One of the most famous battles against nuclear energy in the US, a struggle whose effects remain important to this day, was fought on Long Island. The saga involved nearly two decades of highly publicized effort marred by many failures in management and a well-organized opposition effort that successfully turned out thousands of people willing to march and hundreds willing to trespass and get arrested. Here are headlines from the June 4, 1979 issue of the New York Times:
Eventually, the plant was finally completed and obtained an operating license from the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission. The project cost nearly $6 Billion.However, the battle did not end there; the story got even worse as the state of New York and local politicians continued to fight. Some refused to sign off on the emergency response plans. Eventually, the state bought the plant for a $1, Long Island Lighting Company (LILCO) declared bankruptcy, and the plant never operated to produce or sell electricity. The ratepayers, however, are still paying elevated electricity prices in order to pay off the loans and in order to purchase the fuel oil and operate trash burning incinerators that supply the electricity that they still need to use.
The memory of the defeat of Shoreham and LILCO in the battle over an attempt to supply Long Island with clean, reliable fission power has not faded. It, along with memories of WPPS and Seabrook, are some of the primary reasons why the idea of investing in large nuclear energy projects is still viewed as a potential company killing bet.
The mythology about Shoreham is that it was a triumph of movement politics led by dedicated – if somewhat misguided – activists who were protecting their local environment. Even one of my favorite pro-nuclear writers – Gwyneth Cravens – participated in the marches and protests before she went on the mind-changing journey documented in her excellent book titled Power to Save the World: The Truth About Nuclear Energy. Harvey Wasserman, one of the organizers of the NoNukes concerts, the marketer of a concept called Solartopia, and a guy who is still on the lecture circuit trying to convince the world that there really were people who were killed at TMI, points to Shoreham as one of his life’s major victories – though he reluctantly gives some credit in his lectures to Senator Al D’Amato, a Republican politician from Long Island who also fought the plant.
What many people do not know about Shoreham is that at least some of the opposition literature used to scare people and fire up the troops was openly purchased by an organization called the Oil Heat Institute of Long Island. Here is a quote from one of a series of ads run by that group in the local paper during the long battle:
Sponsored in the public interest by the Oil Heat Institute of Long Island representing 225 independent businessmen who provide 2 billion gallons of oil a year to provide energy for 650,000 families and businesses in Nassau and Suffolk Counties.
LILCO is not the only authority on energy.
Our members have been supplying energy, heat and hot water to Long Island consumers for three generations.
We don’t pretend to know all the answers, but one thing is obvious.
Nuclear energy is not the simple, open-and-shut case that LILCO says it is.
During the next few weeks, we will present the other side of the nuclear fission question so everyone can decide for himself and make his feelings known before it is too late.
Paid for by the Oil Heat Institute of Long Island, 132 West Cherry St. Hicksville, N. Y. 11501
The ad is a full page spread with a map of the island with an atomic symbol at the plant location and the names of all of the villages and towns on the island. The headline in large, bold typeface reads: “LILCO is building a nuclear plant in your backyard: Shoreham is just a few minutes away from anywhere on Long Island.” The text of the ad includes most of the talking points that were frequently repeated during the first Nuclear Age; some of them still get used today. The ad claims that the insurance industry refuses to cover nuclear energy plants:
“Check your homeowners’ policy and you’ll find a “nuclear exclusion” clause. Every policy has one. For good reason.
A nuclear reactor offers the possibility of an accident far more terrible than anything in history.”
The ad claims that LILCO and the nuclear industry are relying heavily on the Emergency Core Cooling System (ECCS) which has –
Failed every test
“This system has never been fully tested in a major nuclear fission plant the size of Shoreham.
Six small-scale tests have been performed, and the Emergency Core Cooling System failed all six tests.
That’s right. The Emergency Core Cooling System failed six tests out of six.”
(Emphasis in the original.)
The ad then trots out the story of the three – out of an industry employing tens of thousands of people at the time – former General Electric employees and one former NRC staff member who began working in opposition to the technology.
“LILCO wants you to believe this subject is too complicated and technical for us to understand. “Leave it to the experts,” LILCO implies.
