The Columbia Power Station is the third largest source of electricity in the Northwest after the Grand Coulee and Chief Joseph dams. The plant can generate enough electricity when operating at full capacity to provide a typical day for the city of Seattle. Photo courtesy of Timothy J. Park / Energy Northwest
The first in a series of articles about the future of nuclear power in the United States in the era of climate change with the Seattle Times.
Columbia Power Station in Benton County, Washington - Three workers in yellow suits stand on a steel bridge inside the concrete reactor building of the only nuclear power plant in Washington.
Below them is a 55-foot deep pool. It is like a protective shield, blocking the radiation emitted from the underwater core.
Looking down, they could see the deep blue light, which is the strange underwater feature of the charged particles gushing from the fuel rod bundle.
On May 12, the high-risk task of refueling this power plant is about to begin.
As Washington law seeks to largely eliminate the greenhouse gas emissions of oil, natural gas, and coal that contribute to global warming by the middle of this century, this reactor’s electricity - enough to power the city of Seattle on a typical day - Gained new importance. The operator of the plant has joined the wider promotion of the US nuclear industry to play a larger and longer-term role in the US energy future.
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For more than a month, the rotation staff used a remote control grab to slowly remove these packages and reposition other packages in a huge work puzzle game.
In a command center, managers gather every four hours to monitor the progress of refueling and more than a thousand other maintenance tasks to bring the plant back online for another two years.
"Nothing is routine," said Bob Schuetz, CEO of the factory operator Energy Northwest.
The Columbia Power Station is part of more than 90 commercial nuclear reactors in the United States. By 2020, these nuclear reactors will produce one-fifth of the electricity in the United States and will not directly burn fossil fuels.
In the process of fighting for more investment in nuclear energy, industry officials have found allies among some environmentalists. They concluded that the threat of climate change to the planet has escalated rapidly—in the recent summer, extreme heat and wildfires. And the powerful hurricane, as well as the focus of US attention, the National Conference that opened in Scotland on Sunday proved that it is reasonable to keep the current generation of factories open for as long as possible. They also support the construction of a new generation of smaller, more flexible nuclear reactors that can inject electricity into the regional grid and help prevent blackouts.
"Wind and solar can do a lot of things. But when you say it can do all of these-that is a magical idea," said Steven Hamburg, chief scientist of the Environmental Protection Fund.
As American power producers in Washington State and elsewhere close coal and natural gas plants, the demand for low-carbon power will increase dramatically in the coming years. In 2019, fossil fuels generated more than 60% of the country's electricity. Even in Washington, which is rich in hydropower, fossil fuels accounted for more than 22% of electricity.
The Columbia Power Station nuclear power plant is currently the third largest source of electricity in the Pacific Northwest after the Grand Coulee and Chief Joseph dams. It was built in the desert about 10 miles north of Richland in Benton County, just west of the Columbia River.
The plant can generate approximately 1,200 megawatts of electricity, and the US$649 million plan currently under consideration will increase the capacity by as much as 15% in early 2033. The project requires the approval of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission and can be completed in the reactor by using more uranium fuel and upgraded to turbines and other parts of the plant.
The plant was approved to operate until 2043, and Northwest Energy officials may seek to extend the operating permit to 2063 in the next few years.
"As we phase out these carbon sources... we want to be part of the solution," said Brad Sawatzke, who served as the CEO of Energy Northwest until his retirement at the end of June.
Nevertheless, there are still problems and fierce debates about the future of nuclear power, and many environmentalists are cautious or totally opposed to nuclear power playing a greater role.
The US nuclear industry still lacks a long-term location. Spent nuclear fuel taken from the reactor can be safely stored for thousands of years. These fuels will remain radioactive and pose a threat to human health and the environment. The Yucca Mountain site in Nevada was once designated as an underground storage vault, which triggered a large number of protests and was abandoned by the Obama administration.
Opponents cited the legacy of the environmental degradation and health effects of mining and processing uranium fuel and the risk of nuclear accidents. The Fukushima disaster triggered by the 2011 tsunami involved the meltdown of three reactors. Approximately 154,000 people were evacuated.
