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Three Mile Island accident

The Three Mile Island accident was a partial nuclear meltdown of the Unit 2 reactor (TMI-2) of the Three Mile Island Nuclear Generating Station on the Susquehanna River in Londonderry Township, near Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. The reactor accident began at 4:00 a.m. on March 28, 1979, and released radioactive gases and radioactive iodine into the environment. It is the worst accident in U.S. commercial nuclear power plant history. On the seven-point logarithmic International Nuclear Event Scale, the TMI-2 reactor accident is rated Level5, an "Accident with Wider Consequences".

The accident began with failures in the non-nuclear secondary system, followed by a stuck-open pilot-operated relief valve (PORV) in the primary system, which allowed large amounts of water to escape from the pressurized isolated coolant loop. The mechanical failures were compounded by the initial failure of plant operators to recognize the situation as a loss-of-coolant accident (LOCA). TMI training and operating procedures left operators and management ill-prepared for the deteriorating situation caused by the LOCA. During the accident, those inadequacies were compounded by design flaws, such as poor control design, the use of multiple similar alarms, and a failure of the equipment to indicate either the coolant-inventory level or the position of the stuck-open PORV.

The accident heightened anti-nuclear safety concerns among the general public and led to new regulations for the nuclear industry. It accelerated the decline of efforts to build new reactors. Anti-nuclear movement activists expressed worries about regional health effects from the accident. Some epidemiological studies analyzing the rate of cancer in and around the area since the accident did determine that there was a statistically significant increase in the rate of cancer, while other studies did not. Due to the nature of such studies, a causal connection linking the accident with cancer is difficult to prove. Cleanup at TMI-2 started in August 1979 and officially ended in December 1993, with a total cost of about $1 billion (equivalent to $ billion in ). TMI-1 was restarted in 1985, then retired in 2019 due to operating losses. Its decommissioning is expected to be complete in 2079 at an estimated cost of $1.2 billion.

Background
In the night hours before the incident, the TMI-2 reactor was running at 97% power while the companion TMI-1 reactor was shut down for refueling. The main chain of events leading to the partial core meltdown on Wednesday March 28, 1979, began at 4:00:36 a.m. EST in TMI-2's secondary loop, one of the three main water/steam loops in a pressurized water reactor.

The initial cause of the accident happened 11 hours earlier, during an attempt by operators to fix a blockage in one of the eight condensate polishers, the sophisticated filters cleaning the secondary loop water. These filters are designed to stop minerals and other impurities in the water from accumulating in the steam generators and to decrease corrosion rates on the secondary side.

Blockages are common with these resin filters and are usually fixed easily, but in this case, the usual method of forcing the stuck resin out with compressed air did not succeed. The operators decided to blow compressed air into the water and let the force of the water clear the resin. When they forced the resin out, a small amount of water forced its way past a stuck-open check valve and found its way into an instrument air line. This would eventually cause the feedwater pumps, condensate booster pumps, and condensate pumps to turn off around 4:00 a.m., which would, in turn, cause a turbine trip.

Reactor overheating and malfunction of relief valve
Given that the steam generators were no longer receiving feedwater, heat transfer from the reactor coolant system (RCS) was greatly reduced, and RCS temperature rose. The rapidly heating coolant expanded and surged into the pressurizer,  compressing the steam bubble at the top. When RCS pressure rose to 2255 psi, the pilot-operated relief valve (PORV) opened, relieving steam through piping to the reactor coolant drain tank in the containment building basement. RCS pressure continued to rise, reaching the reactor protection system high-pressure trip setpoint of 2355 psi eight seconds after the turbine trip. The reactor automatically tripped, its control rods falling into the core under gravity, halting the nuclear chain reaction and stopping the heat generated by fission. However, the reactor continued to generate decay heat, initially equivalent to approximately 6% of the pre-trip power level. Because steam was no longer being used by the turbine and feed was not being supplied to the steam generators, heat removal from the reactor's primary water loop was limited to steaming the small amount of water remaining in the secondary side of the steam generators to the condenser using turbine bypass valves.

When the feedwater pumps tripped, three emergency feedwater pumps started automatically. An operator noted that the pumps were running but did not notice that a block valve was closed in each of the two emergency feedwater lines, blocking emergency feed flow to both steam generators. The valve position lights for one block valve were covered by a yellow maintenance tag. The reason why the operator missed the lights for the second valve is not known, although one theory is that his own large belly hid it from his view. The valves may have been left closed during a surveillance test two days earlier. With the block valves closed, the system was unable to pump water. The closure of these valves was a violation of a key Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) rule, according to which the reactor must be shut down if all auxiliary feed pumps are closed for maintenance. This was later singled out by NRC officials as a key failure.

After the reactor tripped, secondary system steam valves operated to reduce steam generator temperature and pressure, cooling the RCS and lowering RCS temperature, as designed, resulting in a contraction of the primary coolant. With the coolant contraction and loss of coolant through the open PORV, RCS pressure dropped as did pressurizer level after peaking 15 seconds after the turbine trip. Also, 15 seconds after the turbine trip, coolant pressure had dropped to 2205 psi, the reset setpoint for the PORV. Electric power to the PORV's solenoid was automatically cut, but the relief valve was stuck open with coolant water continuing to be released.

In post-accident investigations, the indication for the PORV was one of many design flaws identified in the operators' controls, instruments and alarms. There was no direct indication of the valve's actual position. A light on a control panel, installed after the PORV had stuck open during startup testing, came on when the PORV opened. When that light—labeled Light on – RC-RV2 open —went out, the operators believed that the valve was closed. In fact, the light when on only indicated that the PORV pilot valve's solenoid was powered, not the actual status of the PORV. While the main relief valve was stuck open, the operators believed the unlighted lamp meant the valve was shut. As a result, they did not correctly diagnose the problem for several hours.

The operators had not been trained to understand the ambiguous nature of the PORV indicator and to look for alternative confirmation that the main relief valve was closed. A downstream temperature indicator, the sensor for which was located in the tail pipe between the pilot-operated relief valve and the pressurizer relief tank, could have hinted at a stuck valve had operators noticed its higher-than-normal reading. It was not, however, part of the "safety grade" suite of indicators designed to be used after an incident, and personnel had not been trained to use it. Its location behind the seven-foot-high instrument panel also meant that it was effectively out of sight.

Depressurization of primary reactor cooling system
Less than a minute after the beginning of the event, the water level in the pressurizer began to rise, even though RCS pressure was falling. With the PORV stuck open, coolant was being lost from the RCS, a loss-of-coolant accident (LOCA). Expected symptoms for a LOCA were drops in both RCS pressure and pressurizer level. The operators' training and plant procedures did not cover a situation where the two parameters went in opposite directions. The water level in the pressurizer was rising because the steam in the space at the top of the pressurizer was being vented through the stuck-open PORV, lowering the pressure in the pressurizer because of the lost inventory. The lowering of pressure in the pressurizer made water from the coolant loop surge in and created a steam bubble in the reactor pressure vessel head, aided by the decay heat from the fuel.

This steam bubble was invisible for the operators, and this mechanism had not been trained. Indications of high water levels in the pressurizer contributed to confusion, as operators were concerned about the primary loop "going solid", (i.e., no steam pocket buffer existing in the pressurizer) which in training they had been instructed to never allow. This confusion was a key contributor to the initial failure to recognize the accident as a LOCA and led operators to turn off the emergency core cooling pumps, which had automatically started after the PORV stuck and core coolant loss began, due to fears the system was being overfilled.

With the PORV still open, the pressurizer relief tank that collected the discharge from the PORV overfilled, causing the containment building sump to fill and sound an alarm at 4:11 a.m. This alarm, along with higher than normal temperatures on the PORV discharge line and unusually high containment building temperatures and pressures, were clear indications that there was an ongoing LOCA, but these indications were initially ignored by operators. At 4:15 a.m., the relief diaphragm of the pressurizer relief tank ruptured, and radioactive coolant began to leak into the general containment building. This radioactive coolant was pumped from the containment building sump to an auxiliary building, outside the main containment, until the sump pumps were stopped at 4:39 a.m.

Partial meltdown and further release of radioactive substances
At about 5:20a.m., after almost 80 minutes with a growing steam bubble in the reactor pressure vessel head, the primary loop's four main reactor coolant pumps began to cavitate as a steam bubble/water mixture, rather than water, passed through them. The pumps were shut down, and it was believed that natural circulation would continue the water movement. Steam in the system prevented flow through the core, and as the water stopped circulating it was converted to steam in increasing amounts. Soon after 6:00a.m., the top of the reactor core was exposed, and the intense heat caused a reaction to occur between the steam forming in the reactor core and the zircaloy nuclear fuel rod cladding, yielding zirconium dioxide, hydrogen, and additional heat. This reaction melted the nuclear fuel rod cladding and damaged the fuel pellets, which released radioactive isotopes to the reactor coolant and produced hydrogen gas that is believed to have caused a small explosion in the containment building later that afternoon.

[[File:Graphic TMI-2 Core End-State Configuration.png|thumb|upright=1.4|A NRC graphic of the TMI-2 core end-state configuration. 1. 2B inlet

2. 1A inlet

3. cavity

4. loose core debris

5. crust

6. previously molten material

7. lower plenum debris

8. possible region depleted in uranium

9. ablated incore instrument guide

10. hole in baffle plate

11. coating of previously-molten material on bypass region interior surfaces

12. upper grid damage ]]

At 6:00 a.m. there was a shift change in the control room. A new arrival noticed that the temperatures in the PORV tail pipe and the holding tanks were excessive, and used a backup—called a block valve—to shut off the coolant venting via the PORV, but around 32000 USgal of coolant had already leaked from the primary loop. It was not until 6:45a.m., 165 minutes after the start of the problem, that radiation alarms activated when the contaminated water reached detectors; by that time, the radiation levels in the primary coolant water were around 300 times expected levels, and the general containment building was seriously contaminated with radiations levels of 800 rem/h.

