Went for a bike ride Sunday right through a nuclear power plant

[Kennah]

OK, that's not entirely true. We rode through Elma, Washington and wound through the Satsop Business Park. Satsop is the site of the defunct, never completed, never made operational, and hopefully never will, WNP-3 and WNP-5 nuclear power plants at the Satsop site.

It was part of Washington Public Power Supply System, with the acronym WPPSS, but it is known locally as WHOOPS. Very appropriate, for a number of reasons. In 1983, the project defaulted on over $2 billion worth of bonds.

Because our bike ride was Sunday, the place was all but deserted. Despite that, it was still very eerie--almost like a ghost town that never was a town. Standing near the base of the 480 foot high cooling towers and looking up the outside staircase, a number of feelings strike one. It is a very impressive structure, the staircase would freak me out to no end if I had to climb it, and the reality of what it represents in a post-Fukushima world turns my stomach every which way. I was tentatively supportive of nuclear fission power pre-Fukushima believing it was a necessary evil we had to pursue. Fukushima changed that for me, and I abandoned any idea that nuclear fission was in any way a viable option.

There are very professionally produced signs for The Hilltop Cafe, but it was closed Sunday. A coworker lives in Elma, and he said he has never seen the place open. The menu offered "sandwhiches" and "peacan pie", which can easily lead one to speculate about the effects of radiation.

The ride took off from Vance Creek County Park, and it appears to be a decent park with a beach. If this heat holds, I plan to take the wife and kids out there on Saturday. Play in the water, see a bit of Elma, and stand closer to nuclear power plant than I ever care to have my family. My 11 year old will be fascinated by it.

[freshwest]

1. Looks nice and green around there. I have a friend who is a Hanford downwinder.

As talented, generous and dedicated as she is to her chosen profession, she will be taken from us too soon.

[Edweird]

2. My job has taken me to nuclear power plants.

(As well as Government and Military facilities)
It was a pain in the ass and, frankly, scary. I was living, out of convenience, less than 2 miles from the plant. I had well water. I used bottled water for everything but bathing. While I was there the plant experienced a mechanical failure (totally unrelated to my job) and one of the reactors lost cooling water - this resulted in a "reactor trip". The reactor trip caused a large amount of steam to be suddenly released - it was an explosion. With 'smoke' (steam). I wasn't more than a few hundred yards from the reactor when it happened. Not cool.
Another thing that sucked was that it was like being in prison. Dudes with guns in towers with tinted windows all over the place and cameras EVERYWHERE. Like kudzu. Endless drug tests and meetings and training sessions not to mention political turf wars......

Anyway, nuke power sucks. Not that coal powered plants are great - but at least if someone spills some coal it doesn't render regions uninhabitable and kill lots of people....

[Zalatix]

3. The damage done by a nuclear meltdown is hardly any worse than a functioning coal plant.

There's the problem of mercury in the water that comes from coal. Ever see those warnings on fish? The pollution is a bit unpleasant and long-lasting, too. Coal power plants are partially to blame for the nasty heat waves we're having now.

And that coal ash spill in Tennessee was no joke.

The damage coal powered plants do is most severe when it DOESN'T break down. And it at LEAST equals the damage done by a nuclear plant meltdown.

[GoCubsGo]

5. The mercury doesn't just go into the water.

It goes everywhere. The mercury that has spewed out of the chimneys at coal-fueled power plants has contaminated some of the most pristine areas of the planet, such as the Arctic wilderness. And, it's not just mercury. Fly ash has all sort of other heavy metals in it, too. And, it's often mildly radioactive.

[HopeHoops]

4. I worked in a couple 27 years ago. Damn near every pickup had fishing poles in the gun racks.

The cooling pond at one was stocked regularly and the fish got HUGE! The other used Lake Michigan for a cooling "pond" and it was the same story there. Huge fish. It wasn't from radiation - it was just the heat.