It sat there for half a century, tucked away in the salt marshes of Lacey Township, quietly humming. To most people driving down Route 9 or heading toward Long Beach Island, the Oyster Creek Nuclear Station was just that massive stack in the distance, a landmark that meant you were almost at the shore. But for the nuclear industry, Oyster Creek was the pioneer. It was the "turnkey" plant that proved nuclear power could actually compete with coal on price.
Then it stopped.
In September 2018, the oldest operating commercial nuclear power plant in the United States finally powered down its reactor. It wasn't because of a disaster or a leak. It was basically a business decision mixed with environmental pressure. Now, the site is a weird, quiet skeleton of its former self, caught in a decades-long decommissioning process that most folks don’t really understand.
The Day the Oldest Reactor in America Went Dark
When Oyster Creek officially retired on September 17, 2018, it was a few years ahead of its original 2019 deadline. Why? Because the cost of staying open was just getting too high. The plant had been online since 1969—a year before the first Earth Day and months before the moon landing. Think about that for a second. The technology inside was fundamentally a relic of the late 1960s, though it had been upgraded more times than your first desktop PC.
Exelon, the company that owned it at the time, made a deal with the state of New Jersey. They could keep running it without building cooling towers—which would have cost nearly $800 million—if they agreed to shut it down early. It was a trade-off. The state wanted to protect the aquatic life in the Barnegat Bay, which was getting cooked by the warm water discharge, and Exelon wanted to avoid a massive capital expenditure on a plant nearing the end of its life cycle.
Honestly, the closure felt like the end of an era for Ocean County. It wasn't just about the 600-ish megawatts of carbon-free electricity it pumped out. It was about the jobs. Hundreds of high-paying roles just... evaporated from the local economy.
What’s Actually Happening at the Site Right Now?
If you drive by today, you won’t see steam. You see Holtec International. They’re the company that bought the site from Exelon specifically to tear it down. This is their business model: they take over "spent" nuclear sites, manage the decommissioning, and try to do it faster than the 60-year timeline the NRC (Nuclear Regulatory Commission) usually allows.
They're moving fast.
The spent fuel—the radioactive uranium rods that powered the place for decades—is being moved out of the "spent fuel pool" and into "dry casks." These are basically massive, high-tech concrete and steel thermoses. They sit on a pad on-site because, frankly, there is nowhere else for them to go. The federal government still hasn't figured out a permanent geological repository (looking at you, Yucca Mountain), so Lacey Township is now a de facto long-term storage facility for high-level nuclear waste.
It’s kind of a tense situation. Local activists, like those from the Grandmothers, Mothers and More (GRAMMES), have been vocal for years about the safety of these casks. They worry about salt-air corrosion. If you live by the ocean, you know what the salt does to your car or your deck furniture. Now imagine that on a container holding radioactive material. Holtec insists the tech is solid, but the community remains skeptical, and rightfully so.
Why Oyster Creek Still Matters for Our Energy Future
You might think a dead power plant is just a history lesson. It’s not. Oyster Creek Nuclear Station is a blueprint for what’s happening across the country. As we try to hit "Net Zero" goals, we’re losing these massive baseload plants. When Oyster Creek shut down, that power gap was largely filled by natural gas.
That’s the irony of the whole thing.
To save the bay from warm water, we traded it for a higher carbon footprint in the short term. New Jersey has some of the most aggressive clean energy goals in the US, aiming for 100% clean energy by 2035. Losing Oyster Creek made that hill much steeper to climb.
The Technical Legacy
Oyster Creek was a Boiling Water Reactor (BWR). Specifically, a BWR-2 model designed by General Electric. Unlike the newer reactors or the Pressurized Water Reactors (PWRs) you see at Salem or Hope Creek, this was a simpler design.
- The Core: Water boils right in the reactor vessel.
- The Steam: That steam goes directly to the turbine.
- The Risk: Because the steam is in direct contact with the fuel, the turbine building is actually a "controlled area" because of low-level radiation.
It was efficient but required a massive amount of maintenance as it aged. By the end, the plant was struggling with "intergranular stress corrosion cracking" in its pipes—basically, the metal was getting tired. You can only patch a 50-year-old boiler so many times before it's time to call it.
The Misconceptions People Have About the Shutdown
Most people think a nuclear plant closes and then it's just "gone."
Nope.
Decommissioning is a multi-billion dollar process that takes decades. The "decommissioning trust fund" for Oyster Creek was nearly a billion dollars. That money is used to slowly take apart the radioactive components, ship them to specialized landfills in places like Utah or Texas, and eventually restore the land to "greenfield" status.
There’s also this weird myth that the site is a glowing wasteland. It’s really not. The radiation monitoring around the perimeter is constant, and the levels are generally lower than what you’d get on a cross-country flight. The real issue is the long-term management of the fuel.
The Future of the Lacey Township Site
What happens to all that land once the buildings are gone?
There’s been talk of turning parts of it into a solar farm or even using the existing grid connections for offshore wind. Since the "interconnection" (the big wires that lead to the grid) is already there, it's a prime piece of real estate for the next generation of energy. New Jersey is betting big on wind power, and the Oyster Creek substation is a perfect "plug" for those turbines spinning out in the Atlantic.
But for now, it's a construction zone. Or rather, a de-construction zone.
Key Insights for Moving Forward
If you're a resident near a decommissioning plant or just an energy nerd, there are a few things you should keep an eye on. First, the NRC’s oversight of Holtec. The transition from an "operating" plant to a "decommissioning" plant changes the rules. There’s less staff on-site, which saves money, but the community needs to ensure safety doesn’t take a backseat to speed.
Second, watch the legislation around spent fuel. Until the federal government fulfills its promise to take the waste, Oyster Creek will remain a nuclear storage site.
- Audit the Casks: Support local calls for rigorous, transparent inspections of the dry cask storage. Salt air is no joke.
- Repurposing the Grid: Advocate for the site to stay an energy hub. Using that existing infrastructure for solar or wind saves taxpayers and ratepayers money.
- Economic Transition: The loss of tax revenue for Lacey Township was huge. Diversifying the local economy away from the "big plant" model is the only way forward for shore towns.
The Oyster Creek Nuclear Station isn't just a relic. It's a case study in how we handle the "retirement" of the 20th century. We built these massive machines with a 40-year plan and kept them for 50. Now we’re figuring out how to clean up the mess in a way that’s safe for the next 500. It’s complicated, it’s expensive, and honestly, it’s pretty fascinating.
Keep an eye on the Barnegat Bay recovery. Scientists are already seeing shifts in the water temperature and the return of certain species that couldn't handle the heat when the reactor was at full tilt. That’s the silver lining. The plant is dead, but the bay might finally be getting its second wind.
Actionable Next Steps
- Monitor the NRC Post-Shutdown Reports: You can access the public ADAMS database through the NRC website to see the latest inspection results for the Oyster Creek dry cask storage.
- Engage with the NDCP: The Nuclear Decommissioning Citizens Advisory Panel (NDCAP) meets regularly. If you live in Ocean County, attending these meetings is the best way to get direct answers from Holtec and state officials.
- Support Grid Modernization: Reach out to local representatives to ensure the Oyster Creek interconnection point is prioritized for incoming offshore wind projects to keep the local energy economy alive.