Emergency declaration and immediate aftermath
At 6:56a.m. a plant supervisor declared a site area emergency, and less than 30 minutes later station manager Gary Miller announced a general emergency. Metropolitan Edison (Met Ed) notified the Pennsylvania Emergency Management Agency, which in turn contacted state and local agencies, Pennsylvania Governor Richard L. Thornburgh and Lieutenant Governor William Scranton III, to whom Thornburgh assigned responsibility for collecting and reporting on information about the accident. The uncertainty of operators at the plant was reflected in fragmentary, ambiguous, or contradictory statements made by Met Ed to government agencies and to the press, particularly about the possibility and severity of off-site radioactivity releases.

Scranton held a press conference in which he was reassuring, yet confusing, about this possibility, stating that though there had been a "small release of radiation...no increase in normal radiation levels" had been detected. These were contradicted by another official, and by statements from Met Ed, who both claimed that no radioactivity had been released. Readings from instruments at the plant and off-site detectors had detected radioactivity releases, albeit at levels that were unlikely to threaten public health as long as they were temporary, and providing that containment of the then highly contaminated reactor was maintained.

Angry that Met Ed had not informed them before conducting a steam venting from the plant, and convinced that the company was downplaying the severity of the accident, state officials turned to the NRC. After receiving word of the accident from Met Ed, the NRC had activated its emergency response headquarters in Bethesda, Maryland, and sent staff members to Three Mile Island. NRC chairman Joseph Hendrie and commissioner Victor Gilinsky initially viewed the accident as a "cause for concern but not alarm".

Gilinsky briefed reporters and members of Congress on the situation and informed White House staff, and at 10:00 a.m. met with two other commissioners. However, the NRC faced the same problems in obtaining accurate information as the state and was further hampered by being organizationally ill-prepared to deal with emergencies, as it lacked a clear command structure and did not have the authority either to tell the utility what to do or to order an evacuation of the local area.

In a 2009 article, Gilinsky wrote that it took five weeks to learn that "the reactor operators had measured fuel temperatures near the melting point". He further wrote: "We didn't learn for years—until the reactor vessel was physically opened—that by the time the plant operator called the NRC at about 8:00 a.m., roughly half of the uranium fuel had already melted."

It was still not clear to the control room staff that the primary loop water levels were low and that over half of the core was exposed. A group of workers took manual readings from the thermocouples and obtained a sample of primary loop water. Seven hours into the emergency, new water was pumped into the primary loop and the backup relief valve was opened to reduce pressure so that the loop could be filled with water. After 16 hours, the primary loop pumps were turned on once again, and the core temperature began to fall. A large part of the core had melted, and the system was dangerously radioactive.

On the day following the accident, March 29, control room operators needed to ensure the integrity of the reactor vessel. In order to do this, someone needed to draw a boron concentration sample in order to ensure there was enough of it in the primary system to shut down the reactor entirely. Unit 2's chemistry supervisor, Edward "Ed" Houser, volunteered to draw the sample after his co-workers were hesitant. Shift supervisor Richard Dubiel asked Pete Velez, the radiation protection foreman for Unit 2, to join Houser. Velez would monitor airborne radiation levels and ensure that no overexposure would occur for either of them.

Wearing excessive amounts of protective clothing—three pairs of gloves, one pair of rubber boots and a respirator—the two navigated the reactor auxiliary building to draw the sample. However, Houser had lost his pocket dosimeter while taking measurements. Houser had noted the sample he drew looked "like Alka-Seltzer" and was highly radioactive, with readings as high as 1,000 rem/h. The two spent five minutes in the building, then withdrew. Houser had gone past the NRC's quarterly dose limit for radiation exposure (3 rem/qtr in 1979) by one and was only admitted back to work the following quarter.

On the third day following the accident, a hydrogen bubble was discovered in the dome of the pressure vessel and became the focus of concern. A hydrogen explosion could breach the pressure vessel and, depending on its magnitude, might compromise the integrity of the containment building leading to a large-scale release of radioactive material. However, it was determined that there was no oxygen present in the pressure vessel, a prerequisite for hydrogen to burn or explode. Immediate steps were taken to reduce the hydrogen bubble, and by the following day it was significantly smaller. Over the next week, steam and hydrogen were removed from the reactor using a catalytic recombiner and by venting directly into the open air.

Identification of released radioactive material
The release occurred when the cladding was damaged while the PORV was still stuck open. Fission products were released into the reactor coolant. Since the PORV was stuck open and the loss of coolant accident was still in progress, primary coolant with fission products and/or fuel was released and ultimately ended up in the auxiliary building. The auxiliary building was outside the containment boundary.

This was evidenced by the radiation alarms that eventually sounded. However, since very little of the fission products released were solids at room temperature, very little radiological contamination was reported in the environment. No significant level of radiation was attributed to the TMI-2 accident outside of the TMI-2 facility. According to the Rogovin report, the vast majority of the radioisotopes released were noble gases xenon and krypton resulting in an average dose of 1.4 mrem to the two million people near the plant. In comparison, a patient receives 3.2 mrem from a chest X-ray—more than twice the average dose of those received near the plant. On average, a U.S. resident receives an annual radiation exposure from natural sources of about 310 mrem.

Within hours of the accident, the United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) began daily sampling of the environment at the three stations closest to the plant. Continuous monitoring at 11 stations was established on April 1 and was expanded to 31 stations on April 3. An inter-agency analysis concluded that the accident did not raise radioactivity far enough above background levels to cause even one additional cancer death among the people in the area, but measures of beta radiation were not included because the EPA found no contamination in water, soil, sediment, or plant samples.

Researchers at nearby Dickinson College—which had radiation monitoring equipment sensitive enough to detect Chinese atmospheric atomic weapons-testing—collected soil samples from the area for the ensuing two weeks and detected no elevated levels of radioactivity, except after rainfalls (likely from natural radon plate-out, not the accident). Also, the tongues of white-tailed deer harvested over 50 mi from the reactor subsequent to the accident were found to have significantly higher levels of cesium-137 than in deer in the counties immediately surrounding the power plant. Even then, the elevated levels were still below those seen in deer in other parts of the country during the height of atmospheric weapons testing. Had there been elevated releases of radioactivity, increased levels of iodine-131 and cesium-137 would have been expected to be detected in cattle and goat's milk samples. Elevated levels were not found. A later study noted that the official emission figures were consistent with available dosimeter data, though others have noted the incompleteness of this data, particularly for releases early on.

Kemeny Commission
Several state and federal government agencies mounted investigations into the crisis, the most prominent of which was the President's Commission on the Accident at Three Mile Island, created by U.S. President Jimmy Carter in April 1979. The commission consisted of a panel of 12 people, specifically chosen for their lack of strong pro- or anti-nuclear views, and headed by chairman John G. Kemeny, president of Dartmouth College. It was instructed to produce a final report within six months, and after public hearings, depositions, and document collection, released a completed study on October 31, 1979.

According to the official figures, as compiled by the 1979 Kemeny Commission from Met Ed and NRC data, a maximum of 480 PBq of radioactive noble gases, primarily xenon, were released by the event. These noble gases were considered relatively harmless, and only 481 - 629 GBq of thyroid cancer-causing iodine-131 were released. Total releases according to these figures were a relatively small proportion of the estimated 370 EBq in the reactor. It was later found that about half the core had melted, and the cladding around 90% of the fuel rods had failed, with 5 ft of the core gone, and around 20 ST of uranium flowing to the bottom head of the pressure vessel, forming a mass of corium. The reactor vessel—the second level of containment after the cladding—maintained integrity and contained the damaged fuel with nearly all of the radioactive isotopes in the core.

Anti-nuclear political groups disputed the Kemeny Commission's findings, claiming that other independent measurements provided evidence of radiation levels up to seven times higher than normal in locations hundreds of miles downwind from TMI. Arnie Gundersen, a former nuclear industry executive and anti-nuclear advocate, said "I think the numbers on the NRC's website are off by a factor of 100 to 1,000". Gundersen offers evidence, based on pressure monitoring data, for a hydrogen explosion shortly before 2:00 p.m. on March 28, 1979, which would have provided the means for a high dose of radiation to occur. Gundersen cites affidavits from four reactor operators according to which the plant manager was aware of a dramatic pressure spike, after which the internal pressure dropped to outside pressure. Gundersen also claimed that the control room shook and doors were blown off hinges. However, official NRC reports refer merely to a "hydrogen burn".

The Kemeny Commission referred to "a burn or an explosion that caused pressure to increase by 28 psi in the containment building", while The Washington Post reported that "At about 2:00 pm, with pressure almost down to the point where the huge cooling pumps could be brought into play, a small hydrogen explosion jolted the reactor." Work performed for the Department of Energy in the 1980s determined that the hydrogen burn (deflagration), which went essentially unnoticed for the first few days, occurred 9 hours and 50 minutes after initiation of the accident, had a duration of 12 to 15 seconds and did not involve a detonation.

The investigation strongly criticized Babcock & Wilcox, Met Ed, General Public Utilities, and the NRC for lapses in quality assurance and maintenance, inadequate operator training, lack of communication of important safety information, poor management, and complacency, but avoided drawing conclusions about the future of the nuclear industry. The heaviest criticism from the Kemeny Commission said that "... fundamental changes will be necessary in the organization, procedures, and practices—and above all—in the attitudes" of the NRC and the nuclear industry. Kemeny said that the actions taken by the operators were "inappropriate" but that the workers "were operating under procedures that they were required to follow, and our review and study of those indicates that the procedures were inadequate" and that the control room "was greatly inadequate for managing an accident".

The Kemeny Commission noted that Babcock & Wilcox's PORV had previously failed on 11 occasions, nine of them in the open position, allowing coolant to escape. The initial causal sequence of events at TMI had been duplicated 18 months earlier at another Babcock & Wilcox reactor, the Davis–Besse Nuclear Power Station. The only differences were that the operators at Davis–Besse identified the valve failure after 20 minutes, where at TMI it took 80 minutes, and the fact that the Davis–Besse facility was operating at 9% power, against TMI's 97%. Although Babcock engineers recognized the problem, the company failed to clearly notify its customers of the valve issue.

