CNN's Costello: 'Crazy to Me That We're Hoping the Outcome Is Like Three Mile Island'
On CNN Newsroom this morning, anchor Carol Costello spoke with national correspondent Jason Carroll about the potential for a nuclear disaster in Japan. Carroll noted that "some scientists say the best-case scenario at this point is that the situation in Japan ends up like Three Mile Island. . ." This possibility frightened the anchor:
COSTELLO: It's kind of crazy to me that we're hoping the outcome is like Three Mile Island. It's just so sad and scary.
Why? According to the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, the 1979 accident at Three Mile Island "led to no deaths or injuries to plant workers or members of the nearby community." The average radiological exposure for 2 million people in the area was about one-sixth of that received from a chest x-ray. Moreover, ". . .comprehensive investigations and assessments by several well‑respected organizations have concluded that in spite of serious damage to the reactor, most of the radiation was contained and that the actual release had negligible effects on the physical health of individuals or the environment."
The accident at Three Mile Island was indeed the most serious in U.S. history. Changes were implemented that, it is believed, enhance safety. Yet the fact remains that no one died at Three Mile Island and the health effects were negligible. Hoping that the Japanese outcome is no worse isn't crazy.
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Comments
Amazingly ignorant.
Submitted by almostacowboy on Tue, 03/15/2011 - 2:22pm.
But, then, talking heads (Costello) are, after all.......well, "talking heads".Costello: I'm a JournOList so
Submitted by Van Halen on Tue, 03/15/2011 - 2:23pm.
Costello: I'm a JournOList so when I hear 'Three Mile Island', 'Republicans', and 'Sarah Palin', I'm supposed to not like that, right?Bud and Lou
Submitted by charlietexas on Tue, 03/15/2011 - 2:27pm.
Is she related to Lou Costello?? of Abbott and Costello fame...............only shes not funnyMindless uninformed idiots.
Submitted by tvhall on Tue, 03/15/2011 - 2:30pm.
First the reporter doesn’t look old enough to have been cognizant at the time of three mile island. Second she is too stupid or uneducated to understand how minimal an exposure of one third of a chest x-ray is. Typical lemming of the left MSM. Unfounded fear if it is beyond your understanding (probably has the same fear of Christians but not Muslims.). How the nation can last another generation is beyond me if we keep getting told what to think by pretty faces pasted on to the front of empty (or worse yet filled with erroneous data) skulls.Pretty face?.....isn't that a stretch?....
Submitted by nonncom on Tue, 03/15/2011 - 3:23pm.
I mean.... I consider Martha McCallum and Allison Camerotta pretty faces....not Carol Costello...but your point is well taken....Carol Costello clearly is
Submitted by Beukeboom on Tue, 03/15/2011 - 2:38pm.
Carol Costello clearly is ignorant of history.To the Uneducated and Uninformed Three Mile Island is Scary
Submitted by richb313 on Tue, 03/15/2011 - 2:47pm.
Reporters/Journalists are not known for thier grasp of the Physical Sciences, Engineering, Safety, or anything else of much consequence. To them, the Under Educateded and Uninformed of the Press, the very name "Three Mile Island" is scary stuff, It does not matter to them that inspite of Human Error the system performed as designed and kept all the real killer radiation and Radioactive Materials locked up safely inside the Re-Enforced Concrete Containment Building. The only radiation that escaped was very minor and was released deliberatly in order to keep the pressures inside the Containment Building at acceptable levels. Reporters/news operations ,always and without exception no matter the political affliation, always over-hype the possible dangers and outcomes needlessly frightening the general public. There are always real consequences, never good, with this type sensational reporting. It is time that all news organizations be held responsible for causing a public panic.richb313
Submitted by hydrodynDM on Tue, 03/15/2011 - 3:16pm.
I'd say that a lot of people don't really understand the idea of nuclear power or radiation.
I worked at Brookhaven National Lab for a summer some years back and I remember one of the guys who worked there telling me that they would occasionally have to have meetings with representatives from the local community to address concerns about radiation and that despite these meetings, some within the community would still blame the lab for every occurrence of cancer or the cold that came up.
It never seemed to occur to some of these people that if the lab was that dangerous, no one would work there.
But in the case of reporters or news anchors, you would think that they would take the time to educate themselves about the topics they present to the public.
But my personal experience tells me that isn't the case when it comes to science. Listening to a news report about some topic is science is basically pointless. At worst, they will simply get it wrong and at best, the report will be devoid of any real informational content.
Watching some of the coverage
Submitted by TerryWest on Tue, 03/15/2011 - 2:50pm.
