The Case for Retiring

Columbia Generating

Station

No Nukes Northwest

Columbia Generating Station

Boiling water reactor used to produce heat to run

turbines to create electricity (same as Fukushima)

Uranium fueled

Located on the Hanford Nuclear Reservation in

eastern Washington just north of Richland,

Kennewick and Pasco

Cooled by the Columbia River

The Only Nuclear Power Plant

in the Northwest

CGS

CGS

CGS

CGS has generated

electricity with nuclear

power for 30 years…

but supplies only 3.9% of the Northwest region’s needs.

Nuclear Power

Dirty Dangerous

Expensive

It is Dirty

Utah Uranium Mine

Carbon Emitted per Kilowatt

*Uranium mining

Total: 66.08 g/kWh

25.09

8.2 11.58

9.2

12.01

*

Not the Carbon Free Energy

as Advertised

Construction

Milling, Mining and Enrichment

Heavy Water Production

Energy NW Paducah Fuel Contract

Coal (with scrubbing)

Natural gas (CCCT)

Nuclear

Solar (PV)

Solar (parabolic trough)

Hydroelectric

Wind (onshore)

0 200 400 600 800 1000 1200

Life Cycle GHG Emissions

(based on Sovacool, Energy Policy 36 (2008) 2940– 2953)

g CO2eq/kWh

Nuclear

It is Dangerous

Design Location Radioactive Legacy

Fukushima vs. CGS

“Atomic energy is a stupid way

to boil water.” ~Buckminster Fuller

Boiling Water Reactor Design at

Fukushima Daiichi

Spent Fuel

Pool

Spent Fuel Pool Design

Fukushima Dai-ichi Reactor

Unit 4

Aging Reactors In

cre

as

ed

Fa

ilu

re R

ate

CGS Problems to Date

Safety issues

Electrical fires

Aging parts

Location

June 14, 2011 Fort Calhoun, NB and Missouri River

Wildfires on the Hanford

Reservation

Known Earthquakes Affecting Hanford Region

Year: 1872

Magnitude 7.4

Hanford

Hanford

Newly-Discovered

Earthquake Potential

Hanford lies on 12 known

earthquake fault lines

Tied to Puget Sound

subduction zone

Hanford

Reservation

Dams

on the

Columbia

River

Hanford

Grand Coulee

Portland

Grand Coulee Earthquake

• 1872 earthquake epicenter was less

than 100 miles from Grand Coulee site

Teton Dam Collapse 1976

Nov 17, 2013

3.2

Earthquake

epicenter

CGS

CGS Website on

Seismic Bracing

Human Acts of Destruction

A terrorist attack on CGS may

have been planned by Al Qaeda

in 2002

Guarding Spent Fuel Rods

at CGS

Squirrels to Solar Flares

The electrical grid can be

knocked out for hours with

common incidents.

It is Dangerous

Radioactive Waste: High and Low

Level HOSS: hardened on-site

storage for spent fuel

rods

Hanford Nuclear Reservation “The most polluted place in the Western Hemisphere”

Radioactive Waste

High Level

H.O.S.S.

HARDENED ON-SITE STORAGE for High Level Waste

Radioactive Waste

Low Level

It is Expensive

Bathtub Curve

Market Price (Mid-C)

What are the real costs? Columbia Generating Station Operating Expenses

Future Capital Expenditures Needed to Maintain CGS: Fukushima-type upgrades

including filters and vents ($24-30 million)

Seismic upgrades (unknown $$)

Normal end-of-life part replacements including the steam generator and turbines ($122 m)

“No days lost in 10 years” The truth is that the maintenance

time for 2011 which was scheduled to

be 80 days stretched to 175 days

because of the replacement of the

brass condenser

Potential Economic

Consequences of Meltdown

Intense contamination of the Columbia River

Displacement of large groups of residents (Richland, Kennewick, Pasco and possibly beyond to Portland/Vancouver)

Creation of hundreds of square miles of uninhabitable land

Major economic impact on industries

50 mile radius = 300,000 people

Yakima

Pendleton

Industries within 50 Miles

of Hanford

Salmon

Fruit, vegetables and hops

Wine

Research & Fabrication Companies

◦ Battelle NW Labs ($1 billion annual revenue)

◦ Areva nuclear fuel fabrication (French company)

◦ Silicon manufacturers

Double Jeopardy:

Hanford Waste and CGS

K

15 miles

B-C

Tank Farms

Priest Rapids

Dam

CGS

Columbia River

Hanford Nuclear Waste

K Basin: spent fuel from nuclear production

reactors (1968) considered one of most

vulnerable sites at Hanford because of

corroded pools

WESF: largest concentration of strontium and

cesium in the world; no containment or back-up

systems; located near the tank farms

Tank Farms: enough plutonium to make 70

nuclear bombs

CGS: above-ground holding pool (similar to

Fukushima) is already 2/3rds full of spent fuel

B Reactor

Path to a

Nuclear-Free

Energy Plan

What is Needed to Replace the

3.9% Electricity Produced by

CGS?

Conservation through efficient

technology and PUD incentives

( Potential energy savings: 3 to 5%)

Safer, cleaner energy production

through alternatives like wind and

solar

Energy Efficiencies

Residential: LED, heat pump and

power strip technologies as well as

monitoring equipment

Commercial and Industrial: new

building systems as well as retrofits,

greater use of combined heat and

power (CHP) systems, new

agricultural energy technologies

Renewable Energy Sources

Reported by Washington Utilities

2012

Wind

75%

Hydro

Upgrades 22%

Solar .02%

Biomass 2%

Landfill Gas .6%

Alternative Energy Has

Relative Short Start-Up Time

Exelon’s first commercial wind farm only started operating in January 2012. The company now has 44 wind projects operating in 10 different states.

Nuclear plant takes 10-15 years to

build.

Other Regions Are Well On Their

Way to Alternatives to Nuclear

According to Christopher Crane, the CEO of

energy giant Exelon, “as wind power

increases, nuclear power will decrease”

Driving Factors to Abandon Nuclear:

Costs and Safety Concerns

Are Global Concern

U.K.’s plan to build 10 new

nuclear power plants just lost the

backing of British utility Centrica

In Japan, only two of 54 have

been allowed to continue

operation

Germany plans to shut down all

of its nuclear plants by 2022

Citizens Don’t Want It

“Nuclear power

is everywhere –

no thank you!”

Germany 2012

50,000 Germans

block railway

deliveries of uranium

(Nov 2010)

What about the Costs of

Decommissioning?

Much of it could be covered by

foregone capital expenditures

needed for new Fukushima-

driven regulatory requirements

Nuclear power is dirty,

dangerous and

expensive.

There are alternatives!

What You Can Do

Support the closing of CGS for

safety and economic reasons

Support energy conservation

Contact Kitzhaber, DeFazio, Merkley

and Wyden

ShutDownCGS.wordpress.com

http://www.energy-

northwest.com/news/2011/documents/NR

%2011-

11%20Nuclear%20Energy%20Facility%20

Connects%20to%20Power%20Grid%20FI

NAL.pdf

Tokyo

Information on Fukushima

Radiation

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/new

s/energy/2013/08/130807-fukushima-

radioactive-water-leak/

http://ww.activistpost.com/2013/10/some

thing-is-killing-life-all-over.html