Misplaced Pages

#529470

37-549: Columbia produces 1,207 megawatts net of clean electricity. Columbia Generating Station is a BWR-5 . It features a Mark II containment structure . The reactor core holds up to 764 fuel assemblies, and 185 control rods , more technically known as control blades. The reactor is licensed for a power output of 3486 thermal megawatts (MWt). The gross electrical output of the plant is 1230 megawatts-electric (MWe). The Columbia Generating Station features six low-profile fan-driven cooling towers. Each tower cascades clean warmed water,

74-420: A byproduct of water heat exchanging with steam after leaving a turbine, down itself and subsequently cools the warmed water via a combination of evaporation and heat exchange with the surrounding air. Some water droplets fall back to earth in the process, thereby creating a hoar frost in the winter. At times, the vapor cloud from the cooling towers can reach 10,000 feet (3,000 m) in height and can be seen at

111-559: A great distance. Replacement water for the evaporated water is drawn from the nearby Columbia River . Columbia was built by the former Washington Public Power Supply System , known since 1998 as Energy Northwest . Its construction permit was issued in March 1973, and construction began in late 1975 on the Hanford Site . Because of cost overruns and construction delays, the plant did not begin commercial operation until December 1984. Of

148-663: A major contractor to the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant in Japan, which consisted of six boiling water reactors of GE design. The reactors for Units 1, 2, and 6 were supplied by General Electric, the other three by Toshiba and Hitachi. Unit 1 was a 460 MW boiling water reactor from the BWR-3 design iteration introduced in 1965 and constructed in July 1967. After the plant became severely damaged in

185-581: A set price to obtain a nine-year fuel supply, the transaction is estimated to bring between $ 171 and $ 275 million in savings to the region through 2028. Energy Northwest announced in January 2024 that they plan to expand the station with 12 small modular reactors (SMRs). In late 2012, the Bonneville Power Administration and Energy Northwest came together to analyze the financial value of Columbia in light of low energy prices in

222-606: A year or more. The progenitor of the BWR line was the 5 MW Vallecitos Boiling Water Reactor (VBWR), brought online in October 1957. A drywell containment building which resembles an inverted lightbulb above the wetwell which is a steel torus containing water. Described as an "over-under" configuration with the drywell forming a truncated cone on a concrete slab. Below is a cylindrical suppression chamber made of concrete rather than just sheet metal. The GE Mark III Containment-system

259-642: Is 3.49 cents per kilowatt-hour; the BPA generated $ 4.72 billion in operating revenue in 2022. BPA now markets the electricity from thirty-one federal hydroelectric dams on the Columbia River and its tributaries, as well as from the Columbia Generating Station , a nuclear plant located on the Hanford Site in eastern Washington. BPA has more than 15,000 circuit miles (24,140 circuit km) of electrical lines and 261 substations in

296-500: Is a single barrier pressure containment and multi-barrier fission containment system, consisting of the containment vessel plus associated dry- and wetwell (pressure and fission barriers), the external shield building of it, the auxiliary building and the fuel building, all of which are normally kept at negative pressure which prevents the egress of fission products. Features of the containment : Bonneville Power Administration The Bonneville Power Administration ( BPA )

333-690: Is an American federal agency operating in the Pacific Northwest . BPA was created by an act of Congress in 1937 to market electric power from the Bonneville Dam located on the Columbia River and to construct facilities necessary to transmit that power. Congress has since designated Bonneville to be the marketing agent for power from all of the federally owned hydroelectric projects in the Pacific Northwest. Bonneville

370-483: Is one of four regional Federal power marketing agencies within the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE). The power generated on BPA's grid is sold to public utilities, private utilities, and industry on the grid. The excess is sold to other grids in Canada , California and other regions. Because BPA is a public entity, it does not make a profit on power sales or from providing transmission services. BPA also coordinates with

407-529: Is the designated marketer for 31 hydroelectric dams and the Columbia Generating Station a nuclear power plant at the Hanford Site . The dams are owned and operated by either the Army Corps of Engineers (21 dams) or the Bureau of Reclamation (10 dams), and have a maximum combined capacity of 22 GW. The Bonneville Project, named for the then-new Bonneville Dam , was established by an act of Congress that

SECTION 10

#1732782446530

444-982: The Celilo Converter Station near The Dalles, Oregon to the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power (LADWP) grid 800 miles (1,300 km) away at the Sylmar Converter Station in Los Angeles . The Northern Intertie crosses the Canada–US border in two locations at Blaine, Washington and Nelway, British Columbia and connects to two BC Hydro AC 500 kV lines and several lower voltage lines. Because BPA owns and operates transmission equipment and locations, its workers perform its own vegetation management . BPA uses helicopters to sling load maintenance workers inspecting and repairing power lines. The BPA

