I watched this because one of my favorite recent shows was HBOs Chernobyl which tells the tale of the worst nuclear disaster in the history of the world. That show was compelling and although some things were exaggerated, it was for a purpose and hit the mark for viewers to get a real take on what happened who may have not been familiar. Some background on me, I am a nuclear shift supervisor at an operating plant similar to actual 3 mile island plant. (Pressurized water reactor). You can take my opinion as one of defending the industry I work in or as one of actually understanding the reasons this accident happened. If you are watching this "documentary" for actual information on what happened I would say do some actual research first. It seems to glaze over most of the physical and personal reasons the operators in the plant did what they did and caused the accident. My take on it, is it really seemed the makers of the show did not have full information or understanding of the accident so they hired tv actor nuclear scientists to try to fill in dramatic "facts". This was possibly done do capitalize on the success of the show Chernobyl as I previously mentioned. My favorite quote was when the one "scientist" said the hydrogen explosion that almost happened at TMI was the exact thing that had caused the explosion at Chernobyl. This couldn't be further from the facts. Simply watching Chernobyl on HBO will show you that. Watching the re-enacted scenes was painful as workers go around the plant in the dark with flashlights? Did they lose power at the plant? Why were the lights all out? The answer is no, it was all for drama. The re-enacted scenes In the control room were also very inaccurate and over dramatized. I'm sure the control room at TMI was a tense place but the lights were on and the operators sure as hell know how to acknowledge their alarms and turn off their horns. Securing the reactor coolant pumps was focused on as the cause of the melt of fuel however, It was the securing of their safety injection system, which are separate pumps that inject borated water to cool the core during a loss of coolant accident that created the problem. This occurred due to to a lack of fundamental knowledge of their indications. With their pressure relief valve stuck open(as glossed over in this show) indications in their pressurizer level( which gives the operators some indication of the amount of water in their reactor) would go up in level. This is called a pressurizer vapor space leak which is classified as a loss of coolant accident. Very easily remedied by closing the isolation valve which is in series with these PORVs. However the operators were confused by rising level vs lowering level in the system which would occur in most Loss of coolant accidents. This led the crew to take action opposite of what they should have done for several hours. The plant was bleeding out their cooling water via this valve through a tank that relieved into their containment building. Although level looked high by their false indications, actual level dropped in their reactor uncovering the top of the fuel. This continued for several hours until the morning crew came in and understood what was occurring and closed the isolation valve i mentioned above. However by that time the damage was done. No water equals high temps and somewhere over 2000 degrees f the fuel will melt. Which occurred at three mile island. My fear of this show is that it makes the public continue to fear something it doesn't understand out of emotion rather than facts. I look at the accident as a very good indication of just how safe our US designed plants are. Despite the operators at TMIs best efforts to cause a terrible accident, the plant functioned as it should and prevented a major catastrophe. It led to a revolution in the industry in the 80s for safe operations and better training of the operators that run the plants. The only reason I wrote this review is because of some of other reviews I read on here from readers that are learning all the info based on this poorly created "documentary". If it interested you, continue to educate yourself of the nuclear industry in our country and take this show for what it's worth which doesn't seem like much. Go watch Chernobyl on HBO for real drama with the understanding that those reactors are far different from our own and in no way was that accident similar to what occurred in Pennsylvania.
Review of Meltdown: Three Mile Island
