Жабықталған ядролық электр стансасы: Шорхем тарихы

Decommissioned nuclear power plant in New York
LILCO purchased a site in an area which was sparsely populated at the time. They announced the plant would produce 540 megawatts, cost between $65 and $75 million and would be online in 1973. At the time, demand for electricity was increasing more than 10 percent per year on Long Island and the Atomic Energy Commission was strongly pushing all power companies to use nuclear power. though studies suggest that an airliner impacting a containment structure would not destroy the structure or even cause sufficient damage to permit the escape of radioactive materials from the reactor core.

The plant was built between 1973 and 1984, completed with a General Electric type 4 boiling water reactor using Mark II containment. Its location on Long Island Sound – near the mouth of the small stream that forms the border between Brookhaven and Riverhead towns – was largely rural at the time (although within 60 miles of Manhattan). Cost overruns caused its estimated final cost to approach $2 billion by the late 1970s, due to low worker productivity and design changes ordered by the NRC. The plant drew considerable opposition after the 1979 Three Mile Island accident and the 1986 Chernobyl disaster, resulting in delays and cost increases before New York Governor Mario Cuomo ordered purchasing and decommissioning of the plant. The state would ultimately take over LILCO also. The first small anti Shoreham demonstration took place in June 1976. On June 3, 1979, following the Three Mile Island accident, 15,000 protesters gathered in the largest demonstration in Long Island history. LILCO's problems were compounded by NRC rules in the wake of Three Mile Island, requiring that operators of nuclear plants work out evacuation plans in cooperation with state and local governments. This prompted local politicians to join the growing opposition to the plant. Since any land evacuation off the island would involve traveling at least 60 mile (97 km) back through New York City to reach its bridges, local officials feared that the island could not be safely evacuated.

On February 17, 1983, the Suffolk County Legislature voted 15–1 in favor of a resolution stating that the county could not be safely evacuated in the event of an accident at Shoreham. On May 19, 1989, LILCO agreed not to operate the plant in a deal with the state under which most of the $6 billion cost of the unused plant was passed along to Long Island residents. The Long Island Power Authority (LIPA), headed by Richard Kessel, was created in 1986 specifically to buy the plant from LILCO. In 1992, LIPA bought Shoreham from LILCO for the nominal sum of one dollar and closed it, making Shoreham the first commercial nuclear power plant in the US to be dismantled. In August 2002 a 100 MW Gas Turbine Power Plant was commissioned on the Shoreham site utilizing the existing switchgear that was in place for the decommissioned nuclear facility. This facility utilizes two 42 MW GE LM6000PC Jet Engine Generators equipped with Sprint injection (can increase capacity to 50 MW each) and Spray Mist Evaporative Cooling (SMEC). Its construction was part of a plan to build ten such plants across Long Island to avoid the risk of rolling blackouts in the face of increased demand like those experienced in California the previous year, given strain on the system from a heat wave in 2001. The electric transmission infrastructure has remained, connecting it to the Long Island electric grid. In 2002 the Cross Sound Cable, a submarine power cable capable of transmitting 330 MW, was laid from the Shoreham plant across Long Island Sound to New Haven, Connecticut. During the Northeast Blackout of 2003 the cable was used to ease the effects of the blackout on Long Island. After extended negotiations with Connecticut, the cable was put into permanent use. In 2004, the Long Island Power Authority erected two 100 foot, 50 kW wind turbines at the Shoreham Energy Center site, as part of a renewable energy program. At a ceremony, chairman Kessel stated, "We stand in the shadow of a modern day Stonehenge, a multibillion dollar monument to a failed energy policy, to formally commission the operation of a renewable energy technology that will harness the power of the wind for the benefit of Long Island's environment." The turbines generate 200 MWh per year, or 1/35,000th of the energy the nuclear plant would have produced. Had the Shoreham Nuclear Power Station gone into operation as planned, it would have prevented the emission of an estimated three million tons of carbon dioxide per year, according to journalist Gwyneth Cravens.

A scene from the 2012 movie The Dictator is filmed inside the Shoreham Nuclear Power Plants Nuclear Control Room. The case of the Shoreham Nuclear power plant is used as an example of a successful anti nuclear campaign in the 2013 documentary Pandora's Promise, underlining the role of the Oil Heat Institute of Long Island in financing anti nuclear pro solar ads.