Nuclear

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Salem Nuclear Power Plant Construction and Centralized Control at Lower Alloways Creek Photo Archive New Jersey 1970s

1970ref. 237601970. Salem Nuclear Power Plant photo archive 1970s documenting the construction and interior control infrastructure of Public Service Electric and Gas Company's nuclear generating complex at Lower Alloways Creek New Jersey on the Delaware River. Contemporary press material dated July 23 1979 describes construction proceeding on a facility planned as the largest nuclear power plant east of the Mississippi River with two generating units nearing completion and a third in the planning stages. The photographs move between the enormous physical plant required to generate nuclear power and the enclosed control environment from which technicians monitored and operated its systems recording nuclear generation as an engineered network of reactor buildings instrumentation communications equipment operators and centralized oversight. Photo archive of six silver gelatin and color photographs ranging from approximately 5 x 7 to 8 x 10 inches Lower Alloways Creek New Jersey 1970s. Black and white exterior views show the Salem complex under construction along the Delaware River with massive domed reactor containment buildings rising amid cranes scaffolding temporary structures service buildings construction equipment utility poles and extensive surrounding works. The photographs record the scale of the site from elevated viewpoints placing the containment structures within the larger industrial landscape necessary to support them. The color photographs move inside the facility to a control room dominated by long banks of panels containing gauges indicator lights switches displays annunciators telephones and other monitoring and communications equipment. Operators sit at desks and consoles facing walls of instrumentation while another view looks along a control room wall equipped with additional panels and communications devices. A close photograph records a dedicated equipment cabinet containing dual reel to reel tape mechanisms speakers meters switches and related electronic controls showing another component of the communications and recording apparatus integrated into the room. One exterior press photograph retains a typed Associated Press caption identifying the site as the "Salem nuclear plant" at Lower Alloways Creek and stating that two generating units were nearing completion while a third remained planned. The archive records two sides of nuclear power construction that were normally separated in public views of generating stations with the monumental concrete and steel structures visible from outside and the dense instrumentation through which the completed plant would be supervised from within. The July 23 1979 press text explicitly frames Salem through scale describing three planned generating units and identifying the complex as the projected largest nuclear power plant east of the Mississippi River while the photographs establish the machinery of control behind that claim. Rows of gauges warning indicators communications equipment recording apparatus and operator stations show the process by which information from a sprawling generating complex was concentrated into a room where personnel could monitor plant conditions and respond through centralized controls. The exterior photographs establish the corresponding physical system with containment buildings surrounded by construction infrastructure and subsidiary facilities along the Delaware River. Light surface and handling wear occasional edge and corner creasing minor toning and scattered marks; press caption and editorial markings remain present on one verso. Overall good condition. A focused photographic record of the Salem Nuclear Power Plant as both a major 1970s construction project and a centralized technological system linking reactor infrastructure to the instruments and personnel charged with its operation. unknown books