Misplaced Pages

#975024

56-489: The plant was built between 1973 and 1984 by the Long Island Lighting Company (LILCO). The plant faced considerable public opposition after the 1979 Three Mile Island accident and the 1986 Chernobyl disaster . There were large protests and two dozen local groups opposed the plant. In 1983, Suffolk County determined that the county could not be safely evacuated in the event of a serious nuclear accident at

112-461: A 3 percent surcharge to Long Island electric bills for 30 years to pay off the $ 6 billion price tag. On May 19, 1989, LILCO agreed not to operate the plant in a deal with the state under which most of the $ 6 billion cost of the unused plant was passed along to Long Island residents. The Long Island Power Authority (LIPA), headed by Richard Kessel , was created in 1986 specifically to buy the plant from LILCO. In 1992, LIPA bought Shoreham from LILCO for

168-643: A St. Louis psychologist. They had two children, Frederic and Lucy Commoner, and one granddaughter. Following a divorce, in 1980 he married Lisa Feiner, whom he had met in the course of her work as a public-TV producer. Commoner died on September 30, 2012, in Manhattan , New York. He was a member of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and has a star on the St. Louis Walk of Fame . In 2014,

224-426: A plane could crash into the plant, though studies suggest that an airliner impacting a containment structure would not destroy the structure or even cause sufficient damage to permit the escape of radioactive materials from the reactor core. The plant was built between 1973 and 1984, completed with a General Electric type 4 boiling water reactor using Mark II containment. Its location on Long Island Sound – near

280-645: A professor of plant physiology at Washington University in St. Louis in 1947 and taught there for 34 years. During this period, in 1966, he founded the Center for the Biology of Natural Systems to study "the science of the total environment". Commoner was on the founding editorial board of the Journal of Theoretical Biology in 1961. In the late 1950s, Commoner became known for his opposition to nuclear weapons testing , becoming part of

336-403: A renewable-energy program. At a ceremony, chairman Kessel stated, "We stand in the shadow of a modern-day Stonehenge, a multibillion-dollar monument to a failed energy policy, to formally commission the operation of a renewable energy technology that will harness the power of the wind for the benefit of Long Island's environment." The turbines generate 200 MWh per year, or 1/35,000th of the energy

392-441: A significant part of their exploitation of the developing nations' labor force and natural resources, the first step towards a "demographic transition" was met, but other stages were not achieved because the wealth created in developing countries was "shipped out", so to speak, to the colonizer nations, enabling the latter to achieve the more advanced "levels of demographic transition", while the colonies continued on without achieving

448-727: A study published by the North American Commission on Environmental Cooperation , led by Commoner, found that Inuit women in the Arctic in Nunavut , Canada were found to have high levels of dioxin in their breast milk. The study tracked the origin of the dioxins using computer models from the sources that produced it and found that the dioxin pollution in the Arctic originated from the United States. Out of 44,000 sources of dioxin polluters in

504-666: Is poverty that "initiates the rise in population" before leveling off, not the other way around. Developing countries were introduced to the living standards of developed nations, but were never able to fully adopt them, thus preventing these countries from advancing and thereby decreasing the rate of their population growth. Commoner maintained that developing countries are still "forgotten" to colonialism . These developing countries were, and economically remain, "colonies of more developed countries". Because Western nations introduced infrastructure developments such as roads, communications, engineering, and agricultural and medical services as

560-401: Is that wealthier nations need to help exploited or colonized countries develop and "achieve the level of welfare" that developed nations have. This is the only path to a balanced population in these developing countries. Commoner states that the only remedy for the world population crisis, which is the outcome of the abuse of poor nations by rich ones, is "returning to the poor countries enough of

616-534: The Limerick Nuclear Power Plant . In August 2002 a 100 MW Gas Turbine Power Plant was commissioned on the Shoreham site utilizing the existing switchgear that was in place for the decommissioned nuclear facility. This facility utilizes two 42 MW GE LM6000PC Jet Engine Generators equipped with Sprint injection (can increase capacity to 50 MW each) and Spray Mist Evaporative Cooling (SMEC). Its construction

