nuclear-news

Stories and pictures of abandoned nuclear power plants

iPctures: Gone Fission: 11 Unfinished Nuclear Power Plants http://weburbanist.com/2013/02/10/gone-fission-11-unfinished-nuclear-power-plants/ These 11 unfinished, abandoned, canceled, mothballed and/or suspended nuclear power plants will, for better or worse, never know the warmth of split atoms.

 Lemoniz Nuclear Power Plant, Spain Construction of the Lemóniz Nuclear Power Plant, located on the Bay of Biscay on Spain’s northern coast, began in the mid-1970s but was dogged from its inception by violent opposition from ETA, the terrorist organization dedicated to the independence of Spain’s Basque country. The group managed to smuggle bombs into the facility on several occasions in 1978 and 1979 resulting in a number of fatalities and delaying the plant’s construction……

Marble Hill Nuclear Power Station, Indiana, USA  (at left) From 1977 to 1984, Public Service Company of Indiana (PSI) spent approximately $2.5 billion to build the Marble Hill Nuclear Power Station near Hanover, Indiana, and by the time the financial tap ran dry it was only half-finished! The political and environmental landscape had changed quite a bit over those 7 years with the biggest speed bump being the Three Mile Island crisis in 1979. With costs spiraling out of control and the state government reluctant to provide funding, PSI abandoned the project and auctioned off most of the salvageable material for a mere pittance.

Equipment and parts from the Marble Hill Nuclear Power Station continued to be sold off in the early to mid-1990s but by the year 2000 everything of value had been sold. Since 2008, slow and steady demolition under the auspices of MCM Management Corp. has seen first the fuel-handling building and then the twin reactor containment buildings gradually reduced to mounds of scrap. The bright side, if any, is that none of the demolished material is radioactive.

Bataan Nuclear Power Plant, Philippines Back to Bataan? Let’s hope not: conceived in 1976 as the Philippines’ first nuclear power plant, construction was halted on the BNPP in 1979 just after the Three Mile Island nuclear accident. An official safety inquiry revealed the existence of over 4,000 defects, plus the fact that the plant was being built atop active earthquake fault lines and uncomfortably close to then-dormant Mount Pinatubo. The latter’s surprise awakening on June 15th of 1991 turned out to be the second-largest volcanic eruption of the 20th century. Repairs prompted by the safety inquiry’s findings ended up adding time and cost to the project, the latter of which had ballooned to $2.3 billion US by 1984. Nothing could stop dictator Ferdinand Marcos’ pet project, however, until Marcos himself was toppled and exiled in 1986. One of the first acts of the new “People Power” government was to respect the will of the people and mothball the power plant – the costs weren’t paid off in full until mid-2007. In 2011, the plant was re-opened as a tourist attraction with a significant number of visitors coming from Japan.

Belene Nuclear Power Plant, Bulgaria Located in northern Bulgaria near the Danube river and the border with Romania, the Belene Nuclear Power Plant was intended to replace four older reactors at the Kozloduy Nuclear Power Plantshut down as a prerequisite of Bulgaria’s joining the EU. Construction began in 1987 but in 1990, after Bulgaria’s transition from a communist to a capitalist state, the project was put on hold.Existing infrastructure was preserved pending a possible restart of construction and this actually came to be in the fall of 2008. However, fierce wrangling over construction costs and the Bulgarian government’s insistence on the inclusion of an American or a European contractor once again derailed the project. Even though the plant was more than half complete, the decision was made in March of 2012 to revise the Belene Nuclear Power Plant as a gas-fired conventional power station.

Marviken Nuclear Power Plant, Sweden Conceived in the depths of the Cold War, the ambitious R4 nuclear reactor at Marviken, Sweden was intended to provide power for Swedish industry and plutonium for the Scandinavian nation’s budding nuclear weapons program. Yes, you read that correctly…. the R4′s complex and unproven design was causing delays, cost overruns and general concern. Another problem was that safety standards for nuclear power plants were being tightened and Marviken’s designers found the goalposts being moved even before they entered the red zone. By the end of the decade, the government had had enough and Marviken was mothballed… at least, its nuclear aspect was. Part of the plant was converted to an oil-fired power generation station while the mainly complete reactor containment building was used to test nuclear safety equipment for Swedish and foreign plant operators.

Bellefonte Nuclear Generating Station, Alabama, USA What do you get for $6 billion (1988) dollars? If you’re the TVA, you get one 88% complete nuclear reactor and another one just 58% complete… and one big reason why taxpayers are down on nuclear power. The Bellefonte Nuclear Generating Station in Hollywood, Alabama hasn’t actually generated anything besides controversy. Construction began on two reactors in 1974 with a second pair of reactors in the planning stage. Development of the first two reactors was suspended in 1988 and subsequent parts cannibalization has reduced the completion level of reactors 1 and 2 to 55% and 35%respectively. The Bellefonte Nuclear Generating Station looks virtually complete from the outside and maintenance over the years has helped keep up appearances. The station’s construction permits were terminated in 2006, reinstated in 2009, and deferred in 2010. TVA has stated they intend to finish only one reactor at BNGS but only after work at the Watts Bar 2 reactor in Tennessee is done. Don’t hold your breath: as of early 2012, an official TVA status report stated the Watts Bar 2 project was “running over budget and behind schedule.”

Zwentendorf Nuclear Power Plant, Austria As the 1970s began, the central European nation of Austria determined that six nuclear power plants would be necessary to assure energy self-sufficiency in the coming decades. Construction began in 1972 at what was to be the Zwentendorf Nuclear Power Plant and the facility was completed on time and on budget in 1978. All that remained before the plant was fueled and the switches thrown was to await the results of a national referendum on nuclear power… which was rejected by a razor-thin 50.47% majority. DOH!   Cue “Nuclear Power Plant Makeover, Austria Edition.” After sitting idle for a number of years while the plant’s  nuclear-related infrastructure was dismantled, energy company EVN bought the plant and transformed the remaining infrastructure into a Solar Power Plant. As of the summer of 2012, the recycled and re-purposed power station had already produced more than 6 million kWh of electricity

Zarnowiec Nuclear Power Plant, Poland Plans for the first Polish nuclear plant were approved on December 9th, 1972, and the location chosen was the village of Kartoszyno on Poland’s Baltic Sea coast. The plant was to be the centerpiece of a dedicated industrial and economic zone with over 700 buildings and an electric railway. The entire scheme went off the rails, so to speak, after the 1986 Chernobyl disaster kick-started public opposition to the Zarnowiec Nuclear Power Plant that manifested itself in a 1990 referendum. With 86% giving a big thumbs-down, Zarnowiec was dead in the water. After some governmental hemming & hawing, the entire project was officially cancelled on September 4th, 1990, at which time the first reactor block was 40% complete. Subsequent mismanagement of the construction site at both the local and national level led to widespread looting and vandalism – the total financial loss may be as much as $2 billion US dollars…

February 11, 2013 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | 2 WORLD, business and costs, Reference