But the experts don’t necessarily agree with LILCO.
The nuclear industry has been rocked with resignations of engineers and technical experts.
The former chief safety evaluator of containment systems – the heart of a nuclear fission plant – and two other top engineers at General Electric resigned $30,000 a year jobs to campaign against nuclear plants.
They were joined a few days later by the U. S. Government’s project director at Indian River III, just north of New York City, which will be virtually identical to Shoreham.”
(Aside: 1. Containment systems are not the “heart” of nuclear fission plants. They are more like the suspenders worn by a guy who also has on a tight pants and a belt.
2. Four celebrated defections should not “rock” an industry employing tens of thousands of highly trained people, many of whom were world class scientists and engineers. In retrospect the phrasing in the ad is actually pretty accurate – this particular set of resignations did “rock” the industry in other ways by being used as a bludgeon for decades. The three former GE employees, Dale Bridenbaugh, Gregory Minor and Richard Hubbard built substantial careers as consultants out of their opposition, however principled it might have been in the beginning. The former NRC employee – Robert Pollard, has been called “the antinuclear movement’s indispensable man”. You can find his work easily these days using readily available search tools. End Aside.
The ad’s final paragraphs should be familiar – they are still a commonly heard rallying cry of the dedicated anti-nuclear opposition:
The insurance industry refuses to insure LILCO’s nuclear fission plant at Shoreham for more than a tiny fraction of the huge potential losses from a nuclear accident. The Government has to insure all the rest.
To protect itself, the Government has limited total liability to $560 million – a far cry from the $7 billion that its own experts say is minimum.
How safe can it be if all these experts refuse to touch it?
Now, how do you feel about having a nuclear fission plant in your backyard?
Here is the ad’s call to action:
What you can do to help
- Make your feelings know so other people will become aware.
- Sign the petition below so your Assemblymen and Senators in Albany will know you want action now.
Here is the petition that the ad asks people to sign:
I, the undersigned, petition my representatives in Government to sponsor and actively support (1) a “Nuclear Responsibility Bill,” and (2) legislation to develop safe, cost-competitivce energy sources (conservation, solar, tidal, wind, etc.)
There is also a cute graphic on the ad that would make Harvey Wasserman – Mr. Solartopia – proud:
Please do not forget the source of all of this “information” about nuclear fission; it was openly purchased by the Oil Heat Institute of Long Island. It was apparently part of a series of similar ads and “information” pieces. Wonder why the ad sponsors did not boldly ask people to tell their representatives that they wanted to keep buying and burning oil?
Rod Adams is Managing Partner of Nucleation Capital, a venture fund that invests in advanced nuclear, which provides affordable access to this clean energy sector to pronuclear and impact investors. Rod, a former submarine Engineer Officer and founder of Adams Atomic Engines, Inc., which was one of the earliest advanced nuclear ventures, is an atomic energy expert with small nuclear plant operating and design experience. He has engaged in technical, strategic, political, historic and financial analysis of the nuclear industry, its technology, regulation, and policies for several decades through Atomic Insights, both as its primary blogger and as host of The Atomic Show Podcast. Please click here to subscribe to the Atomic Show RSS feed. To join Rod's pronuclear network and receive his occasional newsletter, click here.
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As a fellow sailor Rod, I can only mourn the loss of Shoreham and curse its replacements and their effects on the Long Island Sound.
On a slightly different topic, I recommend the, somewhat, recent article in Wired about the anti-vaccine movement. Amy Wallace has made a terrific rendition of this particular anti-science movement and it struck me that much of the article, with a few substitutions, would give an accurate account of what the Nuclear Industry has suffered through in the last 35 years. I’m just looking for the money trail that would profit off the decline of vaccines.
http://www.wired.com/magazine/2009/10/ff_waronscience/
At least to me, the war on vaccines is batshit crazy. By decreasing herd immunity, vaccine non-compliant parents endanger not only their child but all children, in general.