481-463: The Pacific Northwest and controls approximately 75 percent of the high-voltage (230 kV and higher) transmission capacity in the region. 87 percent of the agency's sustained peak capacity (11,680 MW) is generated from hydroelectricity. BPA also maintains connection lines with other power grids . It connects to the California high-voltage transmission system by Path 66 , which consists of

518-546: The Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami , loss of reactor core cooling led to three nuclear meltdowns, three hydrogen explosions, and the release of radioactive contamination in Units 1, 2 and 3 between 12 and 15 March. Safe operation of this reactor design family depends on continued coolant flow at all times during operation. A reactor after a full-power shutdown may require active cooling of decay heat from long-lived radioactive isotopes for

555-618: The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation to regulate flow of water in the Columbia River and to carry out environmental projects such as salmon restoration. Although BPA is part of the DOE, it is self-funded and covers its costs by selling its products and services at cost. The BPA provides about 28% of the electricity used in the region. BPA transmits and sells wholesale electricity in eight western states: Washington , Oregon , Idaho , Montana , Wyoming , Utah , Nevada , and California . Its minimum wholesale rate

592-821: The BPA Library discovered a collection of old films made by the agency and began posting digital versions of them on the agency's website. Included in the collection is the award-winning documentary "River of Power" which covers the Agency's history from its beginning to the present. The BPA gives its name to the BPA Trail in Federal Way , Washington , a walking trail built beneath power transmission lines. [REDACTED]  This article incorporates public domain material from BPA Fast Facts - Fiscal Year 2006 (PDF) . United States Government . Archived from

629-521: The Bonneville Power Act's anti-monopoly clause. The cheap price of aluminum from Alcoa helped aluminum sales grow in the post- World War II market. Overly optimistic estimates of future electricity consumption by BPA in the 1960s led the agency to guarantee some bonds for the disastrous Washington Public Power Supply System nuclear power project. Out of five nuclear power plants started ( WNP-1 and WNP-4 , WNP-3 and WNP-5 ), only WNP-2

666-573: The Pacific Northwest. The agency's name was changed to the Bonneville Power Administration in 1940. Attempts to replace the BPA with a Columbia Valley Authority that more closely resembled the TVA were made in the 1940s and 1950s, but were ultimately unsuccessful. BPA's first industrial sale was to Alcoa in January 1940, to provide 32,500 kilowatts of power. This, and the following 162,500 kilowatt order, led to complaints of

703-722: The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission , the Columbia Generating Station site is a "Dry Site" since the plant is above the Design Basis Flood Line . GE BWR General Electric 's BWR product line of boiling water reactors represents the designs of a relatively large (~18%) percentage of the commercial fission reactors around the world. The progenitor of the BWR line was the 5 MW Vallecitos Boiling Water Reactor (VBWR), brought online in October 1957. Six design iterations, BWR-1 through BWR-6, were introduced between 1955 and 1972. This

740-409: The council, the cost benefit of Columbia's power "dwarf[ed] the modest benefits that would have been achieved" through replacement power. "In 2001 alone the operation of Columbia Generating Station compared to the market saved Bonneville Power Administration ratepayers $ 1.4 billion," according to the council. Columbia Generating Station's spent fuel pool is able to accommodate 2,658 fuel assemblies. It

777-427: The end of a record-setting 486 days of continuous operations. The outage was planned for 80 days finishing in July; however, work was not completed until that September. The total cost of repairs and refueling was $ 170 million. Replacing the condenser allowed for better plant efficiency thus producing more electricity in the future, helping offset the cost of the project. [2] Columbia's original NRC license to operate

SECTION 20

#1732782446530

814-501: The fields of energy, economics, market conditions and business risk. IHS CERA came to the same conclusion as the April 2013 joint BPA-EN study. In 2013, the Columbia Generating Station set a record for electricity generation during a refueling outage year – 8.4 million megawatt hours of electricity sent to the regional power grid. In 2012 – a non-refueling outage year – Columbia generated a record 9.3 million megawatt hours of electricity for

851-675: The five commercial reactors originally planned by the Bonneville Power Administration and the Supply System in Washington, Columbia was the only one completed. The nuclear power plant was also known as Hanford Two, with Hanford One being the 800 MWe power generating plant connected to the N-Reactor (decommissioned in 1987), a dual purpose reactor operated by the Atomic Energy Commission : producing plutonium for

888-538: The installation, making room in the spent fuel pool. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission defines two emergency planning zones around nuclear power plants: a plume exposure pathway zone with a radius of 10 miles (16 km), concerned primarily with exposure to, and inhalation of, airborne radioactive contamination, and an ingestion pathway zone of about 50 miles (80 km), concerned primarily with ingestion of food and liquid contaminated by radioactive materials. The 2010 population within 10 miles (16 km) of Columbia

