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51-549: 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,

102-679: A 50% price reduction during the peak hours of the California electricity crisis in 2000/2001. With better demand response the market also becomes more resilient to intentional withdrawal of offers from the supply side. Rolling blackouts affecting 97,000 customers hit the San Francisco Bay area on June 14, 2000, and San Diego Gas & Electric Company filed a complaint alleging market manipulation by some energy producers in August 2000. On December 7, 2000, suffering from low supply and idled power plants,

153-420: 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

204-549: 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

255-681: A hot summer, and people protested by not paying their full bills and calling the power company. When the electricity demand in California rose, utilities had no financial incentive to expand production, as long term prices were capped. Instead, wholesalers such as Enron manipulated the market to force utility companies into daily spot markets for short term gain. For example, in a market technique known as megawatt laundering, wholesalers bought up electricity in California at below cap price to sell out of state, creating shortages. In some instances, wholesalers scheduled power transmission to create congestion and drive up prices. After extensive investigation,

306-539: A letter sent from David Fabian to Senator Boxer in 2002, it was alleged that: On a federal level, the Energy Policy Act of 1992 , for which Enron had lobbied, opened electrical transmission grids to competition, unbundling generation and transmission of electricity. On the state level, part of California's deregulation process, which was promoted as a means of increasing competition, was also influenced by lobbying from Enron, and began in 1996 when California became

357-636: 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

408-590: A new Western Area Power Administration (WAPA) 500 kV line remedying the aforementioned power bottleneck on Path 15 . In the Spring of 2001, House Government Affairs Energy Policy and Regulatory Affairs Subcommittee Chairman Doug Ose held a series of field hearings in California and Nevada, receiving testimony from Public Utilities Commission Chair Loretta Lynch, FERC General Counsel Kevin Madden, California ISO President and CEO Terry Winter and Central Valley farmers. During

459-428: A reliable supply of electricity, and inconvenienced many retail consumers. California had an installed generating capacity of 45 GW ( gigawatts , or billions-of-watts). At the time of the blackouts, demand was 28 GW. A demand-supply gap was created by energy companies, mainly Enron , to create artificial shortages. Energy traders took power plants offline for maintenance during days of peak demand to increase

510-563: 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

561-468: A spot market at very high prices but were unable to raise retail rates. For a product that the IOU's used to produce for about three cents per kilowatt hour of electricity, they were paying eleven to fifty cents, or occasionally even more, but they were capped at 6.7 cents per kilowatt hour when charging their retail customers. As a result, PG&E filed bankruptcy, and Southern California Edison worked diligently on

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612-523: A workout plan with the State of California to save their company from the same fate. According to a 2007 study of Department of Energy data by Power in the Public Interest, retail electricity prices rose much more from 1999 to 2007 in states that adopted deregulation than in those that did not. One of the energy wholesalers that became notorious for "gaming the market" and reaping huge speculative profits

663-598: 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

714-513: 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 : California electricity crisis The 2000–2001 California electricity crisis , also known as

765-547: Is given in the book Conspiracy of Fools , which gives the details of a meeting between the governor and his officials; Clinton Administration Treasury officials; and energy executives, including market manipulators such as Enron, where Gray Davis disagreed with the treasury officials and energy executives. They advised suspending environmental studies to build power plants and a small rate hike to prepare for long-term power contracts (Davis eventually signed overpriced ones, as noted above), while Davis supported price caps, denounced

816-522: The California Independent System Operator (ISO), which manages the California power grid, declared the first statewide Stage 3 power alert, meaning power reserves were below 3 percent. Rolling blackouts were avoided when the state halted two large state and federal water pumps to conserve electricity. Most notably, the city of Los Angeles was unaffected by the crisis because government-owned public utilities in California (including

867-664: The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) substantially agreed in 2003: In the mid-1990s, under Republican Governor Pete Wilson , California began changing the electricity industry. Democratic State Senator Steve Peace was the Chairman of the Senate Committee on Energy at the time and is often credited as "the father of deregulation". The author of the bill was Senator Jim Brulte, a Republican from Rancho Cucamonga. Wilson admitted publicly that defects in

918-511: The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC), the crisis was possible because of legislation instituted in 1996 by the California Legislature (AB 1890) and Governor Pete Wilson that deregulated some aspects of the energy industry. Enron took advantage of this partial deregulation and was involved in economic withholding and inflated price bidding in California's spot markets. The crisis cost between US$ 40 and $ 45 billion. As

969-589: The Los Angeles Department of Water & Power ) were exempt from the deregulation legislation and sold their excess power to private utilities in the state (mostly to Southern California Edison) during the crises. That enabled much of the greater Los Angeles area to suffer only rolling brown-outs rather than long term black outs suffered in other parts of the state. As a result of the actions of electricity wholesalers, Southern California Edison (SCE) and Pacific Gas & Electric (PG&E) were buying from

1020-505: The Pacific Northwest states of Oregon and Washington . During that time, California relied upon out-of-state generators to supply 7 to 11 gigawatts of power. In the summer of 2001 a drought in the northwest states reduced the amount of hydroelectric power available to California. Moreover, wholesale prices of natural gas spiked nationwide, rising from around $ 2 per one million British thermal units (290 kilowatt-hours ) at