People have to understand that all things come with risk, and that yes, theoretically, every time you pick up a piece of paper you could get a theoretical paper cut that could theoretically get infected by flesh-eating bacteria that could theoretically kill you. That doesn’t mean that it’s very likely, and your personal risk assessment of the dangers of paper cuts from paper does not make your “Ban All Paper – Host of Flesh Eating Bacteria!” campaign credible. Or your ban water fluoridation campaign, where you talk about fluoridation sapping your “precious bodily fluids.”
Instead you suck risk up, accept that freedom is not free, that everything has a small degree of residual risk, from cars to vaccines to sheets of paper to trains to aircraft – you suck it up, and live your life. If you can’t do that, you owe it to yourself to understand it before you become afraid of it, so learn everything that you can, and see if there is anything to really fear.
Plus
Liberal Democrat governor Mario Cuomo shut Shoreham down. Now his son, Andy Cuomo (NY State Attorney General) is trying to shut Indian Point down.
But Rod Adams can’t once mention that his liberal democrat comrades are responsible for the Shoreham shutdown, the fight in NY against Indian Point, or the fight in VT against Vermont Yankee.
The Demon-craps are anti-nuke and anyone who ingratiates themselves with the Demon-craps deserve what they get. Freeze in the dark, liberals, the whole lot of you.
Guest, I fully recognize that most opposition to nuclear power comes from within the liberal side of US politics. However, due to reasons discussed at length in other posts, I come from a liberal perspective. Kind of “paleoliberal” in some ways, but liberal nonetheless. Nothing that you say is going to change that. I respect conservativism – and conservatives – as my fellow Americans – but profoundly disagree with them on quite a few issues – speaking generally. I disagree with contemporary, post-modern liberalism on a few issues, too, but not nearly as many as conservatism.
In any event, I realize that I can work with my fellow Americans on both sides of the aisle to advance my views when they aren’t in harmony with those who I am in coalition with.
Comments like this – calling Democrats “Demon-Craps” – don’t win you friends, supporters, or respect. Being nice – and arguing your point in a gentlemanly fashion – refraining from personal attacks on commenters or the author of this blog – or outright namecalling against groups – but rather criticizing ideas and suggesting ones you consider are more positive – are far more effective.
Let me guess, following the shutdown of Shoreham the total fraction of Shoreham’s electricity supply from solar amounts to fuckall?
Soylent, 60% of LI’s electricity is made by burning oil. Most towns have diesel generators. Which is why when you fly over LI there is often a yellowish pall of smog. Solar and wind are negligible–less than 1%. Fortunately LI gets some electricity from nuclear power from the Millstone plant in CT. But the result of shutting down Shoreham is a steady uptick in fossil fuel combustion. I don’t know of any survey about the effects of all the waste from it on the lungs and hearts of LI residents, but the impact must be significant.
As an anti-nuke in 1970s-1980s, I campaigned to shut down Shoreham. LILCO was guilty of corruption, unsavory dealings with wise guys, steamfitters on the night shift that destroyed the work of the day shift ,etc. A nuclear engineer who worked there and who now works at Indian Point told me that finally LILCO had to build cages around completed construction so that the contractors with crews wielding acetylene torches could not get at the pipes.
Now that I understand much more about nuclear power I wish that some small modular reactors could be installed around LI. We’d have much cleaner air, particularly in the summer when more diesel is burned to power air conditioners.
Towns in Long Island use diesel generators as prime power? No wonder they have high electric rates. I know that Long Island has like the last oil power plant that was built prior to the end of the oil era in electric power…but I could never imagine that they actually use diesel generators. That’s crazy.
The EPA website “How clean is the electricity I use?” exemplifies Rod’s point:
Go to http://www.epa.gov/cleanenergy/energy-and-you/how-clean.html
Put in Shoreham ZIP 11786
See where the electricity comes from: 60% oil, 35% natgas.
Job well done!
Isn’t the lack of complains from the Sun not Nukes coalition rather surprising?
Now that solar power supplies most of Long Island
A few thingees…
Shoreham was screwed as soon as they poured concrete. A mob controlled Laborers Union did their best to make the plant the most expensive built in the US. I read the original reports (I drove out from NYC to the demonstration there to participate). I’ll be honest here: I might consider this to be correct, even in hindsight. There were really major, major issues with the costs of this plant. Well, I’d still be for it since the alternative really, really sucks, as we all know. And every point is accurate that Rod makes in his blog post here. It’s an excellent post.