The Pennsylvania House of Representatives conducted its own investigation, which focused on the need to improve evacuation procedures.

In 1985, a television camera was used to see the interior of the damaged reactor. In 1986, core samples and samples of debris were obtained from the corium layers on the bottom of the reactor vessel and analyzed.

Voluntary evacuation
On Wednesday, March 28, hours after the accident began, Lieutenant Governor Scranton appeared at a news briefing to say that Met Ed had assured the state that "everything is under control". Later that day, Scranton changed his statement, saying that the situation was "more complex than the company first led us to believe". There were conflicting statements about radioactivity releases. Schools were closed, and residents were urged to stay indoors. Farmers were told to keep their animals under cover and on stored feed.

"Based on the advice of the Chairman of the NRC and in the interest of taking every precaution, I am advising those who may be particularly susceptible to the effects of any radiation, that is, pregnant women and pre-school aged children, to leave the area within a five-mile radius of the Three Mile Island facility until further notice. We've also ordered the closings of any schools within this area."

Governor Thornburgh, on the advice of NRC chairman Joseph Hendrie, advised the evacuation "of pregnant women and pre-school age children...within a five-mile radius of the Three Mile Island facility". The evacuation zone was extended to a 20-mile radius on March 30. Within days, 140,000 people had left the area. More than half of the 663,500 population within the 20-mile radius remained in that area. According to a survey conducted in April 1979, 98% of the evacuees had returned to their homes within three weeks.

Post-TMI surveys have shown that less than 50% of the American public were satisfied with the way the accident was handled by Pennsylvania state officials and the NRC, and people surveyed were even less pleased with the utility (General Public Utilities) and the plant designer.

Effect on nuclear power industry
According to the IAEA, the Three Mile Island accident was a significant turning point in the global development of nuclear power. From 1963 to 1979, the number of reactors under construction globally increased every year except in 1971 and 1978. However, following the event, the number of reactors under construction in the U.S. declined from 1980 to 1998, with increasing construction costs and delayed completion dates for some reactors. Many similar Babcock & Wilcox reactors on order were canceled. In total, 51 U.S. nuclear reactors were canceled between 1980 and 1984.

The accident did not initiate the demise of the U.S. nuclear power industry, but it did halt its historic growth. Additionally, as a result of the earlier 1973 oil crisis and post-crisis analysis with conclusions of potential overcapacity in base load, 40 planned nuclear power plants already had been canceled before the accident. At the time of the incident, 129 nuclear power plants had been approved, but of those, only 53 which were not already operating were completed. During the lengthy review process, complicated by the Chernobyl disaster seven years later, Federal requirements to correct safety issues and design deficiencies became more stringent, local opposition became more strident, construction times were significantly lengthened and costs skyrocketed. Until 2012, no U.S. nuclear power plant had been authorized to begin construction since the year before 1978. Globally, the end of the increase in nuclear power plant construction came with the more catastrophic Chernobyl disaster in 1986 (see graph).

Cleanup
Initially, GPU planned to repair the reactor and return it into service. However, TMI-2 was too badly damaged and contaminated to resume operations; the reactor was gradually deactivated and permanently closed. TMI-2 had been online for only three months but now had a ruined reactor vessel and a containment building that was unsafe to walk in. Cleanup started in August 1979 and officially ended in December 1993, with a total cleanup cost of about $1 billion. Benjamin K. Sovacool, in his 2007 preliminary assessment of major energy accidents, estimated that the TMI accident caused a total of $2.4 billion in property damages.

Efforts focused on the cleanup and decontamination of the site, especially the defueling of the damaged reactor. Starting in 1985, almost 100 ST of radioactive fuel were removed from the site. Planning and work was partially hampered by too-optimistic views about the damage.

In 1988, the NRC announced that, although it was possible to further decontaminate the Unit 2 site, the remaining radioactivity had been sufficiently contained as to pose no threat to public health and safety. The first major phase of the cleanup was completed in 1990, when workers finished shipping 150 ST of radioactive wreckage to Idaho for storage at the Department of Energy's National Engineering Laboratory. However, the contaminated cooling water that leaked into the containment building had seeped into the building's concrete, leaving the radioactive residue too impractical to remove. Accordingly, further cleanup efforts were deferred to allow for decay of the radiation levels and to take advantage of the potential economic benefits of retiring both Unit 1 and Unit 2 together.

Health effects and epidemiology
In the aftermath of the accident, investigations focused on the amount of radioactivity released. In total, approximately 2.5 MCi of radioactive gases and approximately 15 Ci of iodine-131 were released into the environment. According to the American Nuclear Society, using the official radioactivity emission figures, "The average radiation dose to people living within 10 miles of the plant was eight millirem (0.08 mSv), and no more than 100 millirem (1 mSv) to any single individual. Eight millirem is about equal to a chest X-ray, and 100 millirem is about a third of the average background level of radiation received by US residents in a year."

According to health researcher Joseph Mangano, early scientific publications estimated no additional cancer deaths in the 10 mi area around TMI, based on these numbers. Disease rates in areas farther than 10 miles from the plant were not examined. Local activism in the 1980s, based on anecdotal reports of negative health effects, led to scientific studies being commissioned. A variety of epidemiology studies have concluded that the accident had no observable long-term health effects.

A peer-reviewed research article by Dr. Steven Wing found a significant increase in cancers between 1979 and 1985 among people who lived within ten miles of TMI. In 2009, Dr. Wing stated that radiation releases during the accident were probably "thousands of times greater" than the NRC's estimates. A retrospective study of the Pennsylvania Cancer Registry found an increased incidence of thyroid cancer in some counties south of TMI (although, notably, not in Dauphin County where the reactor was located) and in high-risk age groups but did not draw a causal link between these incidences and the accident. The Talbott lab at the University of Pittsburgh reported finding a few, small increased cancer risks within the TMI population. A more recent study reached "findings consistent with observations from other radiation-exposed populations," raising "the possibility that radiation released from [Three Mile Island] may have altered the molecular profile of [thyroid cancer] in the population surrounding TMI", establishing a potential causal mechanism, although not definitively proving causation.

The Radiation and Public Health Project, an organization with little credibility among epidemiologists, cited calculations by Mangano that showed a spike in infant mortality in downwind communities two years after the accident. Anecdotal evidence also records effects on the region's wildlife. John Gofman used his own, non-peer reviewed low-level radiation health model to predict 333 excess cancer or leukemia deaths from the 1979 Three Mile Island accident. The ongoing TMI epidemiological research has been accompanied by a discussion of problems in dose estimates due to a lack of accurate data, as well as illness classifications.

Activism and legal action
The accident enhanced the perceived credibility of anti-nuclear groups and triggered protests around the world. President Carter—who had specialized in nuclear power while in the United States Navy—told his cabinet after visiting the plant that the accident was minor but reportedly declined to do so in public, in order to avoid offending Democrats who opposed nuclear power.

Members of the American public, concerned about the release of radioactive gas from the accident, staged numerous anti-nuclear demonstrations across the country in the following months. The largest demonstration was held in New York City in September 1979 and involved 200,000 people, with speeches given by Jane Fonda and Ralph Nader. The New York rally was held in conjunction with a series of nightly "No Nukes" concerts given at Madison Square Garden from September 19 to 23 by Musicians United for Safe Energy. In the previous May, an estimated 65,000 people—including California Governor Jerry Brown—attended a march and rally against nuclear power in Washington, D.C.

In 1981, citizens' groups succeeded in a class action suit against TMI, winning $25 million in an out-of-court settlement. Part of this money was used to found the TMI Public Health Fund. In 1983, a federal grand jury indicted Metropolitan Edison on criminal charges for the falsification of safety test results prior to the accident. Under a plea-bargaining agreement, Met Ed pleaded guilty to one count of falsifying records and no contest to six other charges, four of which were dropped, and agreed to pay a $45,000 fine and set up a $1 million account to help with emergency planning in the area surrounding the plant.

According to Eric Epstein, chair of Three Mile Island Alert, the TMI plant operator and its insurers paid at least $82 million in publicly documented compensation to residents for "loss of business revenue, evacuation expenses and health claims." However, a class action lawsuit alleging that the accident caused detrimental health effects was rejected by Harrisburg U.S. District Court Judge Sylvia Rambo. The appeal of the decision to the U.S. Third Circuit Court of Appeals also failed.

Normal accident theory
The Three Mile Island accident inspired Charles Perrow's normal accident theory, which attempts to describe "unanticipated interactions of multiple failures in a complex system". TMI was an example of this type of accident because it was "unexpected, incomprehensible, uncontrollable and unavoidable."

"Perrow concluded that the failure at Three Mile Island was a consequence of the system's immense complexity. Such modern high-risk systems, he realized, were prone to failures however well they were managed. It was inevitable that they would eventually suffer what he termed a 'normal accident'. Therefore, he suggested, we might do better to contemplate a radical redesign, or if that was not possible, to abandon such technology entirely."

"Normal" accidents, or system accidents, are so called by Perrow because such accidents are inevitable in extremely complex systems. Given the characteristic of the system involved, multiple failures that interact with each other will occur, despite efforts to avoid them. Events which appear trivial initially cascade and multiply unpredictably, creating a much larger catastrophic event.

"Normal Accidents contributed key concepts to a set of intellectual developments in the 1980s that revolutionized the conception of safety and risk. It made the case for examining technological failures as the product of highly interacting systems, and highlighted organizational and management factors as the main causes of failures. Technological disasters could no longer be ascribed to isolated equipment malfunction, operator error or acts of God."

Comparison to U.S. Navy operations
After the TMI incident, President Carter commissioned a study, Report of the President's Commission on the Accident at Three Mile Island (1979).

