Crisis Contained: The Department of Energy at Three Mile Island (SCIENCE AND INTERNATIONAL AFFAIRS)

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Description

“What escaped at Three Mile Island used to be not only radiation, but, more importantly for the nuclear power industry, public confi­dence in technology and technocracy,” report Cantelon and Wil­liams in their detailed account of the response of the Department of Energy to The united states’s worst civilian nuclear power coincidence.

 

What happened at Three Mile Island used to be a technological failure of monstrous proportions. “Yet,” the authors contend, “the serious extent of the coincidence used to be caused by human error: technocrats blundered, lost regulate of technology, and, refusing to admit it, gave confusing, inconsistent, and jargon-laden explanations.” There used to be a welter of information and misinformation. To sift out the fact that would enable them to write the history of this contem­porary event, Cantelon and Williams relied on unpublished archi­val materials—including logs of scientists and government officials—on oral interviews with participants, and on reports of other government agencies. The result is a significant history, one that shows how scientists and politicians responded to the un­believable and unexpected as they tried to maintain a highly tech­nical event in the glare of tv lights and under the inquisitive and fearful eyes of the public.

 

The danger used to be never real, yet for the nation and definitely for the instant community around Three Mile Island, risk per­ceived used to be risk endured. A number of the residents of what became a “war zone” will never be the same, though radiation never touched them. Imagination and unconscious fears were far more important than any accurate perception of risk after a Nuclear Regulatory Commission official used the term meltdown at a Friday afternoon news conference.


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