They also pointed out that some fossil fuels are used to produce fuel and to restore land disturbed by mining. How much is a matter of debate. Some studies estimate that these greenhouse gas emissions are roughly the same on average as wind energy, which consumes fossil fuels, part of which is used to produce turbines.
For the US nuclear industry, some of the biggest challenges are in finance. In the past few decades, power plant operators have struggled to compete in a market flooded with natural gas, wind and solar power. According to data from the U.S. Energy Information Administration, since 2013, 12 reactors in the United States have been shut down, and another three are planned to be shut down by 2024.
Emory Lowens, co-founder of the Rocky Mountain Institute and a long-time critic of the nuclear industry, pointed out that with the collapse of costs and economies of scale in the past decade, renewable energy has attracted billions of dollars in private investment.
At the same time, the recent history of the construction of nuclear power plants in the United States is full of cost overruns and delays.
Two public utility companies in South Carolina spent $9 billion to build two nuclear reactors, but the reactors were abandoned in 2017 and the project is less than 40%. The twin reactors under construction in Georgia were originally scheduled to start generating electricity in 2016, but the project has not yet been completed and the cost is as high as $27 billion, more than double the previous estimate.
Lovins advocates continuing to expand solar and wind energy and other renewable energy sources, such as geothermal energy, rather than adding more nuclear energy.
Lowens also said that by investing in more protection, more can be done to reduce electricity consumption. He found that plans to reduce demand during times of tight supply have great potential, for example, by cycling on and off appliances, adjusting thermostats, or temporarily increasing electricity prices.
"There is no business case for nuclear energy," Lowens said.
To prevent the closure of more existing fleets, nuclear industry lobbyists have sought help from Congress. The infrastructure bill passed by the U.S. Senate in August includes US$6 billion in “credit” for owners of loss-making nuclear power plants over five years.
At the same time, according to an estimate by Congress, the early draft of the House of Representatives’ “Rebuild Better” budget bill includes nearly $16 billion in tax credits over the next ten years, which nuclear power plant operators can claim even if they don’t lose money. . .
“We are concerned that the House’s wording may be too generous,” said Steve Kramer of the Union of Concerned Scientists, which in a 2018 report called for broader federal policies, such as the development of clean energy standards, to help More nuclear power plants remain stable. Open. "It makes no sense to provide subsidies to profitable nuclear power plant taxpayers to maintain operations. This will not lead to further carbon emissions reductions."
Washington State has established deep early connections with atomic science, ushering in a new nuclear era in weapons and energy production.
The Columbia Power Station is located on the edge of the Hanford site, where plutonium was produced for the first time for the bomb dropped in Nagasaki, Japan. This was a confidential World War II effort that left a toxic legacy of chemical and radioactive waste, which was a focal point. Decades of clean-up work.
The Washington Public Power System (WPPSS) is a public utility consortium that initiated a failed attempt in the 1970s to build five new nuclear power plants, creating a different history. Only one of these power plants-Columbia Power Station-used to generate electricity. The rest were abandoned before completion.
In the summer of 1983, WPPSS defaulted on $2.2 billion in municipal bonds owed to two of the factories, triggering a fiasco that shocked the financial markets.
The bond debts of the other two unfinished factories have been refinanced to take advantage of lower interest rates. According to Energy Northwest’s annual report, as of June 2021, the company’s total assets were $1.7 billion. The utility consortium chose this name to replace WPPSS in 1998 because it received the nickname "Whoops".
The funds to repay this debt and the operating and financing costs of the Columbia power station came from the Bonneville Power Authority (BPA), the federal agency that sells this kind of electricity and hydropower in the region. These fees are included in the rates that BPA charges regional utilities (such as Seattle City Light) to purchase electricity in long-term contracts.
BPA and Energy Northwest have been working in a sometimes turbulent partnership for decades.
In the past ten years, BPA has put pressure on Energy Northwest to reduce the operating expenses of the Columbia power station, which is much higher than the cost of federal hydropower projects, and is usually much higher than the electricity that can be purchased in the regional market. .
BPA sometimes attaches importance to flexible power generation to avoid running the full capacity of Columbia power stations when regional electricity prices plummet. These market drops usually occur in the spring, when snowmelt produces abundant hydroelectric power and wind farm power.
