Marble Hill Nuclear Power Plant (Abandoned)
USA /
Indiana /
New Washington /
World
/ USA
/ Indiana
/ New Washington
World / United States / Indiana
nuclear power plant, unfinished / unbuilt
Abandoned Nuclear power plant. In 1973, when Marble Hill was first proposed, Public Service Indiana (PSI, now Duke Energy) said the construction cost would be a whopping $700 million, the largest capital project in Indiana history. When the public hearings on the project were completed in September, 1977, estimated construction costs had doubled to $1.4 billion.
At that time, there was concern on the part of skeptics that the cost estimates by PSI were skewed to the low side to keep burgeoning opponents from using economic arguments against the plant.
Construction began in the late fall of 1977 and seemed to be going well. Lots of money was being spent and most folks around Madison welcomed the new jobs and the economic activity they brought. And though opposition to the plant grew steadily, PSI continued to suggest the plant would be ready to generate electricity by 1982.
But then came the disaster at Three Mile Island in late March 1979. There, entire systems failed and the super hot core of activated uranium in one of the reactors melted causing pressure to build up inside the containment building. A larger disaster was averted after a tense three-day period that had hydrogen building up inside the containment that, if released, could spell death and future disease and economic destruction for thousands of people who lived downwind or downstream.
Three Mile Island changed everything nuclear. The fear caused by the near meltdown was widespread and crossed all socio-economic boundaries. That fear permeated all nuclear developments and Marble Hill was no exception.
Construction did proceed on Marble Hill, but at a somewhat slower pace with more regulatory emphasis on safety issues. Then a symbolic bombshell dropped on the project when, on May 8, 1979, Charles Cutshall, a former employee of Marble Hill's general contractor, Gust K. Newburg, filed an affidavit indicating that he and other Newburg employees had been told to "cover up" construction defects before inspectors could find them.
Specifically, the defects that Cutshall revealed were in the concrete poured in the walls of the containment buildings. Cutshall claimed that "honeycombs" were in a number of areas of the vital containment structure that would protect people from a breach of radioactive gas should a situation like Three Mile Island happen at Marble Hill.
In what was to become a public relations nightmare for PSI, construction on the plant was shut down on three different occasions during the summer of 1979. PSI's chairman, Hugh Barker, in an act of desperation in an employee magazine titled Watts Cookin claimed, "One is forced to ask what's really behind the anti-nuclear movement? Who is fanning the flames of fear and irrational emotion?"
Asking the question, Barker then attempted to answer his question. "Two British experts on Soviet propaganda accuse the Soviet Union of funding and manipulating anti-nuclear movements in the west...the radicals among the anti-nuclear forces, by whatever name, clearly have as their goal, the transformation of our democratic, free society."
But for Marble Hill and most nuclear plants around the country, time was running out in the aftermath of Three Mile Island. Construction costs exploded to the point that companies could not hire enough people or throw enough money at these flawed proposals to complete their construction.
A few nukes were completed, but only after years of construction and huge cost overruns. Marble Hill was finally shut down in 1984 when it finally became apparent to the government of Gov. Robert Orr that completion of the plant might end up causing bankruptcy for not only PSI but also their customers, who could ill afford the gigantic increases in rates that Marble Hill would cause.
When it finally closed, more than $2.8 billion had been spent on construction, and it was only 20% complete. Finally, someone was listening to the economic arguments that enviros had been making for seven years about the ridiculous cost of the plant.
source: www.bloomingtonalternative.com/subscribers/news.php?top... 27jul03
Some major demolition work was begun in 2005.
At that time, there was concern on the part of skeptics that the cost estimates by PSI were skewed to the low side to keep burgeoning opponents from using economic arguments against the plant.
Construction began in the late fall of 1977 and seemed to be going well. Lots of money was being spent and most folks around Madison welcomed the new jobs and the economic activity they brought. And though opposition to the plant grew steadily, PSI continued to suggest the plant would be ready to generate electricity by 1982.
But then came the disaster at Three Mile Island in late March 1979. There, entire systems failed and the super hot core of activated uranium in one of the reactors melted causing pressure to build up inside the containment building. A larger disaster was averted after a tense three-day period that had hydrogen building up inside the containment that, if released, could spell death and future disease and economic destruction for thousands of people who lived downwind or downstream.
Three Mile Island changed everything nuclear. The fear caused by the near meltdown was widespread and crossed all socio-economic boundaries. That fear permeated all nuclear developments and Marble Hill was no exception.
Construction did proceed on Marble Hill, but at a somewhat slower pace with more regulatory emphasis on safety issues. Then a symbolic bombshell dropped on the project when, on May 8, 1979, Charles Cutshall, a former employee of Marble Hill's general contractor, Gust K. Newburg, filed an affidavit indicating that he and other Newburg employees had been told to "cover up" construction defects before inspectors could find them.
Specifically, the defects that Cutshall revealed were in the concrete poured in the walls of the containment buildings. Cutshall claimed that "honeycombs" were in a number of areas of the vital containment structure that would protect people from a breach of radioactive gas should a situation like Three Mile Island happen at Marble Hill.
In what was to become a public relations nightmare for PSI, construction on the plant was shut down on three different occasions during the summer of 1979. PSI's chairman, Hugh Barker, in an act of desperation in an employee magazine titled Watts Cookin claimed, "One is forced to ask what's really behind the anti-nuclear movement? Who is fanning the flames of fear and irrational emotion?"
Asking the question, Barker then attempted to answer his question. "Two British experts on Soviet propaganda accuse the Soviet Union of funding and manipulating anti-nuclear movements in the west...the radicals among the anti-nuclear forces, by whatever name, clearly have as their goal, the transformation of our democratic, free society."
But for Marble Hill and most nuclear plants around the country, time was running out in the aftermath of Three Mile Island. Construction costs exploded to the point that companies could not hire enough people or throw enough money at these flawed proposals to complete their construction.
A few nukes were completed, but only after years of construction and huge cost overruns. Marble Hill was finally shut down in 1984 when it finally became apparent to the government of Gov. Robert Orr that completion of the plant might end up causing bankruptcy for not only PSI but also their customers, who could ill afford the gigantic increases in rates that Marble Hill would cause.
When it finally closed, more than $2.8 billion had been spent on construction, and it was only 20% complete. Finally, someone was listening to the economic arguments that enviros had been making for seven years about the ridiculous cost of the plant.
source: www.bloomingtonalternative.com/subscribers/news.php?top... 27jul03
Some major demolition work was begun in 2005.
Wikipedia article: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marble_Hill_Nuclear_Power_Plant
Nearby cities:
Coordinates: 38°36'5"N 85°27'8"W
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