Watching some of the coverage by these people including CNN is like watching the check out counter magazines with headlines of alien invasions and babies with 3 heads come to life. One has to wonder if the increase in sales of iodine tablets isnt from these viewers alone not to mention increase in medication for anxiety and depression disorders. Most didn't have to watch the same wave footage for 24 hours to comprehend the enormity of the disaster yet they seemed to have done just that, it went from that to worse as anchors on the verge of hysteria bring worse case scenarios over and over again, the situation is bad enough without all the hyper sensationalism and non stop babble re what if's and could be'sCan any of them even think about anything anymore?
Submitted by Ashrak on Tue, 03/15/2011 - 2:52pm.
Critical thinking is lost on Journ0listers. Their mindset is "Three Mile Island = bad" and their thoughts do not go beyond that.
In this case, wishing for a Three Mile Island outcome can only be bad, forget about the reality that it could well turn into a Chernobyl if those working on the problems aren't successful.
Such is the product of blind indoctrination. Pure Idiocy.
It's very simple...
Submitted by c5then on Tue, 03/15/2011 - 2:56pm.
The left declared that Three Mile Island was a "disaster" way back in the mid 1970's when it occured so that they could kill nuclear energy in this country. So, of course it has been taught as a disater in the schools and in liberal culture for all these decades. Now we have liberal Journ-O-Listers who grew up "knowing" that Three Mile Island was a disaster without actually knowing what (if anything) actually happened. I actually heard a CNN report yesterday that used the Chernobyl and Three Mile Island "disasters" interchangably as if they were so similar as to make any differences meaningless.Madison and Jefferson and Franklin built a Republic - Roberts killed it!
This is but the beginning of
Submitted by Miss_Me_Yet on Tue, 03/15/2011 - 3:04pm.
This is but the beginning of the left wing bomb throwers, egged on by the Obama White House, inability to suppress their " Tempest in a Teapot " mentality.
A nuclear power plant in Japan withstands the combined effects of a magnitude 9.8 earthquake, followed up by a 16 foot tsunami, then only succumbs to the faulty placement of emergency back up generators and already Henny-Penny ( the MSM ) is calling for the immediate shutting down and permanent closure of all nuclear sights in this country.
The fact that these facilities, even at their age, did withstand the most powerful earthquake in recorded time, plus the rushing water without incident was not lost on the left, including the president. They merely see this as one more opportunity to " Never Let A Good Crisis Go To Waste ".
There are tens of thousands dead or missing, with 50 regular Japanese plant workers willingly giving their own lives, staying behind, fighting the good fight in a last chance attempt at saving millions of their fellow countrymen and Obama and the left are only concerned with advancing their misguided political agenda. If you ask me you cannot get any more un American, make that not human than that.
It would appear, to any sane individual anyway, that if our reactors are as well designed and built as those in Japan, all that is needed to avert this same thing from happening would be to place the back up emergency generators in a high enough location to keep them from being overcome by rushing water, if a tsunami were to follow an earthquake.
I would also suggest they run a pipeline from the ocean to all of the reactor sites, with an independent pumping system so in the worst case scenario sea water can be pumped in at a high enough rate to effectively cool the reactor before a melt down ever even became a possibility.
From what I understand, in Japan they are having to fill fire trucks then schlep the water to the various sights and pump it out through regular fire hoses, which we now all realize does not work.
Liberals ... we can't live with them, they couldn't survive without us ...
Let's recap the liberal MSM's
Submitted by Beukeboom on Tue, 03/15/2011 - 3:10pm.
Let's recap the liberal MSM's position on energy in the United States starting with nuclear:
1) Can't have nuclear because of the crisis in Japan
2) Can't drill for oil because of the oil spill off the Louisiana coast
3) Can't have wind farms because they are an eyesore (NIMBY), make a lot of noice and kill the little birdies
4) Can't have solar panel farms because they are an eyesore (NIMBY) and endanger endangered species
5) Can't have coal because it pollutes, causes health issues when mined and the miners can be trapped like those in Chile
6) Can't have geothermal because it can contaminate ground and lake water as well as endanger native fish
So what's left of which the liberal MSM can concur?
Well if some enterprising
Submitted by Miss_Me_Yet on Tue, 03/15/2011 - 3:23pm.
Well if some enterprising entrepreneur could invent a contraption that could capture all the hot air and flatulence emitted into the atmosphere by all the politicians and talking heads in Washington, it would surely be more than enough natural gas to power all of DC.
It's only a small step toward addressing the countries energy issues, but it's a step in the RIGHT direction anyway..
