NUCLEAR FICTION

Anyone who watches The Simpsons would be aware that Homer works at the Springfield Nuclear Power Plant, owned by the unscrupulous Montgomery Burns. Homer works in Sector 7G as the Safety Officer. He works in the control room sitting in front of a console, but has little idea how to operate it. In one episode Homer was replaced by a chicken, pecking at the control panel. Homer is the lowest-ranking person in the power plant and is subordinate to an inanimate carbon rod.

The plant is poorly run and has an appalling safety record.Radioactive waste is seen leaking from drums, Geiger counters around the plant are going off the scale and waste is dumped in a childrens playground. In one episode the power plant is about to melt down and Homer reaches for the user manual which on the opening page says - "Congratulations on your purchase of a Fissionator 1952 Slow-Fission Reactor". Homer mistakenly hits the right switch and saves the day. Pretty wild stuff. But as the old saying goes "truth is stranger than fiction".

The idea for the Springfield Power Plant came from the real life Trojan Nuclear Plant near Matt Groening's home town of Portland Oregon. Constructon of the pressurised water reactor (PWR) began in 1970 and was designed to last 200 years. The plant went online in 1976. The single 1130 MW unit at Trojan was then the largest PWR unit ever built. In 1978 the plant was shutdown because it was discoveredthat there were major building construction errors and that the plant was in close proximity to a previously unknown faultline. The operators sued the constructors, and an undisclosed out of court settlement was eventually made.

After just 4 years the steam turbines failed. It was announced that replacement of the steam generators would be necessary before it could be restarted. Next a pipe rupture caused a radioactive leak and a shutdown. After a restart in 1992 the plant failed within a week after another pipe leaked radioactive material. In 1992, documents leaked from the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, revealed that scientists believed that Trojan may be unsafe to operate

In 1993 the operators announced they would not try to restart Trojan. However PGE continued to charge ratepayers for the full cost of the plant, including decommissioning and waste disposal. This amounted to many hundreds of millions of dollars,A class action taken by over 1 million customers to recoup unlawful profits is still in the courts as of September 2005.

The reactor vessel and other radioactive equipment have been removed from the Trojan facility. The reactor vessel was transported to Hanford Nuclear Reservation and buried. The spent fuel is stored onsite, awaiting transport to Yucca Mountain Repositry. The 160 metre cooling towers were dynamited in May this year. Trojan makes Springfield look like a well oiled machine.

Environmentalists had opposed the plant from day one. There had been violent clashes both inside and outside the plant. In 1980, a proposal to ban construction of further nuclear power plants in the state was approved by voters.

Since the plants closure Oregon has installed around 350 MW of wind farms which is about one third of Trojan's rated capacity.

Meanwhile, Australians are being courted to believe that nuclear energy is the answer to global warming. D'oh!