Trojan Imploded

I woke up early yesterday morning and watched the big Trojan cooling tower implosion on TV. Yay!

A striking thing about the media coverage was how the everyone (including interviewees) tip-toed around whether the plant was a good or a bad thing. Instead they all just talked about how cool the implosion was, and referred to it simply as a generic "historic event", the "end of a local landmark", and so forth. Which isn't that surprising, I guess, and you have to admit it was a really cool implosion. There's no doubt about that. But it's also obvious that -- however you feel about nuclear power in general -- this particular plant was a complete economic debacle, and a millstone around the necks of PGE ratepayers. The thing hasn't operated in 13 years, and it's still costing us piles of money. But it isn't nice to talk about the huge price tag we're still saddled with, apparently, so nobody does.

I'm surprised that I've only seen a handful of international stories about the implosion, like this one from Australia's Adelaide Advertiser. And nobody outside the region seems to have picked up on the (supposed) Homer Simpson angle. I would've thought at least the BBC would've made a big deal about that. Oh, well. No biggie.

The Washington Post's article calls the implosion "ironic", since supposedly this country's going to get a fresh crop of shiny, new and improved nuclear reactors, Real Soon Now. The reactor industry's been saying this for the last couple of decades, and as yet the promised Atomic Wonderland hasn't materialized. They keep telling us that these hypothetical new reactors would be absolutely, positively safe and clean, and even economical, and maybe that's all true. But in the past the nuclear power lobby has earned itself a poor reputation, and a well-deserved one. They've always overpromised and underdelivered, and lied about it, and covered up their mistakes, and tried to intimidate their critics, and I'm not prepared to ignore their bad rep just because they now insist they've changed their ways. And they still don't have anywhere to put their nuclear waste, let's not forget that inconvenient little detail.

However, the big question right now is how long until we get cheesy TV movies exploiting the implosion footage. I bet we'll see this on the SciFi Channel before too long. I can see it now: Despite all the assurances to the contrary, the implosion releases radiation into the nearby forests, causing a banana slug to mutate and grow to enormous size. Then of course it slimes its way to Portland and attacks the city, until our heroes do it in with the one local product slugs love more than anything: Beer!

Mmm... Beer....

tags: trojan nuclear reactor implosion homer simpson simpsons movie slugs beer

Trojan Implosion

In just a few short hours, Oregon's late, unlamented Trojan Nuclear Plant will be history. Well, ok, technically they're just imploding the cooling tower tomorrow. The actual reactor building won't be gone for another year or two, and the spent fuel rods will be onsite for a long time, possibly decades. And the construction bonds aren't paid off yet, either, come to think of it. But at least in a symbolic sense, the plant will be gone. When you drive I-5 to Seattle, or US30 to Astoria, you won't be confronted by that huge horrible grey concrete monstrosity anymore, and that's got to count for something.

It's a rare occasion these days when pro-environment folks are able to gloat a little and point out that we were right all along.

It doesn't look like the story's getting a lot of play outside the immediate Columbia River region so far. The Eugene paper has a couple of stories about it, but IIRC the Eugene public power board owns/owned a minority stake in the plant, so it's sort of a local issue down there. I expect that once they blow the thing up tomorrow, every local TV affiliate across the country will use the video clip as a bit of filler, since everyone loves a big implosion. If overseas media pick up the story at all, they'll use the Homer Simpson angle to explain why the story is "important", althought a recent story in the Longview Daily News casts doubt on the notion that Trojan was the model for Homer's Springfield Nuclear Plant. (Longview's the closest large town to the Trojan site, and the local paper has been covering the implosion story extensively.) Or maybe nobody outside the area will care at all. It's hard to say.

he PSU Vanguard managed to get an exclusive, final interview with the condemned cooling tower. The tower seems rather bitter about the whole thing, which I guess is understandable under the circumstances.

Good riddance, so far as I'm concerned.

Leaky Trojans Cause Accidents

If you're here looking for photos of Tasmanian Devils and/or Tucker Carlson, I'm afraid Google's pointed you at the wrong place. Once upon a time, I linked to a couple of such photos hosted outside this blog, and when those photos disappeared from the interwebs, Google started sending people here instead. No, it doesn't make a lot of sense to me either.

So the links in the first sentence go to Wikipedia, and you may have better luck there. In fact I'm almost certain of it. Alternately, feel free to stay and poke around here for a bit, if you like.

Thx.,
Mgmt.

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In May, the cooling tower of the now-defunct Trojan Nuclear Plant is due to be imploded, by the same guys who did a real number on the old Kingdome. Locals had suggested keeping it around, either for use as a prison, or maybe to fill with beer during Oktoberfest. But alas, it is not to be.

The plant's been closed for years, and the reactor core was shipped upriver to Hanford a few years back. There was no way the thing could ever be reopened, so this demolition is mostly symbolic, but still, it's going to be Oh, So Satisfying.

The title comes from one of the many anti-Trojan petition drives back in the 1980s, and I'm afraid I can't take credit for it. It was (allegedly) the inspiration for the Springfield Nuclear Power Plant where Homer Simpson works, and although I don't recall that it was especially leaky by nuclear plant standards, it *was* built right on top of several active seismic faults. Yeah, great plan, Mr. Burns, er, PGE.

I'm also afraid I can't take credit for the cool images up top, either. Clicking on any of them will take you to the larger originals.

Our buddies down at the Nuclear Regulatory Commission have some pix up showing the appropriately phallic-looking Trojan core being dismantled. It's part of a larger series for students, featuring Our Friend the Atom, who isn't just a deadly isotope, he's also a friendly cartoon character.

I thought we'd dispensed with that patronizing crap back in the 60's, but I guess not. It's not like they're going to stop promoting nuclear plants any time soon, since GWB positively loves the things. Apparently they're really good for the environment, because nukes and oil are our only two choices, in the same way that country and western are the only two kinds of music. Go ahead, pick one, already.