Atomic Thoughts

My thoughts of late are with the people of Japan. Their nuclear power plant troubles have me thinking about the worst nuclear incident in the United States, which was not as bad as Japan's current problems, and certainly nowhere near as horrifying as Chernobyl. March 28th will be the 32nd anniversary of the Three Mile Island accident. Coincidentally, I was born and raised just outside of the 10-mile radius surrounding TMI and within the 10-mile radius of another nuclear power plant. (For anyone unfamiliar with TMI, I recommend the PBS documentary Meltdown at Three Mile Island.)

The China Syndrome is a movie about whistle-blowing on safety hazards at a nuclear power plant in southern California starring Jack Lemmon, Jane Fonda, and Michael Douglas. Its theatrical release came 13 days before the TMI incident.

Despite my love for Gregory Peck, I've never managed to sit through the 1959 movie On the Beach. I read the novel by Nevil Shute in 7th grade and could never bring myself to watch the movie because reading the story was depressing enough. The premise is nuclear fallout from a world war has killed the global population with Australia as the last remnant of humanity.

In all honesty, I've never really given a great deal of thought to nuclear energy, even though I grew up in a place with warning sirens, phonebook evacuation plans, and potassium-iodide tablet distribution. For several years, I lived near Oak Ridge, Tennessee, a city born of the Manhattan Project. I had every intention of visiting the American Museum of Science and Energy to learn more about nuclear power, but never managed to get there.

Perhaps it's time to get real.