Trojan Nuclear Power Plant
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| Trojan Nuclear Power Plant | |
 The Trojan Nuclear Power Plant, shortly before its demolition.
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| Data | |
|---|---|
| Location | Rainier, Oregon |
| Coordinates | |
| Operator | Portland General Electric |
| Built | 1970 |
| Start of commercial operation | May 20, 1976 |
| Ceased operation | 1992 |
| Reactors | |
| Reactor supplier | Combustion Engineering |
| Reactor type | Pressurized water reactor (PRW) |
| Power | |
| Capacity | 1,130 MW |
| Status | Decommissioned |
| Other details | |
| Constructors | Babcock and Wilcox |
| NRC region | Region IV |
Trojan Nuclear Power Plant was a pressurized water reactor (PWR) nuclear power plant in Rainier, Oregon, United States, and the only nuclear power plant to be built in Oregon. After sixteen years of service it was closed by its operator, Portland General Electric (PGE), almost twenty years before the end of its design lifetime.[1] Decommissioning and demolition of the plant began in 1993 and was completed in 2006. [2]
While operating, Trojan represented more than 12% of the electrical generation capacity of Oregon. For comparison, more than 80% of Oregon's electricity came from hydropower from dams on the Columbia and Snake Rivers, with the rest mainly from fossil fuels.[citation needed]
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[edit] History
Construction of Trojan began on 1 February 1970. First criticality was achieved on 15 December 1975 and grid connection on 23 December. Commercial operation began on 20 May 1976, under a 35-year license to expire in 2011. The single 1130 megawatt electrical (MWe) unit at Trojan was then the largest PWR unit that had been built. It cost $450 million to build the plant.[citation needed]
Environmental opposition dogged Trojan from its inception, including violent clashes both inside and outside the boundary fence.[3]
In 1978, the plant was closed for nine months while modifications were made to improve its resistance to earthquakes. This followed the discovery both of major building construction errors and of the close proximity of a previously unknown faultline. The operators sued the builders, and an undisclosed out-of-court settlement was eventually reached.
The Trojan steam generators were designed to last the life of the plant, but it was only four years before trouble was first detected in the form of premature cracking of the steam tubes.
In an Oregon election in 1980, a ballot measure to ban construction of further nuclear power plants in the state was approved by the voters by a landslide vote. In 1986, a ballot measure initiated by Lloyd Marbet for immediate closure of the Trojan plant was defeated. This proposal was resubmitted in 1990, and again in 1992 when a competing proposal (by Jerry and Marilyn Wilson) to close the plant was also included. Although all of these closure proposals were defeated, the plant operators committed to successively earlier closure dates for the plant.
In 1992, PGE spent over $5 million to defeat ballot measures seeking to close Trojan. It was the most expensive ballot measure campaign in Oregon history until the tobacco industry spent $12 million in 2007 to defeat Measure 50.[4] A week later the Trojan plant suffered another steam generator tube leak of radioactive water, and was shut down. It was announced that replacement of the steam generators would be necessary before it could restart. In December 1992, documents were leaked from the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, showing that staff scientists believed that Trojan might be unsafe to operate. In January 1993, PGE announced it would not try to restart Trojan.
In 2005, the reactor vessel and other radioactive equipment were removed from the Trojan plant. The reactor vessel was transported intact by barge along the Columbia River to Hanford Nuclear Reservation in Washington where it was buried in a 45-foot-deep pit and covered in six inches of gravel, which made it the first commercial reactor to be moved and buried whole.[5] The spent fuel is stored onsite in 34 dry casks, awaiting transport to the Yucca Mountain Repository.
The iconic 499-foot tall cooling tower was demolished via dynamite implosion at 7:00 a.m. on May 21, 2006. This event marked the first implosion of a cooling tower at a nuclear plant in the United States. Additional demolition work on the remaining structures will continue through 2008. It is expected that demolition of the plant will cost as least as much as its construction.[citation needed]
[edit] Trivia
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Trivia sections are discouraged under Wikipedia guidelines. The article could be improved by integrating relevant items and removing inappropriate ones. |
- Many in the region and throughout the Internet have long claimed that Trojan was the inspiration the Springfield Nuclear Power Plant on the animated television comedy series The Simpsons. However, Matt Groening's publicist denies this.[6]
- Trojan Nuclear Power Plant is at coordinates Coordinates:
[edit] See also
[edit] References
- ^ Koberstein, Paul. "Trojan: PGE's Nuclear Gamble", Willamette Week, 2005-03-09, p. A1. Retrieved on 2007-06-15.
- ^ Trojan Nuclear Plant Decommissioning Update (PDF). Issues in Perspective. Portland General Electric (March 2006). Retrieved on 2008-04-06.
- ^ Anti-nuclear protest at the Trojan Nuclear Power Plant
- ^ Malkin, Whitnes. "Tax defeat costs big tobacco big bucks", The Register-Guard, November 8, 2007.
- ^ Trojan Nuclear Power Plant
- ^ LaBoe, Barbara. "'Simpsons' keeps Trojan tower legacy alive ... or does it?", The Daily News, 2006-05-14, p. A1. Retrieved on 2006-05-28.
[edit] External links
- Portland General Electric information about the plant
- Local television news coverage of the implosion from many different angles
- High Country News article providing some of the time line of the plant
- Controlled-Demolition, the company that imploded the cooling tower.
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