Panique à la centrale: Three Mile Island

A few years after the meltdown, I was working for Air Products and Chemicals, an industrial gas company as a sales rep out of York, PA. TMI was my account and I went up there to do a cylinder count as they were paying thousands a month in rental charges for 5000 cylinders that had been on the island for 10 or more years. After my walk through I found only 200 cylinders. Big mystery until I talked to an old timer at the plant. Seems at the time of the meltdown and thereafter, employees would take full cylinders with 3000 psi, over to an embankment overlooking the Susquehanna River, lay them across two railroad ties and then knock the heads off the cylinders with a sledgehammer shooting them out over the the river a few hundred feet. These were the people running the plant.

I didn't feel like this was about fear in nuclear energy. This event set it back, but it's still viable and prevalent. This is about human error, regulation failure, and high level corporate and government corruption.

A lot of the low scoring reviews made by many, about this documentary, have clearly come from people who failed to understand just exactly what was to be shown and told.

The reviewer, chrisxhood14 states that it is "Heavily biased and over-dramatized (he/she spelt it it as over-dramatised so I corrected it for the readers) with a clear agenda". They obviously did not check to see what it is they would be hearing about.

This had but one agenda and that was to inform the watching world of the lies and corruption from the Power Plants owners/management. It was the most dangerous time in American history and the powers that be tried to cover it up by not telling the truth about exactly what happened in the 1979 Nuclear Meltdown. It was not meant to be about Nuclear Power plant improvements in later years etc. It was not about anyone being biased or against Nuclear power stations; it was about the sheer neglect for human health, life and safety. It was not meant to be a technical in depth explanation but rather an exact explanation of a huge cover up. Lying to the state Governor and to the US President. Its about money cover ups, cutting costs and the non stop flagrant disregard for the lives of the ordinary, everyday non wealthy people of America by those in power!

The thing that stands out from everything spoken about is that we, the viewers, learn from the very beginning that the plant was being run by people who were completely clueless about Atomic energy. Seven years later the American government cried blue murder about the April 1986 Chernobyl meltdown, because the Russians told the exact same lies. But at least the Russians gave thought to their citizens and evacuated all of them; American blatantly lied about the danger to their Pennsylvania citizens and, tried to get them to stay!

Its not the best documentary to watch (I'm sure they could have made and edited this far better) but, you finally get the truth from the mouths of the 3 Mile Island citizens; both the parents and the children of the time.

The story of corruption and mismanagement is not that surprising. Still kinda interesting. But in typical Netflix fashion, long winded and repetitive.

But the real lesson of this documentary is how far we've come in nuclear tech.

We see the complete lack of computer technology in the 1970's. This makes it clear that the US should continue leading the way and sell Gen IV tech to the rest of the world -where the other 95% of humans live, and where carbon emissions are growing at an extraordinary rate. My beloved France and Germany are already returning to nuclear. But the rest of the world is polluting like crazy. Enough is enough.

The main individual that this documentary centers around is Richard ("Rick") Parks. He was a nuclear engineer hired as part of the clean-up operation at Three Mile Island. As he unequivocally says at the beginning and end of the series, he's a believer in nuclear energy. He is a proponent.

What he's not a believer in, after his experience, is putting nuclear safety in the hands of private enterprise. The pressures to be profitable (or avoid losses) can force lapses in safety ... and that should never be on the table.

As far as a documentary is concerned, it's "ok". It lags a lot in the middle and didn't have much in the way of counterpoint experts. However, because it compiled and presented a lot of interesting information about the incident that I knew little about ... I have to give it credit. The idea that there was a second potential disaster involved (the polar crane operation) - was truly eye-opening.

As far as the downsides - there wasn't a lot of counterpoint from nuclear experts. This is understandable. From friends I have in the industry, they tell me the nuclear industry is a small community. If your name gets associated with anything anti-industry, the professional hit could be a career ender. Still, it would have been nice to see more scientific experts presented ... esp. If they had counterpoint ideas.

A fun fact they showed was that Pres. Jimmy Carter was a nuclear engineer and was once involved in repairing a damaged reactor himself. He showed up at Three Mile Island to calm tensions and support the industry.

Near the beginning I wondered if this would have been more interesting as a dramatization, like the Chernobyl mini-series. However, after a while, I understood why this may have been better as a documentary. The story they tell is more of disasters being averted ... which is great, but different than the stories of Chernobyl, Titanic, etc.

All in all - it's an interesting watch. The world is a bit different today than in 1979; there's a focus on solar, wind and even the sea for new sources of power. If they don't pan out soon, interest may eventually refocus on nuclear energy.

If you want nuclear accident suspense, watch "The China syndrome" and "Chernobyl". If you want whistleblower drama, watch "Silkwood" ... and (though it's a documentary) this series.