Trojan nuclear power plant, Prescott, Oregon, USA
Copyright©2007 David M. Hester / The Nuclear Project

Description: The only nuclear power plant in Oregon shut down twenty years early, after a cracked steam tube released radioactive gas into the plant, in 1992. It cost $450 million to build the plant, and it is expected to cost the same amount, at least, to finish decommissioning the plant. In 2001, the 1,000 ton 1,130 megawatt reactor was encased in concrete foam, and coated in blue shrink-wrapped plastic, then shipped up the Columbia River on a barge to the Hanford Nuclear Site in Washington, where it was placed in a 45 foot deep pit, and covered with six inches of gravel, making it the first commercial reactor to be moved and buried whole. The plant went on line in 1976, and was said to have been built on an Indian burial ground. When it shut down 16 years later, it was the largest commercial reactor to be decommissioned. Once the rest of the plant is cleaned up and decontaminated, it will probably be demolished, and the 500 foot tall cooling tower will be imploded, but probably not before the spent fuel rods are removed, as, like all the other 108 or so commercial reactors in the country, the radioactive spent fuel is stored on site in a pool, in this case right next to the Columbia River, awaiting the possible opening of the Yucca Mountain radioactive storage facility in Nevada. -------------------------------------------

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