Admiral Hyman G. Rickover was later asked to tell Congress why naval nuclear propulsion (as used in submarines) had suffered no reactor accidents, defined as the uncontrolled release of fission products to the environment resulting from damage to a reactor core. In his testimony, Rickover said:

"Over the years, many people have asked me how I run the Naval Reactors Program, so that they might find some benefit for their own work. I am always chagrined at the tendency of people to expect that I have a simple, easy gimmick that makes my program function. Any successful program functions as an integrated whole of many factors. Trying to select one aspect as the key one will not work. Each element depends on all the others."

Current status
After the incident at TMI-2, the NRC suspended the license to operate TMI-1, which was owned and operated by Met Ed, one of General Public Utilities Corporation's regional utility operating companies. In 1982, the citizens of the three counties surrounding the site voted overwhelmingly in a non-binding resolution to retire Unit 1 permanently. In 1985, a 4–1 vote by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission allowed TMI-1 to resume operations.

GPU formed General Public Utilities Nuclear Corporation as a subsidiary to own and operate the company's nuclear facilities, including Three Mile Island. In 1996, General Public Utilities shortened its name to GPU Inc. In 1998, GPU sold TMI-1 to AmerGen Energy Corporation, a joint venture between Philadelphia Electric Company and British Energy. (GPU was legally obliged to continue to maintain and monitor TMI-2.) In 2001, GPU was acquired by FirstEnergy Corporation and dissolved, and the maintenance and administration of Unit 2 was contracted to AmerGen.

In 2000, Philadelphia Electric merged with Unicom Corporation to form Exelon. In 2003, Exelon bought the remaining shares of AmerGen from British Energy. In 2009, Exelon Nuclear absorbed and dissolved AmerGen. Along with TMI Unit 1, Exelon Nuclear operates Clinton Power Station and several other nuclear facilities.

Unit 2 continues to be licensed and regulated by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission in a condition known as Post Defueling Monitored Storage. The TMI-2 reactor has been permanently shut down with the reactor coolant system drained, the radioactive water decontaminated and evaporated, radioactive waste shipped off-site, reactor fuel and most core debris shipped off-site to a Department of Energy facility, and the remainder of the site being monitored. The owner planned to keep the facility in long-term, monitoring storage until the operating license for the TMI-1 plant expired, at which time both plants would be decommissioned.

In 2009, the NRC granted a license extension which allowed the TMI-1 reactor to operate until April 19, 2034. In 2017, it was announced that operations would cease by 2019 due to financial pressure from inexpensive natural gas, unless lawmakers stepped in to keep it open. When it became clear that the subsidy legislation would not pass, Exelon decided to retire the plant. TMI Unit 1 shut down on September 20, 2019. Following the permanent shutdown, Unit 1 is in decommissioning, moving to SAFSTOR status.

In 2020 the site was purchased by TMI-2 solutions, a subsidiary of EnergySolutions, with the intent of cleaning up the site for less money than is available in a dedicated fund. On May 8, 2023, TMI-2 solutions announced that 99% of the nuclear fuel has been cleaned up and that the site has entered the next phase of clean-up that will last until 2029. TMI-2 solutions plans to finish clean-up and demolish the plant by 2052.

In popular culture
On March 15, 1979, twelve days before the accident, the movie The China Syndrome premiered and was initially met with backlash from the nuclear power industry, claiming it to be "sheer fiction" and a "character assassination of an entire industry". In the film, television reporter Kimberly Wells (Jane Fonda) and her cameraman Richard Adams (Michael Douglas) secretly film a major accident at a nuclear power plant while taping a series on nuclear power. At one point in the film, an official tells Wells that an explosion at the plant "could render an area the size of the state of Pennsylvania permanently uninhabitable". After the release of the film, Fonda began lobbying against nuclear power. In an attempt to counter her efforts, Edward Teller, a nuclear physicist and long-time government science adviser best known for contributing to the Teller–Ulam design breakthrough that made hydrogen bombs possible, personally lobbied in favor of nuclear power. Teller suffered a heart attack shortly after the incident and joked that he was the only person whose health was affected.

Meltdown: Three Mile Island is a four-part docuseries released by Netflix on May 4, 2022. The documentary recounts the events, controversies, and lingering effects of the accident. Featured in the series are Rick Parks, a TMI nuclear engineer turned whistleblower; Lake Barrett, an independent energy consultant who served as the NRC's on-site director for the TMI-2 cleanup; Eric Epstein, chairman of TMI Alert, a nuclear watchdog organization in central Pennsylvania; Michio Kaku, an American theoretical physicist; and residents of the communities affected by the event.

The Three Mile Island accident plays a pivotal role in Heat and Light, a 2016 novel by Jennifer Haigh.

Radioactive: The Women of Three Mile Island is a 2023 documentary about the accident.

Publications

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title: Three Mile Island accident


text:
Anarchism and violence

Anarchism and violence have been linked together by events in anarchist history such as violent revolution, terrorism, assassination attempts and propaganda of the deed. Propaganda of the deed, or attentát, was espoused by leading anarchists in the late 19th century and was associated with a number of incidents of political violence. Anarchist thought, however, is quite diverse on the question of violence. Where some anarchists have opposed coercive means on the basis of coherence, others have supported acts of violent revolution as a path toward anarchy. Anarcho-pacifism is a school of thought within anarchism which rejects all violence.

Many anarchists regard the state to be at the definitional center of structural violence: directly or indirectly preventing people from meeting their basic needs, calling for violence as self-defense.

Perhaps the first anarchist periodical was named The Peaceful Revolutionist.

Propaganda of the deed
Late in the 19th century, anarchist labor unions began to use the tactic of general strike. This often resulted in violence by both sides and some of the strikes even resulted in the deaths of striking workers, their replacements and security staff.

In this climate, some anarchists began to advocate and practice terrorism or assassination, which they referred to as propaganda of the deed. In many cases, newspapers blamed anarchist terrorism on immigrant naïveté, but scholar Richard Bach Jensen explained that "the emigrant experience may have heightened a pre-existing radicalism or given more precise configuration to its violent expression."

Anarcho-pacifism

Anarcho-pacifism (also pacifist anarchism or anarchist pacifism) is a form of anarchism which completely rejects the use of violence in any form for any purpose. Important proponents include Leo Tolstoy and Bart de Ligt. Mohandas Gandhi is an important influence.

Henry David Thoreau, though not a pacifist himself, influenced both Leo Tolstoy and Mohandas Gandhi's advocacy of Nonviolent resistance through his work Civil Disobedience.

At some point anarcho-pacifism had as its main proponent Christian anarchism. The first large-scale anarcho-pacifist movement was the Tolstoyan peasant movement in Russia. They were a predominantly peasant movement that set up hundreds of voluntary anarchist pacifist communes based on their interpretation of Christianity as requiring absolute pacifism and the rejection of all coercive authority.

"Dutch anarchist-pacifist Bart de Ligt's 1936 treatise The Conquest of Violence (with its none too subtle allusion to Kropotkin's The Conquest of Bread) was also of signal importance." "Gandhi's ideas were popularized in the West in books such as Richard Gregg's The Power of Nonviolence (1935), and Bart de Ligt's The Conquest of Violence (1937). Peter Gelderloos criticizes the idea that nonviolence is the only way to fight for a better world. According to Gelderloos, pacifism as an ideology serves the interests of the state.

Anarchist theory
Anarchism encompasses a variety of views about violence. The Tolstoyan tradition of non-violent resistance is prevalent among some anarchists. Ursula K. Le Guin's novel The Dispossessed, a fictional novel about a society that practices "Odonianism", expressed this anarchism:

"Odonianism is anarchism. Not the bomb-in-the-pocket stuff, which is terrorism, whatever name it tries to dignify itself with, not the social-Darwinist economic 'libertarianism' of the far right; but anarchism, as prefigured in early Taoist thought, and expounded by Shelley and Kropotkin, Goldman and Goodman. Anarchism's principal target is the authoritarian State (capitalist or socialist); its principle moral-practical theme is cooperation (solidarity, mutual aid). It is the most idealistic, and to me the most interesting, of all political theories."

Emma Goldman included in her definition of Anarchism the observation that all governments rest on violence, and this is one of the many reasons they should be opposed. Goldman herself didn't oppose tactics like assassination in her early career, but changed her views after she went to Russia, where she witnessed the violence of the Russian state and the Red Army. From then on she condemned the use of terrorism, especially by the state, and advocated violence only as a means of self-defense.

Discourse on violent and non-violent means
Some anarchists see violent revolution as necessary in the abolition of capitalist society, while others advocate non-violent methods. Errico Malatesta, an anarcho-communist, propounded that it is "necessary to destroy with violence, since one cannot do otherwise, the violence which denies [the means of life and for development] to the workers." As he put it in Umanità Nova (no. 125, September 6, 1921):

"It is our aspiration and our aim that everyone should become socially conscious and effective; but to achieve this end, it is necessary to provide all with the means of life and for development, and it is therefore necessary to destroy with violence, since one cannot do otherwise, the violence that denies these means to the workers."

Anarchists with this view advocate violence insofar as they see it to be necessary in ridding the world of exploitation, and especially states.

Pierre-Joseph Proudhon argued in favor of a non-violent revolution through a process of dual power in which libertarian socialist institutions would be established and form associations enabling the formation of an expanding network within the existing state-capitalist framework with the intention of eventually rendering both the state and the capitalist economy obsolete. The progression towards violence in anarchism stemmed, in part, from the massacres of some of the communes inspired by the ideas of Proudhon and others. Many anarcho-communists began to see a need for revolutionary violence to counteract the violence inherent in both capitalism and government.

Anarcho-pacifism is a tendency within the anarchist movement which rejects the use of violence in the struggle for social change. The main early influences were the thought of Henry David Thoreau and Leo Tolstoy. It developed "mostly in Holland, Britain, and the United States, before and during the Second World War". Opposition to the use of violence has not prohibited anarcho-pacifists from accepting the principle of resistance or even revolutionary action provided it does not result in violence; it was in fact their approval of such forms of opposition to power that lead many anarcho-pacifists to endorse the anarcho-syndicalist concept of the general strike as the great revolutionary weapon. Later anarcho-pacifists have also come to endorse the non-violent strategy of dual power.

