Power Crazy: Shoreham Nuclear Power Plant

The Shoreham Nuclear Power Plant has been in the news my entire life. When I was 3 months old, plans were announced in 1965 for three nuclear power plants to be built on Long Island: Lloyd Harbor, Jamesport, and Shoreham.  While the Lloyd Harbor plan was killed in 1970, and Jamesport never left the drafting table,  construction began on the Shoreham plant in 1973. Today, it remains the only completed nuclear power plant to never generate electricity.

This is not a No-Nukes post; I personally believe nuclear power should play a vital role in our domestic energy policy. Instead, this is a post against Bad Ideas. Shoreham was riddled with them .

1. 
   
   The plant was to be situated near the path of airplanes landing at MacArthur Airport and the New Haven Airport.
2. 
   
   It was to be built in an area that the U.S. Air Force had designated as "high hazard" due to its proximity to the Calverton Naval Weapons Industrial Reserve Plant, where Grumman military fighter planes were tested, which was five miles from the Shoreham site
3. 
   
   Evacuation plans called for the 3 million residents of Long Island to seek safety by automobile transportation, westward via New York City bridges.

I am certainly no expert on nuclear safety and evacuation procedures, but #3 hangs out there like a big matzo ball. Doesn't sound like much of a plan. Long Island has one way in, and one way out. Building a nuclear power plant there made about as much sense as building one in Wellfleet or Key West.

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My day in Shoreham was not all a loss. I eventually made it back to Rocky Point and had a wonderful dinner with Marianna and Ralph. She is from Italy via Japan, while he is from Berlin. They are in Long Island For A Year while Ralph works at Brookhaven National Labratory. Good food, good company, great conversation!

One must wait for the sundown to see how splendid the day has been

— Sophocles