These 11 unfinished, abandoned, cancelled, mothballed and/or suspended nuclear power plants will, for better or worse, never know the warmth of split atoms.
1. Lemoniz Nuclear Power Plant, Spain
Images via: Jasonmcconnie, JosebaZ and Wikipedia
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.
Image via: Txarama
In early 1981, ETA members kidnapped and later killed José María Ryan, the plant’s chief engineer. This proved to be too much for Iberduero, the plant’s builder and operator, who temporarily halted construction pending action from civil authorities…it never came. In 1983 the election of Spain’s first left-leaning government since the Spanish Civil War resulted in the project’s official cancellation. Watched over by automatic CCTV cameras and protected by spirals of razor wire, the Lemóniz Nuclear Power Plant sits silently as vegetation takes root in accumulating dirt and debris.
2. Marble Hill Nuclear Power Station, Indiana, USA
Images via: Craig Moyer and Ulule
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 spiralling 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.
Image via: The Vanishing Point
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.
3. Bataan Nuclear Power Plant, Philippines
Images via: Philippine Defense Forum, The Pinoy Explorer and Discover
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.
Images via: C.Wolf21
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.
4. Belene Nuclear Power Plant, Bulgaria
Images via: Expats, Sophia Echo and Cryptome
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 Plant shut 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.
Image via: Maxwell Woods
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.
5. Marviken Nuclear Power Plant, Sweden
Images via: Nuclear Power Yes Please
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.
Image via: KTH Royal Institute of Technology
By the mid-1960′s, Swedish politics began to take a pronounced leftward turn and critical eyes turned to Marviken where 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.
6. Bellefonte Nuclear Generating Station, Alabama, USA
Images via: Times Free Press and New York Times
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.
Image via: Arklite
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.”
7. Zwentendorf Nuclear Power Plant, Austria
Images via: EVN and Torchlight Images
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 fuelled 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!
Image via: Wikipedia
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.
8. Zarnowiec Nuclear Power Plant, Poland
Images via: Wikipedia, Warsaw Voice and Wikimedia
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 centrepiece 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.
Image via: Daily Phenomena Photoblog
After some governmental hemming and 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. In the meantime, Poland’s economy continues to grow while demand for energy increases apace. An up and running 4-reactor power plant would be greatly appreciated these days.
9. Montalto di Castro Nuclear Power Station, Italy
Images via: National Post and Gianni Galassi PhotoGraphia
The Montalto di Castro Nuclear Power Station located in Italy’s Lazio region about 90 km (56 miles) northwest of Rome was planned by Italian public power company ENEL in 1971, though shovels didn’t hit the dirt for an entire decade. This left the power plant fully exposed to what we’ll call “the Chernobyl Effect;” intense public fear and rejection of all things nuclear. Sure enough, a national referendum on the use of nuclear power in Italy was held in 1987 with the result causing Italy to close operating nuclear power plants and suspend or cancel all those in the planning and building stage. Thus, the Montalto di Castro Nuclear Power Station was forbidden to start up even though the plant was virtually complete.
Image via: The Reinstein Digest
Wisely, the Italian government and ENEL took steps to ensure the Montalto di Castro Nuclear Power Station would not be a total waste of time and money. Both a large gas-fired power plant and Italy’s largest photovoltaic (PV) plant make use of the former Montalto di Castro Nuclear Power Station’s facilities, infrastructure and power transmission lines.
10. Juragua Nuclear Power Plant, Cuba
Images via: Boston.com, Townhall.com and Robert-Marquardt.com
The still-born Juragua Nuclear Power Plant in Cuba’s south-central Cienfuegos Province has its origins in a 1976 agreement between Cuba and the former Soviet Union that envisioned a total of 12 Soviet-designed nuclear reactors spread over three different locations - Washington was less than pleased, as one can imagine. This grandiose plan was later revised so that a mere two reactors would be installed at the Juragua location.
Image via: Wikipedia
Construction began on one reactor in 1983 and on the second in 1985; at one point up to 450 Soviet technicians were hard at work onsite at Juragua. By the fall of 1992, over 90% of the first reactor’s infrastructure had been completed though well under half of the crucial reactor machinery had been installed. At this point, the fall of communism in the USSR threw a large monkey wrench into the works. Two-thirds of the Russian workers left for home and construction ground to a halt. Following a number of false starts, Cuban leader Fidel Castro announced in 2000 that the power plant would not be completed.
11. SNR-300 Fast Breeder Nuclear Reactor, Germany
Images via: Themes Parks
It’s a pity so few abandoned nuclear power plants haven’t been re-purposed to the extent the SNR-300 Fast Breeder Nuclear Reactor complex in Kalkar, Germany has. Approved in 1972 and completed in 1985, the plant was finished to the point where it only required nuclear fuel to begin power generation - the liquid sodium coolant had already been installed and was being heated electrically at great cost to prevent it from solidifying.
Image via: Reisemobil Union e.V.
Noting a high level of public opposition to the facility and with national elections looming, the German government decided to postpone the plant’s start-up until after the vote…a critical decision. Then came the Chernobyl disaster in April of 1986, the tipping point after which it became politically impossible to open the SNR-300. In March of 1991 the project was officially cancelled and the plant was shut down. Fast-forward to 1995 when a Dutch investor bought the non-radioactive property for 2.5 million euros, whereupon it became an amusement park with a 400-bed hotel named (at first) Kernwasser Wunderland and, since 2005, Wunderland Kalkar.
Oh bad! That is such a waste of money.
ReplyDeleteGrand Coulee is the biggest power station in USA. The ten biggest power stations in the US are fossil-fuelled, while the other four, including the two biggest Grand Coulee and Palo Verde, are hydro -and nuclear-powered.
ReplyDeleteCoal: Fair enough. We had a good run, Power Plant. Industrial revolutionary. cannabis seeds for sale
ReplyDelete