'' Three Mile Island : Thirty Minutes to Meltdown '' is a 1982 book by Daniel Ford . Ford presents a " meticulous post-mortem of the events that nearly led to a meltdown " at the Metropolitan Edison station near Harrisburg in March 1979 . He analyses the complex of people , technology , customs and regulations involved . Ford identifies regulatory failure and industry cost-cutting as the underlying causes of the Three Mile Island accident . Daniel Ford is an economist and former director of the Union of Concerned Scientists
Three Mile Island accident
Three Mile Island accident
Three Mile Island: Thirty Minutes to Meltdown