Three Mile Island: Exelon says quake won’t cripple TMI

From the Press and Journal

If an earthquake shook Middletown, would Three Mile Island shut down safely?

Would the reactor lose power during a natural disaster, lose its cooling systems?

Would we have a crisis resembling the crippled Fukushima Dai-ichi reactor in Japan?

The owner of TMI says no, no and no. To assure residents who live near the reactor, it has sent 24,000 letters to neighbors within a 5-mile radius, asserting that the catastrophe in Japan couldn’t happen here.

TMI would survive a severe earthquake and maintain electricity during a natural disaster, a problem that has plagued Japan’s damaged reactor, said the letter, signed by Bill Noll, TMI site vice president for Exelon Nuclear, the owner.

“Our generating station is able to withstand and safely shut down in very strong earthquakes, and the uranium fuel would remain protected,’’ Noll said in the letter, which went to residents in Dauphin, Lancaster and York counties.

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