925-526: The nuclear weapons stockpile, as well as generating electricity for the grid. When the Supply System changed its name to Energy Northwest, the plant's name went from WNP-2 (Washington Public Power Supply System Nuclear Project number 2) to Columbia Generating Station. In 2000, then-Executive Board Chairman Rudi Bertschi said the plant's former name referred "to an earlier era when the Washington Public Power Supply System

962-683: The reactor at Columbia was 1 in 47,619, according to an NRC study published in August 2010. The Department of Energy is planning a new earthquake assessment that will update the last comprehensive one conducted in 1996. The U.S. Geological Survey has shown that the active faults of the Puget Sound Region are connected to ridges in the Mid-Columbia by faults that cross the Cascades (see Yakima Fold Belt § Geology ). According to

999-598: The region's ratepayers. The Public Power Council observed in February 2014 that the variable cost of Columbia operations in recent years were slightly above spot market energy prices. However, the council stated that a single unanticipated shift in the markets "can easily wipe out years of anticipated benefits" gained from replacement power. The council referenced the Western Energy Crisis of 2000-2001. During that relatively short energy crisis, according to

1036-544: The regional power grid (95% capacity factor). In January 2014, the Public Power Council, representing Northwest consumer-owned utilities, examined the competing market assessments and said they found no compelling evidence that ceasing operation of Columbia is economically advisable for the region. The PPC assessment supported public statements by BPA affirming Columbia's provision of unique, firm, baseload, non-carbon emitting generation with predictable costs for

1073-910: The two 500 kV AC lines of the Pacific AC Intertie, plus a third 500 kV AC line of the California-Oregon Transmission Project (COTP) (managed by the Balancing Authority of Northern California). Together these three lines are operated as the California-Oregon Intertie (COI) (managed by the California Independent System Operator CAISO). An additional DC ±500 kV line, the Pacific DC Intertie , links BPA's grid at

1110-423: The wholesale electricity market and historic low fuel costs for natural gas-fired power plants. The agencies studied three scenarios and concluded, in April 2013, that Columbia's continued operation was the most cost-effective option for consumers. In April 2013, Energy Northwest commissioned a third-party study by IHS Cambridge Energy Research Associates, a firm with a 75-year reputation for independent expertise in

1147-410: Was 10,055, an increase of 10.4 percent in a decade. The 2010 population within 50 miles (80 km) was 445,416, an increase of 23.4 percent since 2000. Cities within 50 miles include Richland (12 miles (19 km) to city center) and Pasco (18 miles (29 km) to city center). The Nuclear Regulatory Commission's estimate of the risk each year of an earthquake intense enough to cause core damage to

Columbia Generating Station - Misplaced Pages Continue

1184-423: Was building five nuclear power plants. Those days are long gone," said Bertschi. "Our plant has made the transition, as has Energy Northwest, from being a marginal producer to being a key cog in the region's energy machine." Extensive maintenance was completed during the planned refueling outage starting in early April 2011, including the replacement of the original condenser. At the time, the refueling outage marked

1221-479: Was completed. BPA is still making payments on three of the abandoned plants. In 2003, BPA's debt for the nuclear project totaled $ 6.2 billion. In 1973, the BPA commissioned TRW Inc. to write software for the PDP-10 mainframe computer that managed the agency's power grid; Bill Gates and Paul Allen wrote the software for the monitoring system, which remained in operation until its replacement in 2013. In 2014,

1258-654: Was designed as a short-term storage option until a national repository could be built. Since there is no projected start date for the stalled national long-term nuclear waste storage facility at Yucca Mountain Repository in Nevada, the station obtained approval for dry cask storage to avoid exceeding the pool's licensed capacity. The Columbia Generating Station has an on-site installation, which allows for storage of spent fuel rods in specially designed and manufactured casks. As of 2021, 45 casks have been loaded and stored in

1295-662: Was followed by the Advanced Boiling Water Reactor (ABWR) introduced in the 1990s and the Economic Simplified Boiling Water Reactor (ESBWR) introduced in the early 2010s. As of August 2018, 83 reactors of this design family have been built, of which 67 reactors are operational . The design garnered world attention in the aftermath of the INES level 7 Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster of 11 March 2011. GE had been

1332-911: Was scheduled to expire in December 2023. In January 2010, Energy Northwest filed an application with the Nuclear Regulatory Commission for a 20-year license renewal – through 2043. In May 2012, the NRC approved the 20-year license renewal. In 2012, Energy Northwest entered into agreements with the Tennessee Valley Authority , the U.S. Enrichment Corporation (Centrus Energy) and the Department of Energy to turn depleted uranium (also called uranium tails ) into low-cost enriched uranium product for further future processing into nuclear fuel. Buying under market value at

1369-470: Was signed into law by President Franklin D. Roosevelt on August 20, 1936. The federal agency was created to market electricity from the Bonneville and Grand Coulee dams based on the model of the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA). It would provide a flat rate for customer utilities and use revenue from these sales to pay off the bonds used by the federal government to finance the construction of dams in

#529470