Liberals ... we can't live with them, they couldn't survive without us ...
Yeah, you suggest that. Apply for a patent on it.
Submitted by The Vet on Wed, 03/16/2011 - 6:15am.
barack_me_yet: I would also suggest they run a pipeline from the ocean to all of the reactor sites, with an independent pumping system so in the worst case scenario sea water can be pumped in at a high enough rate to effectively cool the reactor before a melt down ever even became a possibility.
Under what circumstances would a nuclear power plant use seawater to cool its reactors?
Using unpurified water is not a normal practice—it's never done. Plants don't take water from the river or the sea to supplement their own internal water, which is in completely closed-loop systems. Of course, they take in some amount of new water periodically to make up for evaporation and other losses like that, but this water is purified before it is used.
TEPCO's reactors lost the water below the normal operating condition, so they had to provide additional water for that. Salt-water obviously has a lot of minerals in it, and if it's taken directly from the sea, it has all sorts of other materials floating in it as well. Even if these things were filtered out, the chemistry of salt-water is not really compatible with what normally goes through the reactor. It's too corrosive for fuel elements. I would guess that after this water was introduced into the reactor cores, those cores would become completely unusable. This is because any materials in the water will attach to the surface of the fuel rods and make heat transfer unpredictable.
++++
Troll Alert -- The most vulgar profane troll NewsBusters has ever seen - Barack_must_go is now posting as Miss_Me_Yet.
Under conditions such as were
Submitted by Miss_Me_Yet on Wed, 03/16/2011 - 8:01am.
Under conditions such as those occurring yesterday at Fukushima. The ocean water would and should only be employed when all else fails. It would not be used to supplement for the lack of original coolant, instead it would be pumped throughout the entire inner and outer containment units continually until safe fuel rod temperature was achieved. Unfortunately the entire reactor would be damaged to the point of no return. Better that than the potential loss of millions of lives, over the ensuing years from exposure to escaping radiation.
Liberals ... we can't live with them, they couldn't survive without us ...
More people were killed in
Submitted by ex buff e-dub on Tue, 03/15/2011 - 3:03pm.
More people were killed in Philadelphia's abortion clinics in one year than Pennsylvania's 3 mile island. (Or Chernobyl, for that matter)→ Not to mention
Submitted by Cool Arrow on Tue, 03/15/2011 - 3:10pm.
Teddy Kennedy's car.Hey, Castello (is that really
Submitted by jdhawk on Tue, 03/15/2011 - 3:16pm.
Hey, Castello (is that really your name - apropos - Abott and Castello - one of two idiots. duhbama is golfing and checking out the basketball scores. So, why are you worrying? Wait a minute . . . Wait a minute . . . . This just in: duhbama is focusing like a laser on JOBS, JOBS, JOBS!!!A Vindication of Nuclear Power ?
Submitted by MLGoodell on Tue, 03/15/2011 - 3:38pm.
Anything less than a worst-case, catastrophic nuclear disaster, such as a massive radiation release resulting in the deaths of thousands, should be viewed as a vindication of Nuclear Power. Think of it. The only reason this crisis is occurring today is because the nuclear power plant was directly in the path of the second or third worst natural disaster in modern history. It was unforeseen. The scale was off the charts. Yet still, barring the worst development, the plant will have, if not survived, then have been closed down with minimal exposure to radiation. It is astounding the way the media have decided this is the story, even though the real story is the ongoing humanitarian disaster which should be humbling us all.Stupid by birth, ignorant by
Submitted by LAM SON 719 on Tue, 03/15/2011 - 3:59pm.
Stupid by birth, ignorant by choice.This is the result...
Submitted by ljacone on Tue, 03/15/2011 - 4:31pm.
...when the only "knowledge" you have of nuclear power comes from watching The China Syndrome.The current administration has already made it clear that that have no interest in next-gen nuclear power plants being built in this country due to the way they are handling the federal loan guarantees which all of the utilities and plant designers are counting on to back them up for construction. Georgia Power's Votgle site was awarded one but the limitations and conditions placed on it (which boil down to YOU WILL USE UNION LABOR, to which I respond... where you gonna find it in Georgia?) made GP seriously consider rejecting it. The Administration knows that most utilities will balk at the forced usage of a closed shop (especially considering the geographic locations of new construction facilities) and simply will suspend design, so that the Administration can point the finger at the utilities and say "See! It's THEIR fault!"
As soon as the news broke about the first hydrogen explosion I said to my coworker (both of us nuclear power engineers) that you can kiss anyone getting a loan guarantee in this country good bye. "We support nuclear power... just not the construction or operation of nuclear power plants."
