There's An Abandoned Nuclear Power Plant In Indiana That Was Never Completed And It's Eerily Fascinating
By Tori Jane|Published April 05, 2022
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Tori Jane
Author
Tori Jane is a storm chaser, writer, photographer, and the village idiot - in that order. When she's not out and about dancing with the meanest storms on planet Earth for funsies she can be found wandering, shooting landscapes, writing, editing photos, and otherwise up to no good. Legend has it that she can also be occasionally spotted typing up short bios in the third person, but those rumors are unsubstantiated.
Nestled in Jefferson County, Indiana, is the small town of Hanover. It’s your typical Midwestern town with under 5,000 people – sometimes, it seems like there’s more to do around here than there are people who currently live here, like the tallest waterfall in Indiana, for example (it’s Fremont Falls, by the way). Like many small Midwestern towns, Hanover is filled to the brim with whispers and urban legends, many of which are attached to various abandoned homesteads and buildings dotted all over the Hoosier State. One of the lesser-known and least-understood abandoned places in Indiana is that of the entire Marble Hill Nuclear Power Plant, a demonstration in hubris by the Public Service Company of Indiana (now called Duke Energy). It would be one of the world’s only nuclear plants to be abandoned halfway through its (incredibly expensive) construction; today, even most locals don’t know or remember anything about it.
In 1977, construction began on what would be the Marble Hill Nuclear Power Station.
Two classic containment buildings would house two pressurized water reactors, and there would be two cooling tower complexes just north of the containment buildings.
It was fraught with issues from the very start, from demonstrator protests to a nuclear accident in another state to outrageous mounting costs.
Between 1978 and 1979, environmentalist groups staged large, peaceful protests on the grounds, resulting in the arrests of nearly 90 of them. Nevertheless, the plant's construction continued, but it wasn't long before it ran into even more setbacks.
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Public opinion of nuclear power in general at this time was iffy at best, and in March 1979, the Three Mile Island incident (during which one of the units onsite at a nuclear plant in Pennsylvania partially melted down) occurred, further souring feelings toward the gargantuan nuclear structure being built right in Hoosier's backyards.
The final nails in the casket would be skyrocketing project costs and scandals following a former employee revealing alleged cover-ups of shoddy construction at the plant. Eventually, in 1984, PSC of Indiana announced that they were abandoning the project altogether.
Considering that more than two and a half billion dollars had already been spent in the construction of the plant, it became the single most expensive nuclear project to be abandoned in the U.S.
In 1985, PSI held an auction for already-purchased reactor hardware, and transmission lines had already been constructed (but not wired) as well. It was strange to see such a large-scale endeavor become obsolete overnight, but that's what happened at Marble Hill.
Interestingly, this isn't the only nuclear power plant to be abandoned in Indiana.
The other was located on the Indiana Dunes National Lakeshore and was named the Bailly Nuclear Power Plant. It was proposed in 1967 and canceled in 1981.
Today, there's not a lot left of what used to be Marble Hill Nuclear Power Plant.
Demolitions have been ongoing since 2007. Nowadays, there isn't much at the site that would tell anyone it was ever supposed to be a nuclear power plant; it's an entry on the list of projects and ideas in Hoosier history that never quite worked out, except this one was a little more expensive than most.
Interestingly, though, we do still have some nuclear things going on, like this tiny nuclear reactor at a college in Indiana. What do you think? Do you know of any abandoned places in Indiana with intriguing backstories? Tell us your favorites by filling out this form! We love hearing your stories!
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