In the middle of rural America sits an empty and deserted Nuclear Plant. Some may find that hard to swallow, but it is closer than one might think to their backyard.
The Hartsville Tennessee Nuclear Plant is in Trousdale County, a county with a population of less than 2,400 residents. The Tennessee Valley Authority decided to build the massive nuclear plant on land directly next to the Cumberland River in the 1960’s. The idea was to construct four General Electric boiling water reactors to generate electrical power. The plant would heat water to the point of steam which would drive a steam turbine. Heat would have been produced by nuclear fission in the reactor core.
The problem with the Hartsville Nuclear Plant, it never materialized. Construction got underway in 1975 and came to an abrupt stop in 1983. It was fully cancelled in 1984.
Today, the plant sits empty and unfinished. The state later decided to use the site to build a 2,552 bed medium security prison. The facility is called the Trousdale County Correctional Center. It was built at a cost of $143 million.