Plant 1, which was commissioned in September 1974, was shut down at noon local time, according to Exelon, the plant's owner. Three Mile Island, the US nuclear power plant known to have been the site of the worst civilian nuclear accident on the other side of the Atlantic, was finally shut down on Friday.
In the coming weeks, plant staff will empty reactor fuel for storage in the dedicated pool. Then, the site will be dismantled on the banks of the Susquehanna River about 150 km from Philadelphia and Baltimore, Exelon said.
The dismantling of the main elements will not begin until 2074
While many residents wanted the reactor shut down, many Pennsylvania officials tried unsuccessfully to put in place a bailout, to no avail. Despite having a license to run the reactor until 2034, Exelon decided to stop it prematurely because the site had been in a deficit for many years.
In normal operation, Three Mile Island employed 675 people, about 300 of whom will remain at the site during the first phase of decommissioning, the nuclear operator said. This number is expected to drop to 50 from 2022. The dismantling of the main components, including the cooling towers, will not begin until 2074, a century after initial commissioning.
"At a time when society is calling for more clean energy to respond to climate change, it is unfortunate that state (Pennsylvania) legislation does not support the exploitation of this safe and reliable source of non-renewable energy. -fossil, "said Bryan Hanson, vice president and head of nuclear for Exelon, quoted in a statement.
In 1979, 140,000 evacuees
Although reactor 1 has not experienced any major incident in nearly half a century of operation, the second, Unit 2, has recorded the most serious accident in the history of US civilian nuclear power. On March 28, 1979, barely a year after its commissioning, it had experienced a cooling problem, coupled with a human error, which had resulted in the partial melting of the reactor.
The incident had not resulted in a casualty but required the evacuation of 140,000 people, led to the definitive closure of reactor 2 and reopened the debate on the potential danger of civilian nuclear power. It had taken six years to revive the reactor number one of the plant, unaffected by the accident, despite opposition from a section of the local population and a series of lawsuits.