SECTION 10

#1732859275976

672-777: The Long Island Rail Road 's service woes and traffic snarls on the Long Island Expressway . In 1983, the Suffolk County legislature resolved that the county could not be safely evacuated in the event of an emergency at the LILCO built Shoreham Nuclear Power Plant . In an effort to show they were prepared for the event of a nuclear mishap at Shoreham, LILCO created a volunteer organization, staffed by Shoreham engineers and various staff from LILCO itself, named LERO (Local Emergency Response Organization) to provide assistance to

728-709: The Northport Power Station , constructed between 1967 and 1977, became Long Islands largest power plant. In addition to the large steam turbine plants, LILCO built a large number of smaller gas turbine generators in the early 1970s, most of them at the E. F. Barrett Power Station and at a new facility in Holtsville . LILCO was long notorious for its high rates. Indeed, according to a 1999 article in The New York Times , LILCO's rates were considered part of an "unholy trinity of life on Long Island", along with

784-700: The Nuclear Test Ban Treaty of 1963 . Commoner was born in Brooklyn , New York, on May 28, 1917, the son of Jewish immigrants from Russia. He received his bachelor's degree in zoology from Columbia University in 1937 and his master's and doctoral degrees from Harvard University in 1938 and 1941, respectively. After serving as a lieutenant in the US Navy during World War II , Commoner moved to St. Louis , Missouri, and he became an associate editor for Science Illustrated from 1946 to 1947. He became

840-568: The Suffolk County Legislature voted 15–1 in favor of a resolution stating that the county could not be safely evacuated in the event of an accident at Shoreham. The newly elected governor of New York, Mario Cuomo, then ordered state officials not to approve any LILCO-sponsored evacuation plan. The plant was completed in 1984. In 1985 LILCO received federal permission for low-power 5 percent tests. Confidence in LILCO declined in 1985 when it took nearly two weeks to restore power to all of

896-520: The Three Mile Island accident , 15,000 protesters gathered in the largest demonstration in Long Island history. 600 were arrested as they scaled the plant's fences. LILCO's problems were compounded by NRC rules in the wake of Three Mile Island, requiring that operators of nuclear plants work out evacuation plans in cooperation with state and local governments. This prompted local politicians to join

952-458: The "environmental crisis", and a quote from Richard Nixon 's State of the Union address , calling it, "The great question of the '70s". Nixon said, "Shall we surrender to our surroundings or shall we make our peace with nature and begin to make reparations for the damage we have done to our air, to our land and to our water?" The magazine called Commoner, the " Paul Revere of ecology" for his work on

1008-420: The "three e's" that were plaguing the United States in the 1970s, the three e's being the environment, energy, and the economy. "First there was the threat to environmental survival; then there was the apparent shortage of energy; and now there is the unexpected decline of the economy." He argued that the three issues were interconnected: the industries that used the most energy had the highest negative impact on

1064-522: The Citizens Party ticket won 233,052 votes (0.27 percent of the total). After his presidential bid, Commoner returned to New York City and moved the Center for the Biology of Natural Systems to Queens College . He stepped down from that post in 2000. At the time of his death, Commoner was a senior scientist at Queens College. After serving in World War II, Commoner married the former Gloria Gordon,

1120-574: The Lloyd Harbor Study Group, the Farm Bureau , The Long Island Safe Energy Coalition and its newsletter Chain Reaction, Safe'n Sound with its Sound Times newspaper, and the S.H.A.D. Alliance (modeled on New Hampshire's Clamshell Alliance ). According to a Newsday poll, in 1981, 43 percent of Long Islanders opposed the plant; by 1986, that number had risen to 74 percent. On February 17, 1983,

1176-470: The Long Island system," and its control room managed LILCO's entire system. LILCO greatly increased its generating facilities to meet increasing power demands created by Long Island's postwar population growth. In the 1950s, two new units were constructed at the Glenwood Generating Station, and two at the new E. F. Barrett Power Station , and one at the new Far Rockaway Power Station . At

SECTION 20

#1732859275976

1232-469: The Planet , an analysis of the ongoing environmental crisis in which he argues that the way we produce goods needs to be reconstrued. Commoner examined the relationship between poverty and population growth , disagreeing with the way that relationship is often formulated. He argued that rapid population growth of the developing world is the result of it not having adequate living standards, observing that it

