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Three Mile Island nuclear power plant.
Joanne Cassaro, WITF / WITF
Three Mile Island nuclear power plant.
Joanne Cassaro, WITF / WITF
Joanne Cassaro, WITF / WITF
Three Mile Island nuclear power plant.
Forty years ago today, the United States experienced the most serious nuclear accident in its history.
The partial meltdown at the Three Mile Island nuclear power plant near Harrisburg in 1979 sparked a major anti-nuclear backlash — halting the industry’s growth in the U.S. for decades. Now, amid climate concerns, there’s a big push to keep nuclear plants open.
Nuclear plants provide about 20 percent of the nation’s electricity, but many in the U.S. are old and unprofitable, including Three Mile Island. The plant is scheduled to close this fall — 15 years before its operating license expires.
StateImpact Pennsylvania’s latest documentary, Three Mile Island: The New Nuclear Dilemma explores the plant’s fraught history and the new fight to keep it open:
The show airs on PBS member stations across Pennsylvania and will be preceded by a 30-minute program called Meltdown at Three Mile Island: 40 Years Later, which focuses on what happened during the 1979 accident.
Air dates and times for the two programs:
• Harrisburg WITF – 3/28 at 8 p.m.
• Philadelphia WHYY – 3/28 at 8 p.m.
• State College WPSU – 3/28 at 9 p.m.
• Pittsburgh WQED – 3/31 at 5 p.m.
• Scranton WVIA – 3/28 at 8 p.m.
• Erie, WQLN – 4/4 at 8 p.m.
StateImpact Pennsylvania is a collaboration among WITF, WHYY, and the Allegheny Front. Reporters Reid Frazier, Rachel McDevitt and Susan Phillips cover the commonwealth’s energy economy. Read their reports on this site, and hear them on public radio stations across Pennsylvania.
(listed by story count)
StateImpact Pennsylvania is a collaboration among WITF, WHYY, and the Allegheny Front. Reporters Reid Frazier, Rachel McDevitt and Susan Phillips cover the commonwealth’s energy economy. Read their reports on this site, and hear them on public radio stations across Pennsylvania.
Climate Solutions, a collaboration of news organizations, educational institutions and a theater company, uses engagement, education and storytelling to help central Pennsylvanians toward climate change literacy, resilience and adaptation. Our work will amplify how people are finding solutions to the challenges presented by a warming world.