Other anarchists have believed that violence is justified, especially in self-defense, as a way to provoke social upheaval which could lead to a social revolution.

Peter Gelderloos criticizes the idea that nonviolence is the only way to fight for a better world. According to Gelderloos, pacifism as an ideology serves the interests of the state and is hopelessly caught up psychologically with the control schema of patriarchy and white supremacy. The influential publishing collective CrimethInc. notes that "violence" and "nonviolence" are politicized terms that are used inconsistently in discourse, depending on whether or not a writer seeks to legitimize the actor in question. They argue that "[i]t's not strategic [for anarchists] to focus on delegitimizing each other's efforts rather than coordinating to act together where we overlap". For this reason, both CrimethInc. and Gelderloos advocate for diversity of tactics. Albert Meltzer criticised extreme pacifism as authoritarian, believing that "The cult of extreme nonviolence always implies an elite." However, he did believe that less extreme pacifism was compatible with anarchism.

license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/

title: Anarchism and violence


text:
Newport Ship

The Newport Ship is a mid-fifteenth-century sailing vessel discovered when archaeologists investigated an articulated timber structure uncovered during the building of the Riverfront Arts Centre in Newport in June 2002. The site is on the west bank of the River Usk, which runs through the city centre. The remains of the ship suffered some damage from the construction work, but still represents a substantial find of a late Medieval ship, together with significant artefacts and environmental material. The official name of the vessel is now the Newport Medieval Ship, to help distinguish it from other historical vessels.

The ship was originally around 116 ft long and has been estimated to be of 161 tons burden – that being the number of tuns of Bordeaux wine that could have stowed in its hold. Vessels of this size were considered 'great ships' by contemporary standards and were typically used for the long-distance trade between Britain, Biscay and southern Iberia.

The most likely construction date of the ship is immediately after the winter of 1457/8. This date was obtained by oxygen isotope dendrochronology. An earlier standard dendrochronology study (measuring the width of annual growth rings) has given a likely felling date of 1449 for the majority of the timbers. This earlier study identified Basque region of Northern Spain as the source of the shipbuilding timber. This is an area well known for its shipbuilding industry at this time. Timbers associated with later phases of repair come from Britain, as do a large number of structural pieces dating from c.1466. These timbers have been associated with the major renovation work being carried out in Newport at the time the vessel foundered. Remnants of a cradle found beneath the ship suggested that it had been berthed for repair but then abandoned after the supports on the starboard side gave way. Many of the artefacts in the ship, such as coins, pottery and plant remains, suggest that it was trading with Portugal in the 1450s–1460s.

Although there were no initial plans to preserve the ship in its entirety, local people campaigned eagerly to ensure this, leading to the foundation of the Friends of the Newport Ship. Initial estimates suggested that preservation would cost about £3.5 million and this sum was eventually found by the Welsh Assembly Government and Newport City Council. All of the ship's timbers have subsequently been raised and transferred to a dedicated industrial unit which the local council describes as "now the biggest wood conservation centre in the UK", where preservation and research continue. Due to its size, it has not been possible to display the ship in the basement of the new arts centre, as was originally proposed.

Loss of the ship
The River Usk has a large tidal range and it appears that the vessel was deballasted and carefully floated into a side channel or Pîl on a very high tide and then situated on a pre-erected cradle made of oak and elm logs. This cradle has an earliest date possible of the spring of 1468 (by dendrochronology). The ship appears to have been undergoing a major refit, as evidenced by the shaping and inserting of British-grown timber (dating to after 1465) into the vessel. However, before this repair work could be completed, the cradle appears to have collapsed, with the ship heeling over onto its starboard side. The subsequent incoming tides appear to have flooded the vessel with silt and water. However, efforts were made to drain, pump out and right the ship, and when these failed attention turned to salvaging the accessible timber and iron (for reuse), along with removing larger items such as anchors, guns and rigging. The salvaging of the vessel involved hacking at the upper works with axes and removing substantial amounts of the lapstrake planking, framing and internal timbers. The salvaged material would have been readily reusable in other ships or building works. During this salvage work, numerous disarticulated timbers accrued in the hold of the vessel.

Condition, dimensions and structure
The excellent condition of the ship's timbers may possibly be due to the low oxygen level in the mud of the River Usk which has inhibited the presence of wood-boring creatures. Some time during its berth the port (left) side of the ship was cut down about 9 ft above the keel, but fortuitously this has preserved the correct shape of the hull. The starboard (right) side, which collapsed onto the river mud long ago, together with the ship's frames, has been preserved to almost its full height, although some planking has been distorted by the collapse.

The ship's dimensions have now been estimated at around 116 ft in length and around 27 ft in width. It had an estimated carrying capacity of 161 'tons burden'. That was a contemporary measure of ship size, based on the number of tuns (a size of barrel) of wine a ship could carry. In the 1460s customs accounts of nearby Bristol, vessels of 150+ tons were typically called 'navis' (great ship) and used primarily for the long-distance voyages to southern Europe, particularly Lisbon.

The vessel was clinker built with each plank overlapping the one below, the lower plank always being on the inside of the one above. The planks of the outer hull were positioned first and, on the Newport Ship, are secured to each other with iron nails driven through the overlap from the outside and then fitted with iron rove plates. The end of each nail was then hammered flat against the rove to produce a tight seal. Gaps along the overlap were secured by caulking with tar and animal hair. Hair from horse, cow, sheep and goat has all been identified in the Newport ship. The frames (ribs) of the ship were then fitted inside the hull and secured to the planks. Each framing piece was secured to the keel (spine) of the ship by having its keel cutout placed over the keel and held by precision of fit. Nails and trenails have not been used in this ship to secure frames to keel. The keel is made of beech, but the rest of the ship is made of oak, although no reason for this has yet been suggested. One possible explanation is a simple shortage of oak compared with beech at the time of construction. The hull planking is radially split oak which has been finished with an axe or adze. The keel and frames are also finished with an axe or adze. This contrasts with the stringers, hatch covers, ceiling and deck planks, which were all sawn.

Inside the frames are stringers: longitudinal structural components. Seven runs of stringers were found on the more-preserved starboard side. Between the stringers, the inside of the hull was lined with ceiling planks – these are thinner than the stringers and, together with the stringers, serve to stop cargo or ballast from coming into contact with the inside of the external planking of the hull. Both the stringers and ceiling planks were made of sawn oak, in contrast to the radially split hull planks and the hewn framing. The highest surviving stringer shows evidence of supporting the first deck.

Cleaning of the timbers has led to the discovery, on the planking of the outer hull, of a series of marks deliberately scribed into the timbers. These appear to be either individual shipwrights' marks or instructions for the positioning of planks or fastenings. The conservation team is hoping that a pattern will emerge as the recording process continues. During mid 2007, the cleaning of barrel-top fragments revealed merchant marks. Some of these may resemble known marks of merchants from the city of Bristol, but this is not proof that they originated there.

Dating the ship
The first phase of dendrochronology showed that most of the timbers used to build the ship originate from the Basque Country of northern Spain dating from c.1449. A later oxygen isotope dendrochronology study of components used in the original construction give a felling date of the winter of 1457/8. Since it was the practice to use green timber in ship construction at this time, the build date is most likely very shortly after this felling date. This date of winter 1457/1458 is confirmed by oxygen isotope dendrochronology analysis of the beech keel (a timber species which, unlike oak, does not have a substantial ring-width dendrochronology database). The precise geographic origin of the original build timber will require further work to develop the dendrochronological database for north-western Spain. At present the best matches are with timber grown in the upland interior of the Basque region of Spain. As the database is expanded, better matches may be found within the same general area.

The discovery in the spring of 2006 of a French "petit blanc" (small white) silver coin inserted into a cut out in the stempost/keel join was a major step forward. Placed, perhaps, as a token of good fortune at the start of the ship's construction, this coin was minted in Crémieu in the Dauphinois region of France between May and July 1447. Tree trunks found under the hull and forming the support for the ship when under repair, have a latest dendrochronology date of the spring of 1468. This would give the ship a working life span of less than 10 years.

There is circumstantial evidence that by 1469 the ship may have belonged to and been under repair for the Earl of Warwick. A letter of authorisation dated 22 November 1469 from Warwick to Thomas Throkmorton, his receiver of Glamorgan and Morgannwg, authorised various payments for "the making of the ship at Newport" which could be construed as repairs to the badly damaged vessel. This association of the ship with known historical figures is questioned as being a common failing of historians when studying archaeological remains. The simplest (though not only) explanation is that this was a ship from the Iberian peninsula that required some repairs whilst in the Bristol area. Research has shown that Newport sometimes had some very large vessels in the fifteenth and sixteenth century, like the Newport Medieval Ship. These were used primarily to serve the long-distance trade of Bristol, which was then the second port of the realm.

Artefacts
During excavation several hundred objects were found within the ship, ranging from a stone cannonball to grape seeds and including a damaged hour glass, 13 single shoes of which one is a very expensive shoe, pieces of cork and some Portuguese coins. The seeds, cork and coins would suggest trade to and from the Iberian peninsula and the presence of Merino sheep wool in the caulking material supports this idea; but is not conclusive proof. Members of the Albaola Society based Pasaia, near San Sebastian in the Basque region of Spain, after studying the ship's structural details believe that the ship may have been built by Basque shipwrights, either in the Basque region of Spain or south-western France. Artefacts, including Portuguese coins and ceramic shards, along with waterlogged plant remains indicate strong trading links with Portugal, with a strong possibility that the vessel was Portuguese-crewed. The ceramic shards are nearly all Iberian micaceous red-ware and likely Portuguese in origin. The ceramic assemblage is highly variable in form and also some pieces are soot stained, leading to the conclusion that this material represents crew items as opposed to cargo.

