Panique à la centrale: Three Mile Island

I'm not sure why so many nuclear power fans are upset by this docuseries. It does lean on the dramatic, but the message of pro-nuclear power is repeated over and over by one of the main interviewees. The concern is not the technology, but the rich men we entrust to run nuclear plants safely. All this docuseries want is responsibility in the operation of public utilities, and I can't see why anyone would find that bad. It's a compelling view into the, pardon the pun, fallout of the accident, and worth the time for people interested.

The story of corruption and mismanagement is not that surprising. Still kinda interesting. But in typical Netflix fashion, long winded and repetitive.

But the real lesson of this documentary is how far we've come in nuclear tech.

We see the complete lack of computer technology in the 1970's. This makes it clear that the US should continue leading the way and sell Gen IV tech to the rest of the world -where the other 95% of humans live, and where carbon emissions are growing at an extraordinary rate. My beloved France and Germany are already returning to nuclear. But the rest of the world is polluting like crazy. Enough is enough.

A few years after the meltdown, I was working for Air Products and Chemicals, an industrial gas company as a sales rep out of York, PA. TMI was my account and I went up there to do a cylinder count as they were paying thousands a month in rental charges for 5000 cylinders that had been on the island for 10 or more years. After my walk through I found only 200 cylinders. Big mystery until I talked to an old timer at the plant. Seems at the time of the meltdown and thereafter, employees would take full cylinders with 3000 psi, over to an embankment overlooking the Susquehanna River, lay them across two railroad ties and then knock the heads off the cylinders with a sledgehammer shooting them out over the the river a few hundred feet. These were the people running the plant.

A lot of the low scoring reviews made by many, about this documentary, have clearly come from people who failed to understand just exactly what was to be shown and told.

The reviewer, chrisxhood14 states that it is "Heavily biased and over-dramatized (he/she spelt it it as over-dramatised so I corrected it for the readers) with a clear agenda". They obviously did not check to see what it is they would be hearing about.

This had but one agenda and that was to inform the watching world of the lies and corruption from the Power Plants owners/management. It was the most dangerous time in American history and the powers that be tried to cover it up by not telling the truth about exactly what happened in the 1979 Nuclear Meltdown. It was not meant to be about Nuclear Power plant improvements in later years etc. It was not about anyone being biased or against Nuclear power stations; it was about the sheer neglect for human health, life and safety. It was not meant to be a technical in depth explanation but rather an exact explanation of a huge cover up. Lying to the state Governor and to the US President. Its about money cover ups, cutting costs and the non stop flagrant disregard for the lives of the ordinary, everyday non wealthy people of America by those in power!

The thing that stands out from everything spoken about is that we, the viewers, learn from the very beginning that the plant was being run by people who were completely clueless about Atomic energy. Seven years later the American government cried blue murder about the April 1986 Chernobyl meltdown, because the Russians told the exact same lies. But at least the Russians gave thought to their citizens and evacuated all of them; American blatantly lied about the danger to their Pennsylvania citizens and, tried to get them to stay!

Its not the best documentary to watch (I'm sure they could have made and edited this far better) but, you finally get the truth from the mouths of the 3 Mile Island citizens; both the parents and the children of the time.

{NOTE: the 1-star review "Do not watch for accurate facts" is relevant (but also incomplete) IMHO}

This documentary is excellent ... by Netflix standards. An example of a terrible documentary is the one they did on MH370, which was overly-long and spent copious time on inane conspiracy theories.

Meltdown: TMI goes a great job showing the cover-up attempts and related corruption, as well as the toll on the residents. It does NOT do a good job explaining the details of the initial accident and the misguided response. You have to have a VERY good reason to turn off cooling pumps and/or High-Pressure Injectors (HPI) when a reactor's temperature is getting out of control, and this was poorly explained. To be fair, some details of this accident were NEVER properly explained (see Wikipedia), but still -- Netflix could have done a better job, instead of showing the same distraught locals over and over and over again.

There are some unanswered questions. The NRC still claims very little radiation was released, despite the dead fish observed and a least one person with radiation "burns" (lesions) over much of her body. What happened to this person? Why wasn't she Exhibit A in (eventually) refuting the platitudes the NRC and GPU (the plant owner) told the public?

This documentary had the potential for ten stars. However, given the flaws, I'm giving it eight (8) stars. Mind you, it's still gripping and effective; I'm still angry the next day. FYI, I'm an engineer and have some actual knowledge of the cooling systems and related thermodynamics. I even tested my knowledge on a NPP failure simulator.