1288-820: The US. The publications of Commoner are also considered influential in the decision of the Nixon administration in the following June to announce the formation of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the Clean Air Act of 1970. In 1969, Commoner was one of the founders of the Missouri Coalition for the Environment , an independent citizens environmental advocacy organization. His early guidance for this nonprofit led to multiple lawsuits that were won to protect

1344-453: The United States, they found that only 19 were contributing to greater than a third of the dioxin pollution in Nunavut. Out of these 19, Harrisburg's incinerator was found to be the top source of dioxin pollution. He was a recipient of the 2002 Joe A. Callaway Award for Civic Courage . Time magazine introduced a section on the environment in their February 1970 issue, featuring articles on

1400-454: The drawing board stage but this helped delay and increase the costs of the plant. In 1969, LILCO announced plans for a reactor at Lloyd Harbor in Huntington – closer to Manhattan in a more densely populated area. Following resident opposition, the proposal was dropped in 1970, setting the stage for opposition to any nuclear power plant on Long Island. The plant was to be situated near

1456-593: The environment. In 1980, Commoner founded the Citizens Party to serve as a vehicle for his ecological message, and he ran for president of the United States in the 1980 US election . His vice presidential running mate was La Donna Harris , the Native-American wife of Fred Harris , a former Democratic senator from Oklahoma, although she was replaced on the ballot in Ohio by Wretha Hanson. His candidacy for president on

1512-418: The environment. The focus on non-renewable resources as sources of energy meant that those resources were growing scarce, thus pushing up the price of energy and hurting the economy. Towards the book's end, Commoner suggested that the problem of the three e's is caused by the capitalistic system and can only be solved by replacing it with some sort of socialism . In 1990, Commoner published Making Peace With

1568-658: The growing opposition to the plant. Since any land evacuation off the island would involve traveling at least 60 miles (97 km) back through New York City to reach its bridges, local officials feared that the island could not be safely evacuated. Nora Bredes, executive director of the Shoreham Opponents Coalition, was a primary organizer of the grass-roots campaign against Shoreham during the 1980s. She lobbied officials, organized advertising campaigns, wrote pamphlets, and planned rallies. Ms. Bredes drew together more than two dozen local opposition groups which included

1624-404: The island following Hurricane Gloria . Between 1985 and 1989, as local communities continued to refuse to sign the necessary evacuation plan, LILCO proposed asking the U.S. Congress to approve a law for the evacuation — a move which went nowhere. On February 28, 1989, Cuomo and LILCO announced a plan to decommission the plant, which involved the state taking over the plant and then attaching

1680-502: The issuance of a construction permit for the Shoreham plant. The plant drew considerable opposition after the 1979 Three Mile Island accident and the 1986 Chernobyl disaster , resulting in delays and cost increases before New York Governor Mario Cuomo ordered purchasing and decommissioning of the plant. The state would ultimately take over LILCO also. The first small anti-Shoreham demonstration took place in June 1976. On June 3, 1979, following

1736-525: The mouth of the small stream that forms the border between Brookhaven and Riverhead towns – was largely rural at the time (although within 60 miles of Manhattan ). Cost overruns caused its estimated final cost to approach $ 2 billion by the late 1970s, due to low worker productivity and design changes ordered by the NRC. The Sierra Club , the Audubon Society and environmentalist Barry Commoner opposed

Shoreham Nuclear Power Plant - Misplaced Pages Continue

1792-659: The negative ecological effects of atmospheric (i.e., above-ground) nuclear testing. In 1970, he received the International Humanist Award from the International Humanist and Ethical Union . In his 1971 bestselling book The Closing Circle , Commoner suggested that the US economy should be restructured to conform to the unbending laws of ecology. For example, he argued that polluting products (like detergents or synthetic textiles) should be replaced with natural products (like soap or cotton and wool). This book

1848-579: The nominal sum of one dollar and closed it, making Shoreham the first commercial nuclear power plant in the US to be dismantled. The plant was fully decommissioned in 1994. It cost $ 186 million to decommission the reactor, with the radioactive materials license ending in May 1995. The low-pressure turbine rotors are currently in use at the Davis-Besse Nuclear Power Station . LILCO paid Philadelphia Electric Company $ 50 million to take its fuel to

