What effect did the accident at Three Mile Island have on Americans?

Answer 1

Just to let you know there WAS a meltdown of the reactor core, caused by incompetent operators removing cooling water then they should have been adding more! But the material from the meltdown was fully contained in the core as designed. The worst concern was the possibility of a hydrogen gas explosion (as happened in Fukushima Japan) breaching the containment building, but this was prevented.

The term "complete meltdown" used above has no meaning in nuclear engineering, a meltdown is any amount of core melting. One concern with meltdowns is that there may be loss of control and a resulting increase of reactivity, but there can just as easily be a decrease of reactivity and an automatic shutdown depending on the reactor design.

Answer 2

The nuclear power plant problem of 1979-1980 was a shock to the American public. In those days nuclear power was the solution for the oil & gas problems. Now clean energy would replace the oil tankers and Texas oil wells.The Three Mile Island problem made people fearful of nuclear energy.

Answer 3

Three mile Island was a nuclear facility and we were lucky that there wasn't a complete meltdown. As it was it was contained and no one was hurt.