It doesnt matter what the next form of energy is.
Submitted by Boudin on Tue, 03/15/2011 - 5:22pm.
The libtards will be against it.
Never mind that 20, maybe more, different engineering and Gov entities looked over every nut and bolt in those facility. You can bet the libtards will place the blame solely on the energy providers
People died at Three Mile Island
Submitted by Kingfish17 on Tue, 03/15/2011 - 4:44pm.
Here's an article about how people actually did die because of the Three Mile Island disaster. The author, Harvey Wasserman, obviously has no agenda, even though he also wrote the book, "Solartopia!: Our Green Powered Earth, A.D. 2030".
This article is full of facts, lists the names, dates and illnesses of all the people who died because of this nuclear tragedy. (OK, maybe I made that part up.)
Fascinating
And, if you go Amazon to check out this guys book, make sure you read the one review of his book, and then don't miss the comment of the review. Hilarious stuff.
"You can’t go take a trip to Las Vegas...on the taxpayer’s dime." Barack Obama
HEY, CAROL.......WHO'S ON FIRST......?
Submitted by Herbster on Tue, 03/15/2011 - 4:43pm.
Another empty skirt mediamoron heard from. Where do they get these people from? I understand that there has to be a quota of women, blacks, orientals, hispanics, Serbo-Croations, Maldive Islanders, etc., on every TV station, but, I was not aware of an equal opportunity need for ignorant people. Is there a moron quota? I know that Mika and Contessa and Norah fill the "Ignorance is bliss" needs at their respective stations, but this twit-ette Costello is beyond the pale. I understand that on her audition tape she recited "Ueey, gooey was a worm, what a worm was he." I hate to inform her, but, every time she rides in those really big airplanes, snuggles down in her window seat with her teddy bear she is being exposed to RADIATION! Anyhow, she's good for a laugh. I understand that at the end of her report she stated that "Nu-clear is usually followed by the all clear siren. Deep stuff!Hey Abbott!!!
Submitted by brutony1 on Tue, 03/15/2011 - 5:00pm.
Isnt that what she said before she commented on something she doesnt know, just like she doesnt know shat from shinola? She should have ended it with "Im a bad boyyyy!"When will liberals WAKE UP AND SMELL THE COFFEE! -Me
BRUTONY1 HERE'S MORE INFO ON LIBS........
Submitted by Herbster on Tue, 03/15/2011 - 5:45pm.
Liberals NEVER wake up and smell the coffee....they just wake up and smell........Thats true, but,,
Submitted by brutony1 on Tue, 03/15/2011 - 6:25pm.
It just baffles me, that in this day and age, they can still believe in and act the way they do! But what do I know, i just work here!When will liberals WAKE UP AND SMELL THE COFFEE! -Me
I got a chuckle out of this.
Submitted by Ashrak on Tue, 03/15/2011 - 5:48pm.
I was watching Maddow talk nuclear last night and, at every turn, she was asking every guest if she "got it right" or if she made mistakes.
She must have felt NewsBusters staff watching her show. LMAO.
Whatever Happened to....
Submitted by Metsie62 on Tue, 03/15/2011 - 7:56pm.
You know the cute dumb girl that was in your class in high school....reading about Kennedy being shot....they shot Ted Kennedy? pronounces Nazis as "Nayz eyes" Whatever happened to her? Oh yeah...she is a "journalist" on CNN it is really back to being Chicken Noodle NewsFrance
Submitted by Unsane on Tue, 03/15/2011 - 9:21pm.
When was the last time France had a nuclear accident?
"CONSUMED DEMOCRACY RETURNS A SOCIALIST REGIME" - Slayer, "Fictional Reality", from Divine Intervention (1994)
TMI in 79
Submitted by Hog_Flambe on Tue, 03/15/2011 - 10:57pm.
I was home sick ( cough cough ) from school that day. Still living the same distance, 40 miles, from the site. Aside from the alphabet soup networks reporting " responsiby " that day. My fondest memory is the release of Zappa's Sheik Yerbouti on " the very same.day" ... http://www.youtube.com/watch?xl=xl_blazer&v=RFvtoJrK1ZgTMI 80 to 84
Submitted by Radical1979 on Tue, 03/15/2011 - 11:01pm.
I went to college outside of Philly. Every year there was a TMI Radiation party. I don't know how we got away with it, kegs in the parking lots and all. Sigh. Good times. But I digress, back to serious stuff.Read up on Three Mile island
Submitted by wiwf on Wed, 03/16/2011 - 11:58am.
Read up on Three Mile island before you talk about it, sweetness. Good read!