Exelon threatens Three Mile Island closure without a state bailout as more health impacts emerge from 1979 meltdown

Exelon Generation Corporation has issued an ultimatum to the State of Pennsylvania that the Chicago-based nuclear giant will permanently close the remaining Three Mile Island atomic power plant in September 2019 if the State does not bailout the uneconomical generator. Three Mile Island Unit 2 was destroyed in an accident and partial meltdown on March 28, 1979. Three Mile Island Unit 1 has failed to auction its expensive power on the electric grid for three years straight denying Exelon power sales now out to 2021. Denied guaranteed customers on the electricity market, Exelon faces increasing economic pressure to permanently close the power reactor. Exelon is lobbying the state to legislate subsidies from ratepayers for the continued operation of TMI Unit 1.

At the same time, despite industry claims that no one has ever died from the TMI accident, health data linking impacts to increased cancers continues to come forward. Penn State College of Medicine released the latest study where researchers looked at tumors that turned into thyroid cancer and “observed a shift in cases to cancer mutations consistent with radiation exposure from those consistent with random causes.”

The late Dr. Steven Wing of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill conducted the first epidemiological study to observe a statistically significant increase (2 to10 times) of lung cancer and leukemia in populations downwind of the TMI accident when compared to those residents that were upwind. 

An online poll cleverly divides up  opposition to ratepayers subsidizing TMI between "No, it will raise my rates" and " "Let the market decide."  We suggest vote "No, it will raise my rates."