Driving on Route-25a through East Shoreham, you’d never guess there was anything unusual about the gated road heading off toward the coast.
But go down a ways…
…and suddenly, it’ll appear through the trees…
Long Island’s only nuclear power plant, closed and shuttered since it was decommissioned in 1994.
Today, it sits completely empty, a relic of 1970s design permanently frozen in time.
A month ago, I heard that the now vacant Shoreham Nuclear Power Plant was available as a filming location, and I immediately set up a tour. It’d certainly be the first nuclear power plant to have in my files, and I was absolutely fascinated to see what still remained inside.
Construction began on Shoreham’s GE Mark II Boiling Water Reactor in 1973 and finished 12 years later in 1985, when it received its testing license and began operating at 5% capacity. That’s as far as the plant ever got.
Public opposition had been growing steadily during this period, in large part due to Three Mile Island’s partial meltdown in 1979 and the Chernobyl tragedy in 1986. The state and county eventually sided with the opposition and refused to approve the plant’s emergency escape route plan, which prevented it from obtaining an operating license.
In 1992, the $6 Billion facility was sold to the state for $1 (the cost was passed onto LI tax payers as a 3% surcharge on electric bills). The two-year decommissioning process commenced, the first time in US history that a licensed commercial nuclear reactor would be dismantled.
The process was completed in 1994 following the removal of 5 million pounds of radioactive waste and 560 irradiated fuel rod assemblies. The plant has been vacant and dormant ever since.
As we arrived at the doors to the facility, I noticed the first of what would turn out to be hundreds of warning signs still posted throughout.
We headed in.
As walked through the first few industrial rooms and corridors, my initial thought was that the plant seemed massive once you were inside.
It only took about four or five turns before I was completely lost.
Every once in a while, we’d come to a large open shaft going up to the roof, giving a sense of the height.
Despite being decommissioned, equipment is everywhere, some of it still in use.
I will admit, it takes a lot of self-control not to reach out and touch the thousands of buttons and levers you pass at every turn.
Also, there are pipes everywhere. I feel like I saw every possible variation of pipe and duct during my tour.
Finally, there are a lot of safety stations still in place, like this area radiation monitor.
Ditto the chemical burn first aid stations…
…and these cabinets containing emergency breathing apparatus:
After heading deeper into the plant, we came to a pair of double doors. We stepped through…
…and traveled back in time to when modern computers did not exist.
This is the reactor control room, an absolutely mind-boggling assortment of buttons, knobs, switches, lights, levers and cranks.
The equipment spans three entire walls…
…along with several work stations in the middle of the room. Look at that computer!
The desk calendar was last changed on November 8, 1994:
One of my favorite control arrays was this desk…
…which features a colorfully eye-pleasing – and easy to read! – set of lines connecting various systems with their indicator lights:
More switches…
…gauges…
…monitors…
…and more switches:
I was also intrigued by this grid of buttons, which depicts the status of the fuel rod assembly. You’ll note the word SCRAM on many of them, industry-speak for an emergency shutdown of a reactor.
Nearby, this diagram appears to monitor the overall reactor status, with more indicator lights and colorful connector lines:
Lining the top of the equipment stations were several tables of error messages, which I imagine you prayed would never light up:
The operator at this station was lucky to get a big-screen monitor:
Make your System Op quick calls here:
If you look at the rug, you’ll see a darker stripe running along the perimeter of the room. I was told that this was referred to as the “velvet rope,” and NO ONE was allowed to set foot into it without authorization from the office overlooking the control room.
This is that office:
From the control room, we headed down several more tunnels toward the reactor…
…passing more warning signs.
The Shoreham reactor was encased in two layers of containment. The outer layer, or secondary containment, is a 7-foot thick wall of reinforced concrete, traversed via this passage:
To enter the primary containment area, one would have to climb into this claustrophobic tube and securely close the enormous steel door…
…then wait on that bench for the door at the other end to open:
A phone for communicating with the outside world while sealed inside:
We stepped through the inner door…
We stepped through the passage and into the primary containment area. The reactor is on the left…
…encased in a second containment wall about 2-3 feet thick:
Fuel rods would have been loaded into the reactor via these tracks, first passing through the seven-foot thick outer shield…
…and then into the reactor here:
Just as I was wondering how much all of this equipment weighed, I happened to notice this device…
…clocking in at a gargantuan 46,000 pounds!
An emergency stretcher in case of injury:
We then headed up about ten flights of stairs to the top level of the reactor, an enormous circular room with a gigantic 360 turning crane overhead:
The reactor pit is in the center of the room…
A look inside:
Here’s an official GE diagram of the Mark II reactor:
Nearby is the fuel rod storage pool…
…which has been cleaned and ground down to remove any irradiated surfaces:
On the other side, an enormous shaft dropping all the way to ground level offers a sense of the height of the reactor building:
We then headed over to the sprawling turbine building, where electricity was generated (reactor creates steam, steam turns the turbine, turbine generates electricity):
Here’s a higher view – the turbine spanned the center of the room:
The turbine housing is now empty and capped off:
Two of the turbines were sold, but there’s still a third left for anyone in the market! Note: it probably doesn’t work.
A peek inside the turbine shaft:
On one side is a cute box-shaped structure known as the exciter room, which sounds like a fun place to hang out (it was responsible for producing the magnetic field necessary for generating electricity):
Not much inside today:
Throughout the room are walls of modular blocks, used for protecting workers from radiation while working in a particular area:
These were moved by two enormous hooks running along the roof:
The far side of the turbine room has made an appearance in one movie so far…
…the missile launch scene in The Dictator (the control room was also used).
A chunk of dismantled turbine rests atop the structure:
From the turbine room, you can walk out onto the lower roof of the plant…
…which has a gorgeous view of Long Island Sound…
…and nearby Wading River:
Next up was Rad Containment, the third building on site.
This locker would have stored radiation casks…
A look inside:
There were a few odds and ends lying around this building, like a floor filled with more shielding walls…
This gives you a sense of their size and construction:
In another room, part of the device used to close the water pumps:
Every once in a while, you’d pass by a “Hear-Here” booth, which I imagine offered some quiet when talking on the phone in a noisy environment:
And finally, one more control room, this one dedicated to the operation of the containment building:
Just another thousand or so buttons and knobs…
…covering all three walls:
I gravitate toward the more colorful panels:
Our last stop was to the plant’s former office area:
The conference room, with views of the Sound:
As we headed out of the facility past the atrium entrance, I noticed one last amusing bit…
…a garden of fake greenery over the door, as full of life as it was the day the plant opened:
As you’ve seen above, the plant has a TON of possibilities for the right production, and while it’s a little further out, I can’t think of anything that offers such a unique collection of options. A huge thanks to the folks at PSEG for arranging the tour.
If nothing else, the plant is just begging for a horror movie to make use of its shadowy passages.
It’s pretty hard to walk through its darkened industrial spaces and not picture the alien from Alien waiting to pounce on you from above:
One neat fact to leave you with: throughout the plant, you’ll see these crosses marked all over the walls and floors, creating 3 ft x 3ft grids:
This is how the plant was checked for contamination – literally one grid at a time, throughout the entire facility.
Hope you’ve enjoyed the tour!
-SCOUT
Note: Before anyone asks, the plant is under security surveillance, and at least two trespassers have been sent to jail for breaking and entering in the past.
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