1904-667: The nuclear plant would have produced. Had the Shoreham Nuclear Power Station gone into operation as planned, it would have prevented the emission of an estimated three million tons of carbon dioxide per year, according to journalist Gwyneth Cravens . Long Island Lighting Company The Long Island Lighting Company , or LILCO ("lil-co"), was an electrical power company and natural gas utility for Long Island , New York , serving 2.7 million people in Nassau , Suffolk and Queens counties, from 1911 until 1998. It

1960-557: The path of airplanes landing at MacArthur Airport and the New Haven Airport . It was also to be built in an area that the U.S. Air Force had designated as "high hazard" due to its proximity to the Naval Weapons Industrial Reserve Plant, Calverton , where Grumman military fighter planes were tested, which was five miles (8.0 km) from the Shoreham site. The Lloyd Harbor Study Group were concerned that

2016-484: The plant ever to be able to open. On May 19, 1989, LILCO agreed not to operate the plant in a deal with the state under which most of the $ 6 billion cost of the unused plant was passed on to Long Island residents. In 1992, the Long Island Power Authority bought the plant from LILCO. The plant was fully decommissioned in 1994. Long Island Lighting Company (LILCO) President John J. Tuohy announced plans for

2072-495: The plant on April 13, 1965, during a stockholder's meeting. The plant was to be the first commercial nuclear power plant on Long Island and initially had little formal opposition, as Brookhaven already had multiple research nuclear reactors at the Brookhaven National Laboratory , about 5 miles (8.0 km) south of Shoreham. LILCO purchased a 455-acre (1.84 km) site in an area which was sparsely populated at

2128-404: The plant. Governor Mario Cuomo ordered state officials not to approve any LILCO-sponsored evacuation plan—effectively preventing the plant from operating at full capacity. The plant was completed in 1984 and in 1985 LILCO received federal permission for low-power (5 percent power) tests. By 1989, it became apparent that not enough local communities would sign on to the evacuation plan for

2184-518: The public. Hurricane Gloria hit Long Island on September 27, 1985, but power was not fully restored until October 8. The utility's poor response to the storm further eroded public confidence in LILCO's ability to handle an emergency and placed increased pressure to shutter the Shoreham Nuclear Power Plant. In the end, in a political decision born from LILCO's inability to present a viable evacuation plan for Suffolk County, Shoreham

2240-419: The second stage, which is population balancing. "Thus colonialism involves a kind of demographic parasitism: the second population-balancing phase of the demographic transition in the advanced country is fed by suppression of that same phase in the colony". "As the wealth of the exploited nations was diverted to the more powerful ones, their power, and with it their capacity to exploit increased. The gap between

2296-655: The source of environmental problems, and that their proposed solutions were politically unacceptable because of the coercion that they implied, and because the cost would fall disproportionately on the poor. He believed that technological, and above all, social, development would lead to a natural decrease in both population growth and environmental damage. One of Commoner's lasting legacies is his four laws of ecology, as written in The Closing Circle in 1971. The four laws are: Commoner published another bestseller in 1976, The Poverty of Power . In that book, he addressed

Shoreham Nuclear Power Plant - Misplaced Pages Continue

2352-565: The team which conducted the Baby Tooth Survey , demonstrating the presence of Strontium 90 in children's teeth as a direct result of nuclear fallout . In 1958, he helped found the Greater St. Louis Committee on Nuclear Information. Shortly thereafter, he established Nuclear Information , a mimeographed newsletter published in his office, which later went on to become Environment magazine. Commoner went on to write several books about

2408-445: The threats to life from the environmental consequences of fallout from nuclear tests and other pollutants of the water, soil, and air. Time's cover represented a "call to arms", to mobilize public opinion by appeals to conscience. The following month, the first Earth Day took place, which saw 20 million Americans demonstrating peacefully in favor of environmental reform, accompanied by several events held at university campuses across

2464-610: The time The New York Times called the Glenwood Generating Station "one of the most modern power plants in the country," with both mechanical and electrostatic precipitators for dust and ash collection, as well as valve silencers and noise barriers . It was the first turbine generator mounted on an open deck in the Northeastern United States . Four units were also constructed at the Port Jefferson Power Station between 1948 and 1960. The four units of

2520-606: The time. They announced the plant would produce 540 megawatts, cost between $ 65 and $ 75 million and would be online in 1973. At the time, demand for electricity was increasing more than 10 percent per year on Long Island and the Atomic Energy Commission was strongly pushing all power companies to use nuclear power. In 1968, LILCO increased the size of the plant from 540 to 820 megawatts and announced plans to build two more reactors in Jamesport . Those reactors never got beyond