1071-539: The Peninsula Beverly Hills Hotel in Beverly Hills . The meeting was convened for Enron to present its "Comprehensive Solution for California," which called for an end to federal and state investigations into Enron's role in the California energy crisis. On October 7, 2003, Schwarzenegger was elected Governor of California to replace Davis. Over a year later, he attended the commissioning ceremony of

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1122-542: 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

1173-716: The Western U.S. energy crisis of 2000 and 2001, was a period of time during which the U.S. state of California had a shortage of electricity supply caused by market manipulations and capped retail electricity prices. The state suffered from multiple large-scale blackouts , one of the state's largest energy companies collapsed, and the economic fall-out greatly harmed Governor Gray Davis 's standing. Drought, and delays in approval of new power plants, also decreased supply. This caused an 800% increase in wholesale prices from April 2000 to December 2000. In addition, rolling blackouts adversely affected many businesses dependent upon

1224-768: The California Power Authority) and Kenneth Lay in 2000, according to the statements made by Freeman to the Senate Subcommittee on Consumer Affairs, Foreign Commerce and Tourism in April and May 2002. S. David Freeman, who was appointed Chair of the California Power Authority in the midst of the crisis, made the following statements about Enron's involvement in testimony submitted before the Subcommittee on Consumer Affairs, Foreign Commerce and Tourism of

1275-446: The FERC report concluded, market manipulation was only possible as a result of the complex market design produced by the process of partial deregulation. Manipulation strategies were known to energy traders under names such as "Fat Boy", " Death Star ", "Forney Perpetual Loop", "Wheel Out", "Ricochet", "Ping Pong", "Black Widow", "Big Foot", "Red Congo", "Cong Catcher" and "Get Shorty". In

1326-480: The Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation on May 15, 2002: Some critics, such as Arianna Huffington , alleged that Davis was lulled to inaction by campaign contributions from energy producers. In addition, the California State Legislature would sometimes push Davis to act decisively by taking over power plants which were known to have been gamed and place them back under control of

1377-701: 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

1428-410: The beginning of 1999 to over $ 10 per million BTU in the winter of 2000-2001. The main line which allowed electricity to travel from the north to the south, Path 15 , had not been improved for many years and became a major bottleneck point which limited the amount of power that could be sent south to 3,900 MW . The International Energy Agency estimates that a 5% lowering of demand would result in

1479-409: 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

1530-420: The deregulation system would need fixing by "the next governor". California's population increased by 13% during the 1990s. The State did not build any new major power plants during that time, and California's generation capability decreased 2 percent from 1990 through 1999, while retail sales increased by 11 percent. California's utilities came to depend in part on the import of excess hydroelectricity from

1581-427: 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

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1632-449: 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

1683-487: The first state to deregulate its electricity market . Energy deregulation put the three companies that distribute electricity into a tough situation. Energy deregulation policy froze or capped the existing price of energy that the three energy distributors could charge. Deregulating the producers of energy did not lower the cost of energy. Deregulation did not encourage new producers to create more power and drive down prices. Instead, with increasing demand for electricity,

1734-647: 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

1785-452: The hearings, the state and federal representatives cast blame on each other, but there was consensus that warning signals to the crisis were missed repeatedly. The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) was intimately involved with the handling of the crisis from the summer of 2000. There were in fact at least four separate FERC investigations. In December 2005, the Commission filed

1836-538: 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

1887-511: 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

1938-426: The other solutions as too politically risky, and allegedly acted rudely. The contracts Davis signed locked Californians into high electric costs for the next decade. As of October 2011 electric rates in California had yet to return to pre-contract levels. On May 17, 2001, future Republican governor Arnold Schwarzenegger and former Los Angeles Mayor Republican Richard Riordan met with Enron CEO Kenneth Lay at

1989-419: The price. Traders were thus able to sell power at premium prices, sometimes up to a factor of twenty times its normal value. Because the state government had a cap on retail electricity charges, this market manipulation squeezed the industry's revenue margins, causing the bankruptcy of Pacific Gas and Electric Company (PG&E) and near bankruptcy of Southern California Edison in early 2001. According to

2040-731: The producers of energy charged more for electricity. The producers used moments of spike energy production to inflate the price of energy. In January 2001, energy producers began shutting down plants to increase prices. By keeping the consumer price of electricity artificially low, the California government discouraged citizens from practicing conservation. In February 2001, California governor Gray Davis stated, "Believe me, if I wanted to raise rates I could have solved this problem in 20 minutes." However, in San Diego, where San Diego Gas & Electric had paid off its debt, market rates were charged beginning in July 1999. Prices doubled in two months due to

2091-611: 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

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2142-584: 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

2193-535: 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

2244-419: The utilities, ensuring a more steady supply and punished the worst manipulators. Meanwhile, conservatives argued that Davis signed overpriced energy contracts, employed incompetent negotiators, and refused to allow prices to rise for residences statewide much like they did in San Diego, which they argue could have given Davis more leverage against the energy traders and encouraged more conservation. More criticism

2295-423: 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

2346-404: Was Enron Corporation . Enron CEO Kenneth Lay mocked the efforts by the California state government to thwart the practices of the energy wholesalers, insisting that "no matter what we 'crazy people in California' did that he had people working for him at Enron that could figure out a way to make money". The original statement was made in a phone conversation between S. David Freeman (Chairman of

2397-410: 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

2448-423: 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

2499-644: 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

2550-630: 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

2601-874: 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

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