Marble Hill Nuclear Power Plant
Marble Hill Nuclear Power Station was an unfinished nuclear power plant in Saluda Township, Jefferson County, near Hanover, Indiana, USA. In 1983, the Public Service Company of Indiana announced it was abandoning the half-finished nuclear power plant, on which $2.5 billion had already been spent.
History
Construction at Marble Hill began in 1977 and ended in 1984, when the Public Service Company of Indiana, now Duke Energy, abandoned the half-finished nuclear power plant. With $2.5 billion spent and, as the most expensive nuclear construction project ever abandoned, Marble Hill was a devastating setback for the troubled nuclear power industry, which saw more than 100 plant cancellations following the Three Mile Island accident near Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, in March 1979. On March 18, 2005, demolition of the unfinished facility began.Long before 1984, Marble Hill had been a controversial enterprise. During 1978 and 1979, regional Ohio Valley environmental advocacy group The Paddlewheel Alliance staged two non-violent "occupations" of the PSI property. As ongoing local support dwindled, Marble Hill's fate rested with Indiana's state government, and PSI sought state funding guarantees for Construction Work in Progress.
Eventually, PSI announced it had to abandon Marble Hill because of an overwhelming increase in costs and a shortage of funds to finish construction. In October 1985, PSI staged an auction for roughly $8 million worth of already purchased reactor hardware.
Transmission lines
PSI planned to connect the nuclear plant to its network via a pair of 765 kV power lines and by looping in an existing, nearby 345 kV power line. The original plan included a 765 kV line to the existing Columbus substation, just south of Columbus, Indiana, and another 765 kV line to be built to a new substation near Rushville. However, plans for the Marble-Hill-to-Rush 765 kV power line were replaced with plans for a 765 kV link to American Electric Power's Jefferson Station, near Madison. Presumably, they would benefit PSI since the AEP Jefferson-Dumont 765 kV power line included an intermediate PSI interconnection substation near Greentown, Indiana.Transmission line construction began before the plant was completed, but was halted before wires could be strung. For many years, the guyed-V 765 towers stood without wires, until they were purchased by AEP to replace structures on the Jefferson-Dumont line that were destroyed by cascading line failure from an ice storm in the early 1990s.