Indian Point: Optimism and Anxiety

It's like deja vu all over again, as Yogi said.  A New York governor named Cuomo opposes the licensing of a reactor in his own state. Some 25 years ago it was Mario and Shoreham. Now it's Andrew and Indian Point.  NRC hearings on the application for renewal of Units 2 and 3 recently began.

I've picked diverse pieces of memorabilia: one that reflects the optimism of the early years of atomic power; the others reflect the anxiety bred by calls to shut down the plant due to its proximity to New York City and supposed attractiveness as a target for terrorists.

The Con Edison brochure from c. 1960 illustrates the benefits of electricity generated from the proposed Indian Point Unit 1 to New York City. There's a certain irony in the proximity of the plant to the city in the cover illustration, given later opposition to the plant based on that fact.  Unit 1 itself was shut down by the mid-1970s because it did not have an Emergency Core Cooling System required of all plants as a result of an AEC rulemaking.  In response to a Union of Concerned Scientists petition, the NRC held a special proceeding in the early 1980s on the risk of operation of Units 2 and 3 in light of the population density near the site.

The terrorist attacks in September 2001 in New York and Washington recharged arguments against the plant as illustrated in these advocacy post cards calling the plant a nuclear weapon. Each is intended to be sent to some public official -- or in one case his wife.  The back of one card is addressed to Mrs. Diaz, the wife of then NRC Chairman Nils Diaz, who served as Commissioner from 1996 to 2003 and then as Chairman until mid 2006.