Shoreham
Brookhaven, N.Y.
Boiling Water Reactor (BWR)
Net Output: 809 MWe
Permanently shutdown. Date closed : 05/1989.

The Shoreham Nuclear Power Station in Wading River, New York (7 miles SSW of Brookhaven, NY, on Long Island Sound) closed before commercial operation began.

Note: the Shoreham low-pressure turbine rotors are currently in use at the Davis-Besse Nuclear Power Station.

The Shoreham plant on New York's Long Island is a virtual twin to the Millstone 1 plant in Connecticut, both ordered in the mid-'60s. Millstone, completed for $101 million, has been generating electricity for two decades. Shoreham, however, was singled out by anti-nuclear activists who, by filing endless protests, drove the cost to over $5 billion and delayed its use for many years.

Shoreham was finally completed and won its operating license. The plant completed its 5% power testing but was never put into commercial operation. Gov. Mario Cuomo, an opponent of a Shoreham startup, strong-armed New York's public-utilities commission into the following settlement: the power company could pass the cost of Shoreham along to its consumers only if it agreed not to operate the plant! Today, a perfectly good facility, capable of serving hundreds of thousands of homes, sits rusting.

The Shoreham Nuclear Plant (SNP), located on the northern shore of Long Island, was an 849 MWe Boiling Water Reactor (BWR), owned by Long Island Lighting Company (LILCO). Due to intense public opposition to the plant, it was given only a conditional operating license, not to exceed 5% power, in 1985. The plant operated intermittently over a period of two years -- the core, vessel, and internals accumulated less than three effective full power days by the time of shutdown in June of 1987. The plant 's nuclear steam supply system consisted of a single cycle, forced circulation, low power density boiling water reactor with a two-loop recirculation system. Primary containment consisted of the drywell, a pressure suppression pool, and a connecting submerged vent system between the drywell and pool.  The reactor enclosed the primary containment, thereby providing a secondary containment.  Two turbine generator facilities and two diesel generator facilities share the same site.

Still due to local public opposition to nuclear power, the plant was transferred to a separate entity, the Long Island Power Authority (LIPA), in 1989 and the reactor's fuel was transferred from the core to the spent fuel pool. By Settlement Agreement, LIPA was to close and decommission the plant as soon as was practical and to find alternative uses for the plant facilities. The DECON method was selected, based on cost considerations, maximizing the use of existing trained personnel, future low-level waste disposal uncertainties, and the potential for more restrictive site release criteria in later years. LIPA employed the New York Power Authority (NYPA) to direct the decommissioning activities. NYPA, in turn, contracted several companies to perform the planning, field decommissioning and dismantling activities. TLG Services contributed cost estimates and the preparation of a draft Decommissioning Plan, establishing a target date of mid-1974 for final site release. A comprehensive radiological characterization program was developed and carried out to identify the inventory of systems and structures known to be contaminated and/or activated. This characterization program formed the basis for all planning and cost estimating activities, and was a major factor in accurately planning the work and completing the project within the budget and on schedule.

The spent nuclear fuel was discharged from the reactor core and temporarily stored in the fuel storage pool. An aggressive effort was conducted to locate a willing recipient for the fuel, and after extensive negotiations, Philadelphia Electric Company agreed to use it at its Limerick Plant. LILCO paid Philadelphia Electric almost $50 million to take the fuel. The primary objective of the program was to transport all other radioactive materials to the Barnwell burial facility before it closed to outside waste generators (then expected to occur in 1994). There were only 602 curies (due to neutron activation) in the reactor vessel and internals, and approximately thirty millicuries of surface contamination in the remaining reactor systems and structures. Upon approval of the Decommissioning Plan, NYPA contractors mobilized rapidly and field activities began early in 1992.

Three cutting stations were established; an in-vessel cutting station, a wet cutting station (high dose components) and a dry cutting station (low dose components) installed in the dryer-separator pool. Plasma arc cutting was chosen as the primary vessel internals cutting method. Preliminary internals cutting was done under water in the vessel, followed by further segmentation at the wet cutting station to fit into transportation casks . The vessel was segmented using an inside diameter mechanical cutting machine. This mechanical track cutting system designed specifically for Shoreham's vessel was the only development work needed for the project. The vessel shell was cut horizontally into ring sections and transported to the dry cutting station for further vertical segmentation. The dryer-separator (low dose component) was also cut in the dry cutting station because of its difficult cutting geometry. Dry cutting required local fume collection with twelve air volume changes per hour.

Extensive planning was done to prepare laydown areas for maximum use of available floor space around the reactor cavity. Additional jib cranes were installed to facilitate the handling of segments and tooling. Pre-planning each activity with proven technological methods kept actual radiation exposures As Low As Reasonably Achievable (ALARA). Control of pool water clarity during cutting was a major challenge, requiring high filtration flow rates and frequent filter changes. The dose rates from the filter were not a problem because of the relatively low activation levels in the vessel. Similarly, control of airborne contamination during dry cutting was important to maintain low exposures in the containment building.

Portions of the remaining contaminated systems contained low levels of radioactivity, and the components were removed, packaged, and transported for disposal. Decontamination techniques such as dry ice pressure blasting were attempted on one of the systems with lower levels of contamination, but proved to be too costly for extensive use. Building concrete "hot spots" were decontaminated using scabbling (scarification) techniques.

The program was estimated to cost $186 million dollars for the decommissioning activities themselves. The cost at completion was about $182 million, excluding the cost for disposition of the fuel. The final radiation survey was conducted during the latter part of 1994; the NRC terminated Shoreham's radioactive materials license in May 1995. Due to its short operating period and low power history, the Shoreham site contained virtually no environmental contamination, or contamination outside of three major structures and their systems (spent fuel pool, dryer separator pit, and reactor cavity). The balance of the site and support structures remained intact; turbine facilities and diesel generators continue to function.