The Trojan Cooling Tower Is Gone

[stevedeshazer]

http://www.katu.com/news/story.asp?ID=86057

The Trojan cooling tower came down on schedule Sunday morning at 7am. Cheers went up from the crowds gathered at the marina in Longview as the charges were lit off and large chunks of concrete flew and the tower slowly collapsed in upon itself in a huge cloud of dust.

As the dust cleared the shattered remains of the tower could be seen lying amid what was left of the base of the tower.

[swag]

1. Various angles:

http://www.kgw.com/trojan_replays.htm

[stevedeshazer]

2. Cool.

I hated that thing. Good riddance.

[swag]

4. I had a picnic lunch there on a transcontinental car trip in 1989 or so.

They had a "wildlife refuge" with a big pond and some streams to make the place appear nice. And they had a really fancy high tech visitors' center/museum.

Took our Christmas card photos there that year.


I won't miss it.

[stevedeshazer]

11. My ten year class reunion picnic was there

I grew up in Columbia County, that thing was in my back yard.

I was one of a small group to oppose construction from the beginning.

Beyond the nuclear aspect, it was a black hole of money. PGE lied about the costs vs. benefits from the very start. Cost overruns, operational problems, built on a fault line, lies all.

PGE customers there were so frustrated that they voted to dump the company in favor of a public utility district, which functions well and costs less. My mom still lives there and her electric bill is significantly less than mine (I'm Pacific Power, which also is less than Enron/PGE.)

[doubleplusgood]

3. very cool ! nt

[Caoimhe]

5. As a kid it gave me the creeps

Driving up I-5 between Portland and Seattle, it was always an ominous sentinel of nuclearness. Would have been cool to see fall in person.

[Dudley_DUright]

6. That was the easy part

The hard part is decommissioning the highly radioactive core and safely storing the waste.

[Massacure]

7. Not as hard as decommissioning coal's effect on environmental destruction.

[Syncronaut Seven]

8. The core is long gone, shipped up river a few years ago

This was the cooling tower.

A fitting end to a complete fiasco.

[Dudley_DUright]

9. Likely to Hanford

but still not in safe permanent storage (if that is even possible, which was sort of my point).

[stevedeshazer]

10. They did ship the reactor core to Hanford

The waste is still on-site.

Neither are safe or secure.

[utopian]

12. I'm going to miss it in a twisted way

It stood as a symbol of something that will now be forgotten. Out of sight out of mind.

Also, it is the model for Homer Simpson's place of employment.

Mostly, I wanted to see it turned into a theme restaurant, with waiters dressed in radiation suits and menu items like China Syndrome Chicken Salad and Radioactive Red Hots.

My other idea was for the Tojan comdom company to cover it with the world's largest condom, making a great tourist attraction. I imagined RV's lining up on both sides of the river for snapshots.

Sadly, those dreams will have to remain just that.

[DUHandle]

18. They could also serve Atomic Ale

the new "clear" beer.

[Endangered Specie]

13. Hmm, this presents a dilemma...

Im a proponent of nuclear power, but I do like watching big things blow up. :shrug:

[fortyfeetunder]

14. Considering the energy future in this country....

have we set ourselves up for energy failure by ditching Trojan (and other nuclear sites) when Peak Oil really kicks us in the ass?

[depakid]

15. Trojan was a corporate boondoggle

And the ratepayers ended up getting stiffed. A fitting end to one of the poster children for how not to do nuclear power.



http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trojan_Nuclear_Power_Plant

http://www.cheappower.org/trojan.htm

[stevedeshazer]

19. Yes, my friend, it is the boondoggle, not the nukular, that is the problem

PGE was and remains the boondoggle. Oregon ratepayers will be paying for this for at least another generation. Of people.

[stevedeshazer]

20. Trojan was a failure because of corporate corruption

I'm willing to revisit nuclear power as an alternative to petrochemical terrorism. That's not the point, and I should have been more clear, especially to non-Northwest readers.

The Trojan plant has been dead since 1992. Its economic failure in the Northwest is well documented.

It never made economic sense, except to stockholders. They still sit around the pool waiting for their corporate welfare checks. Electric power customers of the Bonneville Power Administration continue to pump dollars into a non-existent power plant.

That's what it's about. Today's cooling tower implosion, long overdue, is simply symbolic of the larger issue, corporate greed.

[Buns_of_Fire]

16. Wow. If that was just the cooling tower, imagine the size of the condom!

[damntexdem]

17. Then, then what ...

is going to keep those condoms cool from now on?