.600 know this at the time, and who knows if it 0:18:46.640 --> 0:18:49.359 was possible or not. But from March thirtieth, this couple 0:18:49.359 --> 0:18:53.520 of days later through April first, they managed to decrease 0:18:53.560 --> 0:18:56.960 the size of that bubble by venting that thing out 0:18:57.000 --> 0:19:00.040 and you know, basically kind of slowly just reducing the 0:19:00.080 --> 0:19:02.879 size of the bubble. But this is also if you're venting, 0:19:03.080 --> 0:19:06.120 you know, melting down. I guess I don't what you said. 0:19:06.160 --> 0:19:08.080 It didn't called to meltdown, it's having a tantrum. I 0:19:08.080 --> 0:19:12.440 guess you're releasing that stuff in like more radiation into 0:19:12.520 --> 0:19:13.880 the environment by doing. 0:19:13.680 --> 0:19:18.359 So, right, But they really had no choice essentially or 0:19:18.400 --> 0:19:21.840 let the thing blow up, so they did. They managed 0:19:21.880 --> 0:19:25.760 to get the bubble under control. And on April first, 0:19:25.840 --> 0:19:28.880 Jimmy Carter, who was president at the time, I didn't 0:19:28.920 --> 0:19:31.639 know this. He was a trained nuclear engineer, so he 0:19:31.760 --> 0:19:35.399 was essentially the president to be in charge for this 0:19:35.480 --> 0:19:36.040 to happen. 0:19:37.000 --> 0:19:42.040 You knew that, Yeah, yeah, I knew from my visits 0:19:42.040 --> 0:19:43.959 to the Carter Center and I read a book and 0:19:44.000 --> 0:19:46.280 I've seen a documentary. He's one of my guys, one 0:19:46.280 --> 0:19:48.400 of the smartest dudes we've ever had in the way. 0:19:48.480 --> 0:19:51.000 Oh, I know. He was a fantastic president. It's a shame. 0:19:52.520 --> 0:19:55.080 So he was president at the time, and he was like, 0:19:55.160 --> 0:19:57.720 you know what, I'm going to come there. I'm going 0:19:57.760 --> 0:20:00.520 to be shown touring the plant. Ros One's going to 0:20:00.560 --> 0:20:03.680 come with me. That will reassure the public that it's fine, 0:20:03.680 --> 0:20:07.560 it's under control. The problem was, according to that PBS documentary, 0:20:07.800 --> 0:20:11.040 at the time, it was not a certainty that the 0:20:11.119 --> 0:20:14.760 hydrogen bubble wasn't going to blow up while the president 0:20:14.840 --> 0:20:18.840 was there. There are two dueling mathematicians who had conflicting 0:20:18.880 --> 0:20:21.320 results about whether the bubble was going to blow up, 0:20:21.800 --> 0:20:24.439 and so Jimmy Carter took a real risk. So did 0:20:24.520 --> 0:20:27.239 Rosalind Carter by going there to tour the plant. They 0:20:27.280 --> 0:20:30.400 had to wear yellow rubber boots because again there's really 0:20:30.480 --> 0:20:34.159 highly contaminated radioactive water that had spilled out of the 0:20:34.200 --> 0:20:37.159 coolant on the floor. It was a big deal, but 0:20:37.200 --> 0:20:40.000 apparently it had the impact he was looking for and 0:20:40.040 --> 0:20:41.359 the public started to calm down. 0:20:42.480 --> 0:20:45.080 Yeah, I don't know if you could get if they 0:20:45.080 --> 0:20:47.520 would let a president do that these days. 0:20:47.560 --> 0:20:51.159 Yeah, it was the seventies. Man, what can happen? 0:20:51.760 --> 0:20:54.400 It was, Yeah, just put on these booties. So he 0:20:54.600 --> 0:20:59.480 obviously orders a committee to convene and investigate this thing. 0:21:00.320 --> 0:21:03.440 It was ended up being called the Kimmeny Report because 0:21:03.440 --> 0:21:06.960 it was led by Dartmouth College president John Kemeny, and 0:21:07.320 --> 0:21:10.800 they the NRC ended up coming out of this not 0:21:10.920 --> 0:21:13.719 looking so great. And we'll get to why as we go, 0:21:13.800 --> 0:21:18.119 but they really took it on the chin. The training program, 0:21:18.160 --> 0:21:20.880 like met ed was like, hey, we trained up our 0:21:20.920 --> 0:21:25.800 guys as well as we were able to and to 0:21:25.880 --> 0:21:28.560 meet your standards, Like, we did everything you told us 0:21:28.600 --> 0:21:31.199 to do. All your requirements were met. It was the 0:21:31.320 --> 0:21:36.280 NRC apparently, who like had lax requirements and you know 0:21:36.320 --> 0:21:39.000 when it comes to like emergency training and stuff like that, 0:21:39.119 --> 0:21:40.440 they were really ill prepared. 0:21:40.640 --> 0:21:44.560 Yeah, these guys were fully trained, but their training hadn't 0:21:44.600 --> 0:21:47.160 prepared them for that, and it was the NRC's fault. 0:21:47.359 --> 0:21:50.400 The NRC showed that they weren't prepared to handle this either, 0:21:51.000 --> 0:21:53.560 Like it was just really poor planning, again based on 0:21:54.000 --> 0:21:57.640 over optimistic ideas about the safety of nuclear energy. Right, 0:21:58.040 --> 0:22:02.080 So the NRC also conducted its own examination. They're like, yeah, 0:22:02.119 --> 0:22:05.600 we should probably do a little better. There's a lot 0:22:05.640 --> 0:22:08.840 of confusing stuff in training. I think there was this 0:22:08.880 --> 0:22:12.000 one passage that said insert key into the control panel, 0:22:12.280 --> 0:22:14.840 turn key to the left, break off the key in 0:22:14.920 --> 0:22:17.399 the control panel, and eat what remains of the key. 0:22:17.920 --> 0:22:22.520