The Shoreham Plant ...

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.

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