dand@tekigm.UUCP (05/03/84)
In order to add a bit more fuel to the fire: Some excerpts from the 26 April, 1984 issue of The Oregonian, from an article by the staff writer John Hayes. The article concerns the Trojan nuclear power plant in Rainier, Oregon, about 30 miles northeast of Portland. It gives some information about the construction and operation of Trojan, which can't help but fuel the current nuke/non-nuke debate. *** SHUTDOWN PLANNED FOR TROJAN REFUELING by John Hayes of the Oregonian staff The Trojan nuclear power plant at Rainier will be shut down for refueling Thursday [26 April] after operating for 10 months at about 90 percent of its rated capacity, ... PGE [Portland General Electric], which operates Trojan...claimed a record 133-day run at full capacity in the period since Trojan's last refueling. The run, from Oct. 7, 1983 to Feb. 4, 1984, eclipsed the plant's previous 119-day record run at full power set in the winter of 1980-81. The construction of Trojan began in 1970 and was completed on schedule in 1975 at a cost of $460 million. ... Trojan operated between July 1983 and April 1, 1984 at 90.4 percent of its rated capacity, experiencing seven shutdowns during the period, all lasting 24 hours or less, Babcock said [William Babcock, PGE's nuclear energy information representative]. In recent years, the plant's performance has become increasingly reliable, as the utility has completed a series of improvments sought by regulatory agencies. "It has been very consistent with the rest of the industry," Babcock said. "We've had consistent improvement, but we are no better or worse than the rest of the industry." Trojan's lifetime performance record is below the industry's average, largely because of a seven-month forced shutdown in 1978 and 1979 because of structural problems in the plant's control room walls. The national average lifetime performance record for all U.S. nuclear plants combined is 59.9 percent of rated capacity. Trojan's lifetime record is 53.8 percent of its capacity. However, the cost of Trojan's electricity, counting capital, fuel and operating expenses, was 2.5 cents per kilowatt-hour in 1983 and about 2.3 cents per kilowatt-hour in 1982, figures considerably below the national average. The industry's average cost in 1982 for all nuclear plants was 3.1 cents per kilowatt-hour. The average for all plants which began operating in 1975 was 2.9 cents per kilowatt-hour, according to figures of the Atomic Industrial Forum. *** My comments: The maximum rate PGE charges residential customers is 4.5 cents per kilowatt- hour. Anyone tell us what it is in the East? PGE runs a coal-fired plant at Boardman only when it has to, because the coal-fired plant costs more to operate than Trojan -- this is what PGE says, and I can't believe that they would choose the more expensive option to generate a given amount of power with. Thus, at least one company can run a nuclear plant cheaper than it can a coal plant, even meeting the current operating regulations and dealing with the legal opposition. I would rather deal with nuclear waste, especially if we could put it in a stadium-sized enclosure, than with the tons of CO2 pumped into the air at a time when the acid rain is killing the trees and plants that consume it (and provide oxygen for us human-types, much less the little furry animals and such.) If we took all the nuclear waste, fuel, and tailings we had and spread it equally over the face of the earth (I am NOT advocating this), I doubt that the increased radiation would be detectable against the background source. We already have evidence of the damage caused by burning fossil fuels. Conservation is right and logical and cheap. Wind and solar are not very concentrated (a 100% efficiency solar collector the size of Arizona is needed to run New York State*) but can be used to supplement what we power we have now. Ecological problems plague hydro power as well as the problem of dredging the man-made lakes every 50 years, plus the power loss trying to get power from Wilderness USA to Urbania. Fusion might not arrive until cool, calm reasoning comes to USENET (or some other equally unlikely event.) My conclusion is that until we stop making new people (thus increasing demand) and start cutting our usage of electricity (kiss your VT-100 goodbye as well as aluminum, air conditioning, the space shuttle, polyester suits, TV, frozen anything, etc), we will be stuck with fission plants until we get out into space (where solar power is much more reasonable-- but how do we get all those people up there?) or fusion comes along (and we still have to go into space because we are otherwise pumping too much heat into the biosphere.) *Note: we can argue about the actual size of this collector, but no matter how you spell it, it will turn out to be damn dark in Phoenix. Dan C Duval ISI Engineering Tektronix, Inc tektronix!tekigm!dand These are my own opinions and all that...