Where are the Nuclear Power Plants Near Me?
Although nuclear power is fairly safe, it’s good to know where these plants are located in the event that an accident was to occur. Would it affect you?
Nuclear Meltdown at Three Mile Island
Many of us older than say 40, remember the Three Mile Island accident that happened on March 28, 1979, when a faulty pilot-operated relief valve in the main system of reactor two allowed large amounts of nuclear reactor coolant to escape.
It was 28 hours after the accident before a state of emergency was declared. Schools were closed and residents were urged to stay indoors. Farmers were told to keep their animals under cover and to only feed them what was not stored outdoors.
Unit two was too severely damaged and too contaminated to continue operations. Cleanup started in August 1979 and officially ended in December 1993, with an overall cleanup cost of about one billion dollars.
Official Radioactivity Emission Figures
According to the American Nuclear Society, using the official radioactivity emission figures, “The average radiation dose to people living within ten miles of the plant was eight millirems and no more than 100 millirems to any single individual.” Eight millirems is about equivalent to a chest X-ray, and 100 millirem is about a third of the background radiation received by the average US residents in one year.
What is a Millirem?
The millirem is a measurement of absorbed radiation dose. A person would get this amount of radiation from 3 days of living in Atlanta or two days of living in Denver.
Map of Nuclear Power Plants in the United States
Below is a map of nuclear power plants within the United States. You can zoom in to an area to view even more.
Nuclear accidents don’t just happen in other countries such as the Chernobyl accident in Pripyat, in northern Ukrainian, it can happen here.