For what it's worth, here in Jacksonville, the whole thing is remembered as a world-class boondoggle. 40 years later newspaper columnists still laugh about the city and utility getting swindled on this project.
It's sad that it's been remembered that way. The alternate viewpoint that Jacksonville was this close to having the world's leading decarbonization gigafactory would be how I wish it was remembered. Since the customers for the plants bailed and the effort failed, I can see why people would rather think poorly of the effort.
I posted on the Jacksonville subreddit a while back seeking photos of the crane and other stuff. They referred me to the local library where there's a apparently a huge collection of info. It's not available online but I'm going to have to visit sometime.
It doesn't help that there is a modern-day parallel ready to go, as the utility is currently invested in a new nuclear plant in Georgia that I think is coming up on 10 years behind schedule and untold billions over budget.
Yeah, that definitely does not help. The struggles there with ramping back up a production supply chain and the appropriate knowledge to deliver those components just emphasizes how important it is to concentrate that knowledge into fewer small groups that can deliver plants around the world. The assembly line idea for nuclear plants is basically necessary.
That would be awesome. If you do this please get ahold of me. One user told me:
> Public Library downtown in the Loyd Sandgren photo collection. I have seen photos of the "floating" plant under construction. Tough finding it though the librarians may be helpful.
And another said:
> Go to the special collections of the downtown library ask for Blount island nuclear development files.
yup it just emails me directly. Oh but when I reply it usually gets filed to spam (especially on gmail) because I host my own email server... so check your spam!
