“What I don’t understand is how Fonda and Lemmon knew there would be a meltdown at Three Mile Island the same year The China Syndrome was released.”
I live about twelve miles from TMI, in case you were wondering about my healthy glow, and according to every nuclear engineer I have talked to, there was no meltdown, and there was no gas bubble, at least in the reactor. There *were* after all, a lot of reporters around.
Ah, Rolling Rock.
Here is what Wikipedia says about it:
The accident began on Wednesday, March 28, 1979, and ultimately resulted in a partial core meltdown in Unit 2 of the nuclear power plant (a pressurized water reactor manufactured by Babcock & Wilcox) of the Three Mile Island Nuclear Generating Station in Dauphin County, Pennsylvania near Harrisburg.
...
It resulted in the release of a significant amount of radioactivity, an estimated maximum of 13 million curies of noble gases (480 PBq), but under 20 curies (740 GBq) of the particularly hazardous iodine-131, to the environment.[1] However, there are no immediate deaths or injuries to plant workers or members of the nearby community which can be attributed to the accident.
yes- everythig I have read says that TMI worked exactly as it was supposed to, in the case of an emrgency.