China Syndrome (nuclear meltdown)

Summary: Nuclear scientists have used the term China Syndrome since the 1960s to describe the consequences of a nuclear plant meltdown. The 1979 movie The China Syndrome and the Three Mile Island accident shaped American public opinion about the nuclear industry.

According to the 10th edition of Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary, the term China Syndrome refers to the notion that the molten reactor contents of a nuclear facility in the United States could theoretically penetrate through the earth and reach China. As nuclear scientist Richard Muller noted, some scholars argued that, theoretically, the heat might be enough to let the fuel melt through the earth; some scholars argued that the meltdown would not move farther when it reached the center of the earth and gravity became negative; and other scholars believed that the fuel might only be able to melt down a few dozen meters.

The dictionary defines the term as it was first used in 1970. Historian of the nuclear age J. Samuel Walker believes that the term has been used by nuclear scientists since the 1960s. Historian of physics Spencer Weart has also noted that, soon after 1965, confidential warnings about the China Syndrome had been made by government safety researchers but gained little attention. The issue was later revisited by a group of students, scientists, and others who formed the Union of Concerned Scientists, based at the University of Boston. They found that the government spent a great deal of money studying how to develop nuclear facilities but little in studying how to manage possible emergencies. They publicized a report on this issue in March 1971. After that, the group received materials from unknown scientists about the risks of civil nuclear facilities; subsequently, it now focuses its agenda on the persistent issue of nuclear safety.

On December 12, 1971, Ralph Lapp—a Manhattan Projectphysicist who, with 76 other atomic scientists, in July 1945 had signed a petition urging President Harry Truman not to use the atomic bomb—used the term China Syndrome in his article “Thoughts on Nuclear Plumbing,” which was published in The New York Times that day. Several sources then attributed to Lapp the coining of the term, and although that might not be true, he is among the first people who impressed the public with the concept, as well as the consequences of nuclear radiation.

The popularization of the term is most likely attributable to the Burton Wohl’s novel The China Syndrome, followed by the movie, both released in 1979. The movie, starring Jane Fonda, Jack Lemmon, and Michael Douglas, tells the story of an accident at a nuclear power plant: A television reporter (Fonda) and her cameraman (Douglas), while visiting a nuclear plant, witness it going through an emergency shutdown. The plant’s shift supervisor, Jack Godell (Lemmon), gathers evidence that the plant is in severe danger of nuclear meltdown. Under threat from the company responsible for the faulty construction that caused the problem, Godell returns to the plant to find it at full power. Fearing nuclear meltdown, he forces everyone at gunpoint to leave the plant and insists on access to the media in order to forewarn the public of an imminent disaster, but the plant’s managers bring law enforcement officers to the site, who shoot him before he can expose the situation. At the end of the film, a live television report on the plant is abruptly cut, and no one in the public was warned.

The movie was reviewed by John Dowling, a spokesperson for the nuclear industry on some issues. He adopted an antinuclear perspective, exaggerating the consequences of a possible nuclear plant accident and baselessly proposing a conspiracy theory that nuclear power plant managers were serving profit machines and were unconcerned about public safety. Dissatisfied with misleading statements, Dowling suggested that the movie should criticize the nuclear weapon competitions rather than civil nuclear development. Even in a popular magazine, movie reviewer David Denby could not buy the movie’s portrayal of the nuclear plant management. A simple reason was that, only three days before the film was released, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission closed five nuclear power plants as unsafe in case of an earthquake. The decisions were made based on reports provided by the nuclear plants’ managers themselves.

The Three Mile Island accident happened on March 28, 1979, 12 days after the movie’s release, in a nuclear plant close to Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. Due to mechanical failure as well as human error, the nuclear reactor lost its coolant water and underwent a partial meltdown. When the shaken Pennsylvania governor announced the accident on television, the movie was in people’s minds, although it had been filmed long before the incident. Subsequent investigation found that the plant officials did delay reporting the accident to the government and industry experts had downplayed the seriousness of the consequences of the accident. Investigators also found that an automatic emergency system installed in the nuclear facility successfully prevented a major disaster, such as the one that occurred in 1986 at Chernobyl in Ukraine, then part of the Soviet Union. The Chernobyl reactor underwent a complete meltdown, killing 31 immediately and unknown numbers in the following years as a result of radiation released into the environment. Although no one was hurt at Three Mile Island, the remarkable coincidence of its occurrence at almost the same time the movie was released amplified the influence of the China Syndrome concept. Public perception of the consequences of a nuclear meltdown soon turned American public opinion against the use of nuclear power. Some environmentalists who were against nuclear power in the past advocated it as a clean energy resource that could mitigate global climate change.

The United States eventually resumed approving nuclear power plants. By 2024, the average age of US commercial nuclear power reactors was about forty-two years. Georgia is the site of several reactors in operation in the twenty-first century. For example, the Vogtle Electric Generating Plant's Unit 3 began producing commercial electricity in July 2023, while Unit 4 began operation in April 2024.

The nuclear industry was dealt another blow in 2011, when an earthquake triggered a tsunami that swept over the Fukushima Nuclear Power Plant in Japan, knocking out power. As a result, the cooling systems were not operational and the plant's three reactors melted down. A hydrogen explosion the next day released radiation into the air, triggering an evacuation in a 12-mile (20-km) radius. Explosions occurred in the other two reactors as well. More than 10,000 tons of low-level radioactive water was released into the water to make room in the holding tanks for more highly radioactive water. The government classified the accident as category seven, the highest level on the International Nuclear and Radiological Event Scale.

Bibliography

Denby, David. “More Heat Than Light.” New York Magazine, April 2, 1979.

Dowling, John. “The China Syndrome.” Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists 35, no. 6 (1979).

"Events at Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Plant Since the 2011 Earthquake, Tsunami and Nuclear Disaster." The Associated Press, 24 Aug. 2023, apnews.com/article/fukushima-nuclear-plant-timeline-0710658563458ed94c20517f49ff720f. Accessed 2 Aug. 2024.

Funabashi, Yoichi, and Marina Fujita Dickson. "Fukushima: Lessons Learned from a Devastating 'Near-Miss.'" Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, vol. 79, no. 3, 2023, pp. 161-165. doi.org/10.1080/00963402.2023.2200121. Accessed 2 Aug. 2024.

Muller, R. Physics for Future Presidents: The Science Behind the Headlines. New York: Norton, 2006.

Tomain, Joseph P. “Nuclear Futures.” Duke Environmental Law and Policy Forum 15, no. 221 (2005).

Walker, J. Samuel. Three Mile Island: A Nuclear Crisis in Historic Perspective. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 2004.

Weart, Spencer R. Nuclear Fear: A History of Images. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1988.