The biggest issue for me in this is the ‘evacuation’ plan nonsense. EVEN if it was planned before we knew for sure 100% that after TMI, very little radiation would escape and what there was appears to have been irrelevant to the biosphere. The idea that “All of LI” would have to be evacuated even in a WORSE CASE scenario fantasy shows the uspsurd of the anti-nuke claim.
Lastly, the conservative Republicans were as *guilty* as shutting down the plant as liberal Democrats. D’Amato made his very conservative career on this NIMBYism. He was, and remained, the most conservative Republican NY has EVER sent to the US Senate, bar none (even more than Jim Buckley!). Luddism knew no party then, no ideology it’s own.
The way we will win nuclear energy is to make it as thoroughly non-partisan as possible. Lobbing marshmellows at “liberal democrats” is hardly the way to go.
DW
And the Oil Institute still exists:
http://www.ohili.org/index.html
I do find their anti-gas statements a little ironic though…
R – have you seen the Propane ads on television where the muscular guy wearing the t-shirt with Propane emblazoned on it disses electricity as a source of heat, hot water and cooking? As a Floridian, you may not get the regular diet of radio commercials from local oil distributors trying to capture customers from natural gas. At the local business level, gas comes from a pipeline and gets distributed by large corporations as a utility while oil gets delivered to tanks at homes by a local company operating trucks. They are definitely in competition with each other, though the fuel itself probably comes from the same major oil/gas company.
My purpose with these ‘smoking gun’ posts is not to demonize business and advertising. It is a very important part of our economy. What I am trying to do is to educate nukes about what I believe is the appropriate way to compete. We need to stop fooling ourselves into thinking that it is “the liberals” or “the environmentalists” who have led to the lack of new plant orders or who have led the battle. They may be the vocal and visible leaders, but the real power and financial resources come in because there is a LOT of money at stake in who gets to sell energy.
Yes I have seen the propane ads and they are quite funny.
I am still unsure about the fossil fuel companies. My reading of history is more that they tried to get in on nuclear and found it relatively difficult, so they pulled out and are “sticking with their knitting”. If they REALLY wanted to kill nuclear, they could have lobbied Congress after TMI to make NRC inspect to the level of INPO and have all of it public (instead, the deal was industry to have INPO which is private but looks more closely at utility practices).
It appears that the oil/gas companies want some use of nuclear, but to keep it a small percentage of generation until oil/gas supplies run low enough to make it worth their while to get back into nuclear. I agree with you that they are not supportive of a near-term large scale expansion.
Rod. This is a fascinating post and has gathered great comments.
About being a liberal and pro-nuclear. In my family, my mother was very active in SANE, which fought for the end of atmospheric testing of nuclear weapons. Being active in SANE was the right thing to do.
She never said a word against nuclear power, however. I think she loved the fact that Rickover was Jewish (as we are) and that he had done such great things for the Navy. She was hopeful about nuclear power as the plants were being built.
My mother wasn’t a scientist, but she could tell the difference between radioactive fall-out and a well-controlled power source. Something the anti-nukes haven’t figured out yet, all these many years later.
Meredith, a great comment! Thanks for that!
I was on ban the bomb demos in the early sixties, being dragged, tuchas high, behind *thousands* of screaming Jewish ladies (like my own mom). I must of been about 8 or so, in the early 60s. THAT I’m proud of very much of.
Autumn – though you may be right, I believe that we still have the opportunity to choose to succeed. We cannot give up now.
To wit, smog and acid rain are preferrable to safe clean nuclear power. Unstable solar, based on acreage invensive collector farms and photovoltiacs that have a few issues in production, e.g. haz waste generation common to Silicon chip production.
Not many are really serious about conservation, else we’d skip the compact flourescents (EPA forbid that you break one, Hg being pointed at more than a NORM aplha emitter to hasten starting) and go right for LED lamps for lighting… Wally world is condescending to offer a few.