Schuetz said that Energy Northwest has made a series of improvements to make the plant more reliable and efficient, and the average operating cost has dropped by more than one-third since 2010.
Columbia power stations can also cut electricity by 15% with one hour’s notice. According to the agreement between Energy Northwest and BPA, if three days' notice is given, power generation may drop by as much as 75%.
Schuetz said that such fluctuations occurred four times in 2020 and may lead to increased plant wear, although monitoring has so far found no problems.
"This is a very complicated machine. It works best when you ignore it," said CEO Schutz. "Our agreement with BPA is that they cannot influence us."
The spokesperson of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, Scott Bernell, said that it is rare for grid operators to require nuclear power plants to accelerate and decelerate. "You are putting pressure on many components, and from our point of view, we just want to ensure that the plant continues to operate safely," Bernell said.
The core of the Columbia Power Station reactor is a steel-walled vessel about 75 inches high and can hold 764 bundles of fuel rods. Each fuel rod is filled with fingertip-sized processed uranium particles, generating heat through the splitting of billions of atoms per second.
Water boils as it circulates through the reactor core and is converted into high-pressure steam, which is then sent to turbines to generate electricity.
Over 900 people are engaged in the production of this kind of electricity throughout the year, including union workers, with an average hourly wage of US$50. Every other spring, as the reactor shuts down for refueling, the labor force temporarily more than doubles—to 2,400 this year.
Bundles of fuel rods taken out of the reactor are stored in underwater supports. This is not without risk, as the loss of water in the water tank may cause fuel fires and severe radiation release, which may force evacuation.
The earthquake is particularly worrying.
The Columbia Power Station was originally built to withstand a magnitude 6.9 earthquake. Subsequent research by the US Geological Survey showed that the area can generate a magnitude 7.5 earthquake, which is eight times stronger. This triggered a call from the Washington and Oregon chapters of Physicians for Social Responsibility in 2013 to close the plant until it can be upgraded.
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Commission spokesperson Scott Burnell said that since the completion of these studies, the staff of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission have reviewed the seismic analysis and concluded that under what is now believed to be a possible earthquake scenario, Colombia is still "safe to shut down."
After five years in the pool, the bundle of fuel rods is cold enough to be put in a stainless steel tank. They are then stored in concrete wooden barrels, which are placed on the mats, surrounded by barbed wire fences and barbed wire at the top.
Based on interviews with laboratory researchers, researchers at the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory concluded that they can safely store spent fuel for at least a century while developing longer-term options. But this is still far from being a permanent storage location that can hold them for thousands of years.
In the refueling process, most of the work is maintenance, which can only be carried out when the reactor is shut down, and involves a large number of structures and equipment.
Last spring, two important projects did not proceed as planned.
The pump, which is essential to the reactor's power generation, needs to be replaced. But at a board meeting in June, Savatsk, then chief executive of Northwest Energy, said that the contractor hired to do the job "has a lot of human error."
This caused delays and increased costs.
In another project that required a lot of welding and involved the replacement of the water circulation system, Northwest Energy officials stated that two workers inhaled contaminated dust and they did not follow the instructions. The dose is far below the maximum annual radiation exposure. But during the board meeting, Energy Northwest's Grover Hettel called the accident a "major radiological incident," which caused delays because work was stopped to ensure everyone understood the safety protocol.
As northwestern snow melted into the Columbia River, the plant's spring closure coincided with a seasonal surge in BPA hydropower production.
This spring was extremely hot and dry, turning into an extraordinary June. The high temperature near the end of the month hit a record high, triggering a surge in air-conditioning electricity demand.
The Northwest Energy Manager hopes that there will be a 35-day outage, which will allow them to resume power production on June 12.
When that date comes, there is more work to be done.
Schuetz said that plant officials knew that BPA was "very interested" to bring the Columbia power station back online, "but we were not in a hurry."
At 12:25 am on June 19th, 42 days after the factory closed for the first time, the electricity from the Columbia power station began to flow into the regional grid.
By then, the plan for the next refueling was already underway.
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Proponents say that the new small reactors can play a key role in reducing the greenhouse gases of climate warming. Environmentalists do not sell, pointing out waste, safety and cost issues.
Halburnton, Seattle Times
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