June 30, 2026
Meltdown? No—comment section meltdown
Long Island's decommissioned nuclear power plant
Inside Long Island’s $6 billion ghost plant that commenters can’t stop obsessing over
TLDR: Shoreham is a never-used Long Island nuclear plant that cost $6 billion, was sold for $1, emptied of dangerous material, and now sits abandoned like a giant movie set. Commenters are split between loving its retro control-room beauty and asking why the whole place wasn’t simply torn down.
Long Island’s abandoned Shoreham nuclear power plant is having a surprise second life: not making power, but making people absolutely lose it in the comments. The site, which was built for a staggering $6 billion, never truly got to live out its big atomic destiny after public fear following Three Mile Island and Chernobyl helped sink its approval. It was eventually sold to New York State for $1, decommissioned, stripped of radioactive material, and left sitting there like the world’s most expensive empty movie set.
And honestly? The community seems weirdly enchanted. One camp was totally hypnotized by the old-school control room, calling the giant wall of buttons and lights a lost masterpiece of design. In a world of hidden menus and endless tabs, commenters were swooning over a room where everything was just... right there. Another fan declared the panels just as compelling as the huge industrial spaces, basically turning a dead power plant into design porn.
But not everyone was in nostalgia mode. One blunt commenter cut through the awe with the obvious question: why is this thing still standing at all? If much of the steel isn’t dangerous, why not scrap it? That sparked the thread’s mini-drama: is Shoreham a haunting monument, a practical waste, or a priceless time capsule?
Then came the internet scavenger energy: one user dropped a YouTube video from inside the plant, while others piled on with local reactor trivia. Even the word “SCRAM” — industry slang for emergency shutdown — sounded to commenters less terrifying than absurdly cinematic. The whole vibe: half history lesson, half set tour, half "this belongs in a movie villain lair."
Key Points
- •The article documents a tour of the decommissioned Shoreham Nuclear Power Plant in East Shoreham, Long Island, which is now available as a filming location.
- •Public opposition to Shoreham increased after the 1979 Three Mile Island accident and the 1986 Chernobyl disaster, and the plant never obtained an operating license because its emergency escape route plan was not approved.
- •In 1992, the $6 billion plant was sold to the state for $1, with costs passed to Long Island taxpayers through a 3% surcharge on electric bills.
- •Decommissioning took two years and was completed in 1994 after 5 million pounds of radioactive waste and 560 irradiated fuel rod assemblies were removed.
- •The article describes remaining interior features including the control room, extensive piping, dual containment structures, fuel-rod loading tracks, a 46,000-pound device, and the turbine building.