The environmental samples also contained a variety of well-preserved plant, insect and faunal remains. Food-stuffs including walnuts, almonds, hazelnuts, pomegranates, grapes, figs and olives were found, along with over a thousand fish and animal bones. Cod, hake, ling, tusk, herring, blackspot bream, conger, flatfish and Atlantic salmon are just some of the species represented in the fishbone assemblage. Shellfish recovered included oysters, whelks, mussels and cockles. Human fleas, dog fleas and numerous flies were present in the bilges of the ship, as well as some interesting beetles, including the woodboring beetle, which has never been found in the UK before. The animal bone collection primarily consisted of domesticated cattle, goats, sheep and pigs. Archaeologists also found rat bones and quantities of domestic fowl bones. In addition to salted or smoked meats and fish, it is likely that livestock was kept on board, as evidenced by certain grass and plant remains that are suited for animal food and bedding.

Project progress
The first stage of the restoration project; the cleaning and recording of the timbers, was completed in April 2008. The timbers were immersed in ordinary mains water, in a series of large shallow tanks. Once the cleaning had been completed the timbers were individually recorded using a FaroArm, a portable coordinate measuring machine (CMM), and RHINO software. This technology was used to produce 3-dimensional rotatable images of each artefact found in the vessel to submillimeter precision, allowing for the close study of each timber and an accurate recording of any blemishes or damage to the timbers. The Newport ship was one of the first marine archeological projects to pioneer the use of Faro equipment and RHINO software.

The next stage, the conservation of the timbers, which began later in 2008, involved immersing the timbers in polyethylene glycol (PEG) solution for an extended period. Before this began, some of the timbers required treatment with triammonium citrate to remove residual iron residues in the nail holes of the outer hull planking. This unexpected additional phase added no more than between fifteen and eighteen months to the project.

In September 2016 all of the ship's timbers completed their PEG treatment cycle and are now being freeze dried to draw out all of the residual water in preparation for the eventual reconstruction of the vessel. As of August 2019, 60% of the timbers have been freeze dried with all the timbers set to be returned by 2021.

A conference entitled "The World of the Newport Ship" was held at the University of Bristol on 17–18 July 2014, examining the vessel, her significance and her historical context. This led to the production of an edited volume based on the work of the contributors, published by the University of Wales Press.

Most current funding for the preservation of the ship comes from the Heritage Lottery Fund with smaller contributions from the National Assembly for Wales, Newport City Council and the Friends of Newport Ship.

Viewing
The Friends of Newport Ship organises regular open days when the project may be viewed in its current state of restoration along with exhibits to explain the restoration process. Visitors have the opportunity to talk to members of the ship team, and find out about the excavation and the campaign to save the ship, through tours of the facility run by the support group Friends of the Newport Ship. Generally the Ship Centre is open every Friday and Saturday from 10.30-4.0pm, between Easter and the end of October, and then on Saturdays only from spring half term until Easter and for November and early December.

title: Newport Ship


text:
Anne Murray

Morna Anne Murray (born June 20, 1945) is a Canadian singer of pop, country, and adult contemporary music, who has sold over 55 million album copies worldwide during her over 40-year career. Murray has won four Grammys including the Grammy Award for Best Female Pop Vocal Performance in 1979.

Murray was the first Canadian female solo singer to reach No. 1 on the U.S. charts and also the first to earn a Gold record for one of her signature songs, "Snowbird" (1970). She is often cited as one of the female Canadian artists who paved the way for other international Canadian success stories such as k.d. lang, Céline Dion, and Shania Twain. Murray is well known for her Grammy Award-winning 1978 number-one hit (in several countries) "You Needed Me", and is the first woman and the first Canadian to win Album of the Year at the 1984 Country Music Association Awards for her Gold-plus 1983 album A Little Good News.

Besides four Grammys, Murray has received a record 24 Juno Awards, three American Music Awards, three Country Music Association Awards, and three Canadian Country Music Association Awards. She has been inducted into the Canadian Country Music Hall of Fame, the Juno Hall of Fame, the Canadian Songwriters Hall of Fame, and Canadian Broadcast Hall of Fame. She is a member of the Country Music Hall of Fame Walkway of Stars in Nashville and has her own star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in Los Angeles and on Canada's Walk of Fame in Toronto.

In 2011, Billboard ranked her 10th on their list of the 50 Biggest Adult Contemporary Artists Ever.

Early life
Morna Anne Murray was born in the coal-mining town of Springhill, Nova Scotia, to Dr. James Carson Murray, the town's physician, and Marion Margaret (née Burke) Murray, a nurse involved in community charity work. Anne has five brothers. Murray's father died of leukemia aged 72 in 1980; her mother died on April 10, 2006, aged 92 after a series of strokes during heart surgery. Murray's youngest brother Bruce died of pancreatic cancer aged 69 on September 15, 2020.

After expressing an early interest in music, she studied piano for six years. By age 15, Murray took a bus ride every Saturday morning from Springhill to Tatamagouche, Nova Scotia, for singing lessons. One of her earliest performances was of the song "Ave Maria" at her high school graduation in 1962. Following high school, Murray attended Mount Saint Vincent University in Halifax for one year. She later studied Physical Education at University of New Brunswick in Fredericton. After receiving her degree in 1966, Murray taught physical education at Athena Regional high school in Summerside, Prince Edward Island, for one year.

Her brother Bruce Murray released several recordings of his own with several songs on the RPM charts between 1976 and 1982.

Early years
In 1965, Murray appeared on the University of New Brunswick student project record "The Groove" (500 pressed). She sang two songs on the record – "Unchained Melody" and "Little Bit of Soap". On the label, her name was misspelled "Anne Murry". While there, she was encouraged to audition for the 1960s CBC musical variety television show Singalong Jubilee, but was not offered a singing position.

After a summer of singing in local venues across the Maritimes, Murray began teaching physical education at the high school in Summerside, Prince Edward Island. After one year of teaching, she was cast for Singalong Jubilee. As a regular member of the "Singalong Jubilee" cast, Murray appeared on the Singalong Jubilee Vol. III soundtrack and Our Family Album – The Singalong Jubilee Cast records released by Arc Records. The show's musical director, Brian Ahern, advised Murray that she should move to Toronto and record a solo album. Her first album, What About Me, was produced by Ahern in Toronto and released in 1968 on the Arc label.

Chart success, 1970s–1980s
"What About Me," the lead single and title cut on Murray's debut album, was written by Scott McKenzie and was a sizable Canadian radio hit. The project covered songs by Joni Mitchell, Ken Tobias, and John Denver. After a year-long stint on Arc, Murray switched to Capitol Records in 1969 to record her second album, This Way Is My Way, which was released that fall. It featured the single that launched her career, "Snowbird", which became a No. 1 hit in Canada. "Snowbird" became a surprise hit on the U.S. charts as well, reaching No. 8 on the Billboard Hot 100 in 1970. It was also the first of her eight No. 1 Adult Contemporary hits. "Snowbird" was the first Gold record ever given to a Canadian artist in the United States (RIAA certified Gold on November 16, 1970). As one of the most successful female artists at that time, she became in demand for several television appearances in Canada and the United States, eventually becoming a regular on the hit U.S. television series The Glen Campbell Goodtime Hour.

After the success of "Snowbird", Murray had a number of subsequent singles that charted both pop and country simultaneously. During the 1970s and 1980s, her hits included Kenny Loggins's "Danny's Song" (1972) (peaked at No. 7 on the Hot 100), "A Love Song" (1973), "He Thinks I Still Care", The Beatles' "You Won't See Me" (1974); her all-time biggest Hot 100 hit "You Needed Me" (1978), "I Just Fall in Love Again", "Shadows in the Moonlight", "Broken Hearted Me" (1979), "I'm Happy Just to Dance With You" (1980), which hit No. 64 on the Hot 100 and #23 on the Country chart, The Monkees' 1967 No. 1 hit "Daydream Believer", "Could I Have This Dance" from the Urban Cowboy motion picture soundtrack (1980), "Blessed Are the Believers" (1981), "Another Sleepless Night" (1982), "A Little Good News" (1983), "Just Another Woman in Love", "Nobody Loves Me Like You Do", and "Time, Don't Run Out on Me" (1985).

She performed "O Canada" at the first American League baseball game played in Canada on April 7, 1977, when the Toronto Blue Jays played the Chicago White Sox at Exhibition Stadium. She reprised the Canadian national anthem prior to the first World Series game held in Canada, Game 3 of the 1992 World Series at the SkyDome. Following the last game at Maple Leaf Gardens, she concluded the arena's closing ceremony by singing "The Maple Leaf Forever" at centre ice wearing a Toronto Maple Leafs jersey.

Murray was a celebrity corporate spokeswoman for The Bay, and she also did commercials and sang the company jingle ("You Can Count on the Commerce") for the Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce (CIBC).

Murray's last Hot 100 hit was "Now and Forever (You and Me)" from 1986; it was also her last No. 1 on both the American and Canadian country charts.

1990s–2000s
Murray's last charting single in the U.S. was 1991's "Everyday", which appeared on Billboard's Country Singles chart. In 1996, Murray signed on with a new manager, Bruce Allen. She recorded her first live album in 1997, and in 1999, she released What a Wonderful World, a platinum inspirational album, which went to No. 1 Contemporary Christian, No. 4 Country and No. 38 pop. Murray's last charting single in Canada was the title track "What a Wonderful World" in 2000.

Murray was briefly mentioned in the Oscar-nominated satirical song "Blame Canada," which appeared in the 1999 film South Park: Bigger, Longer & Uncut. Although the tune contained the line "With all their hockey hullabaloo/And that bitch Anne Murray, too", the singer indicated that she was not offended by the song (although she did turn down a chance to sing it at the Oscars telecast that year, pleading a prior commitment).

She released Country Croonin in 2002, the follow-up to her successful 1993 album, Croonin. In 2004, she released I'll Be Seeing You in Canada only, which features a collection of songs from the early 20th century to the mid-1940s. The 2005 American version, titled All of Me, features a bonus disc containing many of her hit singles. The album is dedicated to her friend Cynthia McReynolds who died of cancer.

