Kewaunee Nuclear Power Plant - Kewaunee Nuclear Plant Shut Down

On May 7, 2013 @ 11:15am, the Kewaunee nuclear power plant generated its last megawatt. Steam blowoff began shortly afterwards, producing the constant hissing sound in this recording. At over 500 degrees F, this pressurized vapor billowed out from vents around the base of the cooling tower for nearly 24 hours. Turbines stopped. The conducting power lines radiating outwards, strung high above surrounding dairy farms, went dead. The plant was taken off the grid forever. The radioactive waste will take months to be placed into cooling pools. By 2019, the radioactive fuel will be encased in temporary storage casks. Unless a permanent waste burial site is opened in America, this material will be buried here for the indefinite future, slowly shedding radioactive energy for millions of years. As with all decommissioned nuclear sites, this place will outlast almost every other manmade object on Earth, long after our extinction as a species. Behold another monument to the Anthropocene.