2576-455: The wealth of nations grew, as the rich were fed by the poor". This exploitation of resources extracted from developing nations, aside from its legality, led to an unforeseen problem: rapid population growth. The demographer, Nathan Keyfitz , concluded that, "the growth of industrial capitalism in the Western nations during the period 1800–1950 resulted in the development of a one-billion excess in

2632-444: The wealth taken from them to give their peoples both the reason and the resources voluntarily to limit their own fertility". His conclusion is that poverty is the main cause of the population crisis. If the reason behind overpopulation in poor nations is the exploitation by rich nations made rich by that very exploitation, then the only way to end it is to "redistribute [the wealth], among nations and within them". In September 2000,

2688-433: The world population, largely in the tropics ". This is evident in the study of India and contraceptives , in which family planning failed to reduce the birth rate because people felt that "in order to advance their economic situation", children were an economic necessity. The studies show that "population control in a country like India depends on the economically motivated desire to limit fertility". Commoner's solution

2744-433: Was an American cellular biologist , college professor , and politician . He was a leading ecologist and among the founders of the modern environmental movement. He was the director of the Center for Biology of Natural Systems and its Critical Genetics Project. He ran as the Citizens Party candidate in the 1980 U.S. presidential election . His work studying the radioactive fallout from nuclear weapons testing led to

2800-603: Was closed down in 1992 after never having operated at more than minimum power for testing purposes. On March 5, 1998, final Federal approval was received for LIPA to take over LILCO's electrical transmission network. The deal was completed later that year. LILCO's power distribution assets were bought by the Long Island Power Authority (LIPA), a public authority . The rest of LILCO, including its electrical generation and natural gas businesses, merged with Brooklyn Union Gas to form KeySpan , which continued to run LILCO's old transmission network under contract with LIPA. KeySpan

2856-422: Was constructed from 1928 to 1931. The extra generating capacity was needed due to a sixfold increase in Long Island's electricity demand from 1910 to 1925. The expansion also reflected LILCO's then-novel philosophy of using few centralized power plants interconnected by transmission lines, rather than many small plants distributed through the region. In 1936 it was described as "the key electric generating plant of

SECTION 50

#1732859275976

2912-519: Was founded by Ellis Laurimore Phillips , an engineer, and a group of New York City investors, including George W. Olmsted . At the time, Long Island had multiple small power utilities that served individual villages; their business plan was to acquire these and interconnect them into an island-wide grid. In 1911, their first purchases were four small electric companies in Amityville , Islip , Northport and Sayville . The Glenwood Generating Station

2968-615: Was laid from the Shoreham plant across Long Island Sound to New Haven, Connecticut . During the Northeast Blackout of 2003 the cable was used to ease the effects of the blackout on Long Island. After extended negotiations with Connecticut , the cable was put into permanent use. In 2004, the Long Island Power Authority erected two 100-foot, 50 kW wind turbines at the Shoreham Energy Center site, as part of

3024-468: Was one of the first to bring the idea of sustainability to a mass audience. Commoner suggested a left-wing, eco-socialist response to the limits to growth thesis, postulating that capitalist technologies were chiefly responsible for environmental degradation, as opposed to population pressures. He had a long-running debate with Paul R. Ehrlich , author of The Population Bomb and his followers, arguing that they were too focused on overpopulation as

3080-558: Was part of a plan to build ten such plants across Long Island to avoid the risk of rolling blackouts in the face of increased demand like those experienced in California the previous year, given strain on the system from a heat wave in 2001 . The electric transmission infrastructure has remained, connecting it to the Long Island electric grid . In 2002 the Cross Sound Cable , a submarine power cable capable of transmitting 330 MW,

3136-614: Was taken over by National Grid USA in 2007. National Grid handed control of Long Island's electrical transmission system to New Jersey utility Public Service Enterprise Group in 2014. All locations are in New York. In addition to the major plants, LILCO constructed smaller gas turbine plants at the above facilities and in East Hampton North , Holtsville , Southampton , Southold , and West Babylon . Barry Commoner Barry Commoner (May 28, 1917 – September 30, 2012)

#975024