On December 26, 2004, Murray joined other Canadian music stars in the Canada for Asia Telethon, a three-hour, tsunami relief concert broadcast on CBC Television (January 13, 2005) to support CARE Canada's efforts. Bryan Adams and Murray closed the show with a duet, "What Would It Take".

On October 10, 2007, Murray announced that she would embark on her final major tour. She toured in February and March 2008 in the U.S. on the "Coast-to-Coast – One Last Time" tour followed by a run in April and May in Canada. Murray's final public concert was held at the Sony Centre in Toronto on May 23, 2008.

The studio album Anne Murray Duets: Friends & Legends was released in November 2007 in Canada and January 2008 in the U.S. The album comprised 17 tracks that included many of Murray's biggest hits over her four-decade career, re-recorded as duets with other established, rising, and – in one case – deceased female singers. These artists included Céline Dion, Shania Twain, k.d. lang, Nelly Furtado, Jann Arden, Québec's Isabelle Boulay, Murray's daughter Dawn Langstroth, Olivia Newton-John, Emmylou Harris, Martina McBride, Shelby Lynne, Amy Grant, Carole King, the Indigo Girls, Irish sextet Celtic Woman, Dusty Springfield, and Sarah Brightman. The duet with soprano Brightman was of her 1970 hit song, "Snowbird".

Anne Murray Duets: Friends and Legends was recorded in four cities – Toronto, Nashville, New York, and Los Angeles. According to Billboard magazine, the album reached No. 2 on the Canadian pop album charts and was certified Double Platinum in Canada after merely two months, representing sales of over 200,000 units. The album was the second-highest debuting CD on the Billboard Top 200 albums chart for the week ending February 2, 2008. It entered the chart at No. 42, making it her highest-charting U.S. CD release since 1999's What a Wonderful World, which peaked at No. 38 on the Top 200 and was certified Platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA). Also for the week ending February 2, 2008, the CD debuted at No. 8 on Billboard's Top Country Albums chart and at No. 3 on its Top Internet Albums chart. Murray was nominated for the 2008 Juno Award for Album of the Year and Pop Album of the Year. Murray's album What a Wonderful World was re-released in July 2008 in North America as a 14-song package. A new Christmas album, titled Anne Murray's Christmas Album with bonus DVD was released in October 2008. Sony BMG Music also released an Elvis Presley Christmas album, titled Christmas Duets on October 14, 2008, featuring a virtual duet of "Silver Bells" with Murray.

Murray retired from both recording and performing after the issue of her final Christmas album in 2008, later explaining, "I did it for 40 years and that's long enough to do anything...I wanted to go out still singing well, and not having to make excuses." Despite continuing offers to take part in live concert appearances, duets and other recording activities, Murray has remained firmly retired since then, and insists she hasn't second-guessed the decision for a moment: "I was one of those who couldn't. I have too much trouble settling for less."

Television
Murray has had five highly rated U.S. specials on CBS (over 40 million viewers each) and several Canadian specials on CBC including Anne Murray in Nova Scotia, Intimate Evening with Anne Murray, Anne Murray RSVP, A Special Anne Murray Christmas, Legends & Friends, Greatest Hits II, What a Wonderful World, Ladies Night Show, Anne Murray in Walt Disney World and Anne Murray's Classic Christmas. Her 2008 television special, Family Christmas, garnered a 43 per cent share on CBC with 4.2 million viewers.

She has appeared on The Johnny Cash Show, The Bobby Vinton Show, Solid Gold, Sesame Street, The Muppet Show, Family Guy, Saturday Night Live, The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson, Dean Martin Summer Show, Singalong Jubilee, Dinah!, The Today Show, Dolly!, The Mike Douglas Show, Christmas in Washington, Boston Pops, The Helen Reddy Show, The Oprah Winfrey Show, 20/20, CNN, Perry Como's Christmas in New Mexico, The Glen Campbell Goodtime Hour, Night of a 100 Stars, Live with Regis and Kathie Lee, The Pat Sajak Show, Royal Canadian Air Farce and Good Morning America. Her 2005 CBC special Anne Murray: The Music of My Life broke ratings records for a Thursday night, with more than 7 million Canadian viewers tuned in. She also appeared on ABC-TV's American Bandstand, and on regional US dance/variety programs. On August 25, 2008, Murray appeared on the TV program Canadian Idol as a mentor.

Anne Murray: Full Circle, a documentary film by Adrian Buitenhuis and Morgan Elliott, was broadcast by CBC Television in 2021.

Personal life
In 2009, Murray released her autobiography, All of Me, and embarked on a 15-city book signing tour, starting in Nashville on October 27, 2009, and ending in Ottawa on November 24, 2009. The tour also included a special In Conversation interview with Michael Posner at the International Festival of Authors in Toronto on October 30, 2009.

She is Catholic.

Marriage and children
In 1975, Murray married Bill Langstroth, music producer and longtime host of Singalong Jubilee. They had two children – William (born 1976) and Dawn (born 1979). Dawn is a singer-songwriter and artist who has recorded with her mother a number of times, including the duet "Let There Be Love" in 1999 for Murray's What a Wonderful World album. Murray and Dawn were featured in a mother–daughter duet of "Nobody Loves Me Like You Do" on Murray's hit 2008 U.S. CD (released in late 2007 in Canada), Anne Murray Duets: Friends & Legends. Murray and Langstroth separated in 1997 and divorced the following year. Langstroth died in May 2013.

In January 1998, Murray and Dawn performed at a benefit concert for Sheena's Place, an eating disorder treatment centre in Toronto. Both have spoken publicly about Dawn's struggle with anorexia nervosa, which developed when she was 10 years old. Dawn has since sought treatment and continues to pursue a career in music.

Murray lived in Markham, Ontario, for over 40 years, from the late 1970s through 2019. In 2019, she returned to live in her home province of Nova Scotia, settling in Halifax.

Philanthropy and support for causes
Murray kept close ties with her hometown, Springhill, Nova Scotia, located about an hour east of Moncton, New Brunswick, and 1.5 hours north of Halifax, Nova Scotia. The Anne Murray Centre, located in Springhill, opened on July 28, 1989, and houses a collection of memorabilia from both her personal life and professional career in a series of displays. A registered Canadian charity, the centre aims to foster tourism in the area and promote awareness of the music of Nova Scotia and Canada. All the revenue generated from its operation is used to provide employment for local people and for its ongoing maintenance.

Murray was involved in the construction of the Dr. Carson and Marion Murray Community Centre in Springhill, Nova Scotia. She served as the honorary chair of the fundraising campaign to replace the town arena that collapsed after a peewee hockey game in 2002. Named for her parents, the Dr. Carson and Marion Murray Community Centre sports an NHL-size ice sheet with seating for 800 people, a walking track, multi-purpose room, community room with seating for up to 300, and a gym. The Dr. Carson and Marion Murray Community Centre has become an integral part of the Springhill community since opening on September 15, 2004.

Murray was involved in a variety of charitable organizations. In addition to being the Honorary National Chairperson of the Canadian Save The Children Fund, she served as a spokeswoman for many charities throughout her career – most recently Colon Cancer Canada. On May 20, 2009, Colon Cancer Canada launched the inaugural Anne Murray Charity Golf Classic. Over C$150,000 was raised through the event.

On February 12, 2010, Murray was one of the eight Canadians who carried the Olympic flag during the opening ceremony of the XXI Olympic Winter Games in Vancouver.

Murray was a public supporter of Canadian environmentalist and geneticist David Suzuki's Nature Challenge.

Hobbies
A longtime golf enthusiast, Murray made history in October 2003 at the Turning Stone Resort & Casino in Verona, New York, by becoming the first woman to score a hole in one on the 108-yard, par 3, 17th hole at the Kaluhyat Golf Club. On May 11, 2007, Golf For Women magazine named Murray the world's best female celebrity golfer, noting her 11 handicap.

Discography
Since 1968, Murray has released 32 studio albums and 15 compilation albums.
 * Studio albums

 * What About Me (1968)
 * This Way Is My Way (1969)
 * Honey, Wheat and Laughter (1970)
 * Straight, Clean and Simple (1971)
 * Anne Murray / Glen Campbell (1971) (with Glen Campbell)
 * Talk It Over in the Morning (1971)
 * Annie (1972)
 * Danny's Song (1973)
 * Love Song (1974)
 * Highly Prized Possession (1974)

 * Together (1975)
 * Keeping in Touch (1976)
 * There's a Hippo in My Tub (1977)
 * Let's Keep It That Way (1978)
 * New Kind of Feeling (1979)
 * I'll Always Love You (1979)
 * Somebody's Waiting (1980)
 * Where Do You Go When You Dream (1981)
 * The Hottest Night of the Year (1982)
 * A Little Good News (1983)

 * Heart over Mind (1984)
 * Something to Talk About (1986)
 * Harmony (1987)
 * As I Am (1988)
 * You Will (1990)
 * Yes I Do (1991)
 * Croonin' (1993)
 * Anne Murray (1996)
 * What a Wonderful World (1999)
 * Country Croonin' (2002)
 * I'll Be Seeing You (2004)
 * Duets: Friends & Legends (2007)

Awards and honours
Anne Murray won four Grammys (including one in the pop category), three American Music Awards, three CMA Awards, and a record 24 Juno Awards.

In 1995, Murray received a Governor General's Performing Arts Award for Lifetime Artistic Achievement, Canada's highest honour in the performing arts.

Murray was ranked No. 24 in Country Music Television's 40 Greatest Women of Country Music in 2002.

Murray was invested as an Officer of the Order of Canada in 1975 and promoted to Companion of the Order of Canada in 1984, the second highest honour that can be awarded to a Canadian civilian. She was also one of the first recipients of the newly established Order of Nova Scotia in 2002.

In 2006, the Canadian Songwriters Hall of Fame chose her and Leonard Cohen as recipients of the Legacy Award for their contributions to and support of the Canadian songwriting industry. Murray was recognized for her support of Canada's songwriters, through her performances and her recordings.

On June 29, 2007, Canada Post issued the limited edition Anne Murray stamp. She was recognized along with three other Canadian recording artists: Paul Anka, Gordon Lightfoot, and Joni Mitchell.

On May 20, 2016, Anne Murray was granted an honorary degree by Mount Saint Vincent University.

Grammy Award Nominations/Wins:
 * 1970 – Best New Artist; Best Contemporary Vocal Performance, Female, "Snowbird"
 * 1973 – Best Pop Vocal Performance, Female, "Danny's Song"
 * 1974 – Best Country Vocal Performance, Female, Love Song (WON)
 * 1978 – Record of the Year, "You Needed Me"; Best Country Vocal Performance, Female, "Walk Right Back"; Best Pop Vocal Performance, Female, "You Needed Me" (WON)
 * 1979 – Best Recording for Children, Anne Murray Sings for the Sesame Street Generation
 * 1980 – Best Country Vocal Performance, Female, "Could I Have This Dance" (WON)
 * 1983 – Best Country Vocal Performance, Female, "A Little Good News" (WON)
 * 1984 – Best Country Vocal Performance, Female, Heart Over Mind; Best Country Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocal, "Nobody Loves Me Like You Do"

Billboard Top 100 Year-End Rankings:
 * 1970 - "Snowbird" - #42
 * 1973 - "Danny's Song" - #36
 * 1974 - "You Won't See Me" - #54
 * 1974 - "A Love Song" - #80
 * 1978 - "You Needed Me" - #63
 * 1979 - "I Just Fall in Love Again" - #72
 * 1980 - "Daydream Believer" - #61
 * 1980 - "Broken Hearted Me" - #92

title: Anne Murray


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Suffolk Coast Path

The Suffolk Coast Path is a long-distance footpath along the Suffolk Heritage Coast in England. It is 50 mi long.

Previously known as the Suffolk Coast and Heaths Path after the Suffolk Coast and Heaths Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty through which it runs, the path has been rebranded with new waymarkers bearing the new name.

The path runs along river and sea walls, across marsh, heath, foreshore and cliffs. It starts at Felixstowe (51.9883°N, 1.3907°W) and ends at Lowestoft (52.4711°N, 1.75°W), via Bawdsey, Snape Maltings, Aldeburgh, North Warren, Thorpeness, Minsmere, Dunwich, Southwold and Kessingland. It connects with the Sandlings Walk and (via the Stour and Orwell Walk) with the Essex Way and the Stour Valley Path.

Much of W. G. Sebald's novel The Rings of Saturn describes a walking tour that roughly follows the Suffolk Coast Path.

title: Suffolk Coast Path


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Suffolk & Essex Coast & Heaths National Landscape

The Suffolk & Essex Coast & Heaths National Landscape is an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty in Suffolk and Essex, England.

The AONB covers ancient woodland, commercial forestry, the estuaries of the Alde, Blyth, Deben, Orwell and Stour rivers, farmland, salt marsh, heathland, mudflats, reed beds, small towns and villages, shingle beaches and low eroding cliffs along 60 miles of coastline.

Features include the coastal towns of Aldeburgh and Southwold, Bawdsey, Covehithe, Dunwich, Minsmere, Orford, Orford Ness, Sizewell, Thorpeness, Walberswick and the RSPB Minsmere Reserve. There are three National Nature Reserves in the area and many Sites of Special Scientific Interest. Three long-distance footpaths pass through the AONB: the Suffolk Coast Path, the Sandlings Walk and the Stour and Orwell Walk.

In July 2020 the AONB was extended by around 38 square kilometres to cover land north of Brantham, and an area around Mistley and Wrabness in Essex. It was the first extension to any AONB in England since 2011.


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Talk:Gore Vidal

"his novels often dealt with LGBT characters"
Is this true? I'm not familiar with his whole bibliography, but the only novels mentioned in this article dealing with LGBT themes are The City and the Pillar and Myra Breckinridge. Were there others? Perhaps the word "often" should be deleted? Colin M (talk) 17:32, 21 May 2021 (UTC)

While Vidal's novels (among them the ones Colin M mentioned, Washington, D.C. (novel), and others ) did include characters across the spectrum of human sexuality, this statement is incomplete and should be amended to 1. encompass Vidal's essays on the subject of sexuality (among them "Sex and the Law," "Sex is Politics," and "Pink Triangle and Yellow Star"), and 2. change "dealing with LGBT themes" to "interrogate social and cultural sexual norms," which I will add. U know the deal (talk) 21:03, 27 May 2021 (UTC)

The second sentence of the main article announces that Vidal was bisexual as if that were somehow the key to him or his writing. However, the second sentence of an article about me should not announce that I happen to be heterosexual as if that is tantamount to some wonderful revelation or insight into my cerebral activity. The entire article on Vidal suffers from this emphasis on sexuality and also a lack of emphasis on the amusing, biting, witty nature of Vidal's work, which I found entertaining even as a hetero capitalist. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 216.49.27.38 (talk) 20:59, 14 May 2022 (UTC)

title: Talk:Gore Vidal


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International mobile subscriber identity

The international mobile subscriber identity (IMSI; ) is a number that uniquely identifies every user of a cellular network. It is stored as a 64-bit field and is sent by the mobile device to the network. It is also used for acquiring other details of the mobile in the home location register (HLR) or as locally copied in the visitor location register. To prevent eavesdroppers from identifying and tracking the subscriber on the radio interface, the IMSI is sent as rarely as possible and a randomly-generated TMSI is sent instead.

The IMSI is used in any mobile network that interconnects with other networks. For GSM, UMTS and LTE networks, this number was provisioned in the SIM card and for cdmaOne and CDMA2000 networks, in the phone directly or in the R-UIM card (the CDMA equivalent of the SIM card). Both cards have been superseded by the UICC.

An IMSI is usually presented as a 15-digit number but can be shorter. For example, MTN South Africa's old IMSIs that are still in use in the market are 14 digits long. The first 3 digits represent the mobile country code (MCC), which is followed by the mobile network code (MNC), either 2-digit (European standard) or 3-digit (North American standard). The length of the MNC depends on the value of the MCC, and it is recommended that the length is uniform within a MCC area. The remaining digits are the mobile subscription identification number (MSIN) within the network's customer base, usually 9 to 10 digits long, depending on the length of the MNC.

The IMSI conforms to the ITU E.212 numbering standard.

IMSIs can sometimes be mistaken for the ICCID (E.118), which is the identifier for the physical SIM card itself (or now the virtual SIM card if it is an eSIM). The IMSI lives as part of the profile (or one of several profiles if the SIM and operator support multi-IMSI SIMs) on the SIM/ICCID.

IMSI analysis
IMSI analysis is the process of examining a subscriber's IMSI to identify the network the IMSI belongs to, and whether subscribers from that network may use a given network (if they are not local subscribers, this requires a roaming agreement).

If the subscriber is not from the provider's network, the IMSI must be converted to a Global Title, which can then be used for accessing the subscriber's data in the remote HLR. This is mainly important for international mobile roaming. Outside North America, the IMSI is converted to the Mobile Global Title (MGT) format, standard E.214, which is similar to an E.164 number. E.214 provides a method to convert the IMSI into a number that can be used for routing to international SS7 switches. E.214 can be interpreted as implying that there are two separate stages of conversion; first determine the MCC and convert to E.164 country calling code then determine MNC and convert to national network code for the carrier's network. But this process is not used in practice and the GSM numbering authority has clearly stated that a one-stage process is used.

In North America, the IMSI is directly converted to an E.212 number with no modification of its value. This can be routed directly on American SS7 networks.

After this conversion, SCCP is used to send the message to its final destination. For details, see Global Title Translation.

Example of outside World Area 1
This example shows the actual practice which is not clearly described in the standards.

Translation rule: Therefore, 284011234567890 becomes 359881234567890 under the E.214 numbering plan.
 * match numbers starting 28401 (Bulgaria mobile country code + MobilTel MNC)
 * identify this as belonging to MobilTel-Bulgaria network
 * remove first five digits (length of MCC+MNC)
 * prepend 35988 (Bulgaria E.164 country code + a Bulgarian local prefix reaching MobilTel's network)
 * mark the number as having E.214 numbering plan.
 * route message on Global Title across SCCP network

Translation rule: Therefore, 310150123456789 becomes 14054123456789 under the E.214 numbering plan.
 * match numbers starting 310150 (America first MCC + Cingular MNC)
 * remove first six digits (length of MCC+MNC)
 * prepend 14054 (North America E.164 country code + Network Code for Cingular)
 * mark the number as having E.214 numbering plan.
 * route message on Global Title across SCCP network

The result is an E.214 compliant Global Title, (Numbering Plan Indicator is set to 7 in the SCCP message). This number can now be sent to Global Title Analysis.

Example inside World Area 1 (North America)
Translation rule: Therefore, 284011234567890 becomes 284011234567890 under the E.212 numbering plan.
 * match number starting 28401 (Bulgaria MCC + MobilTel MNC)
 * identify this as belonging to MobilTel-Bulgaria network
 * do not alter the digits of the number
 * mark the number as having E.212 numbering plan.
 * route message on Global Title across SCCP network

This number has to be converted on the ANSI to ITU boundary. For more details please see Global Title Translation.

Home Network Identity
The Home Network Identity (HNI) is the combination of the MCC and the MNC. This is the number which fully identifies a subscriber's home network. This combination is also known as the PLMN.


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British Dragonfly Society

The British Dragonfly Society is a conservation organisation in the United Kingdom. It was founded in 1983 and its aims are to promote and to encourage the study and conservation of dragonflies and damselflies and their natural habitats, especially in the United Kingdom.

The Society runs the Dragonfly Recording Network (DRN) to collect Odonata records in the UK. It also promotes a range of research and conservation projects.

The British Dragonfly Society is a registered charity, number 800196.

title: British Dragonfly Society