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Energy Northwest Mulling Plant 1 Revival by Chris Mulick, Herald staff writer Tri-City Herald, January 19, 2001

Energy Northwest (formerly known as the Washington Public Power Supply System) said Thursday that it may yet revive plans to finish one of four nuclear power plants it started building in the 1970s but never finished.

However, no one's ready to cut any ribbons or smash any champagne bottles. The obstacles standing in the way of finishing Plant No. 1 at north of Richland could prove to be enormous.

"It has a huge up-front cost, and it has a huge political risk," said Rod Webring, Energy Northwest's vice president for operations support. "The region may never be ready."

But with electricity prices jumping like never before, the price of power out of a nuclear plant doesn't look so bad.

"Maybe the dollar numbers that seemed so ridiculous are not that ridiculous," Webring said.

Energy Northwest began building five nuclear plants in the 1970s to meet what was expected to be rapidly rising energy demands. That demand never materialized, perhaps until now, and rising costs forced four of the projects to be canceled.

The consortium of public utilities, then known as the Washington Public Power Supply System, also defaulted on $2.25 billion in bonds sold to build the last two of those projects. Only Columbia Generating Station, formerly known simply as Plant No. 2, was ever finished.

But with the price of power on spot markets at times tenfold and more what they are normally, the value of the power it has produced since July has topped $750 million. That's money Northwest ratepayers would have had to pay to buy as much energy as the plant produces.

It is believed it would cost some $3 billion to $4 billion to finish Plant No. 1, which was two-thirds finished when work stopped in the early 1980s and was later canceled.

Not much has changed since the mammoth 1,300-megawatt project was canceled. The monolith is the centerpiece of a nuclear ghost town of sorts, surrounded by a chain link fence and weathered roads. Energy Northwest has been exploring ways to redevelop the project for other industrial uses.

It's not clear exactly how much power from Plant No. 1 would cost, but Webring figures it's worth finding out just in case anyone is interested. Energy Northwest has had a few nibbles in the past year from private utilities interested in finishing the project but no bites.

"I would not be surprised if that interest is rekindled," he said.

Energy Northwest doesn't have the ability to finish the project by itself because it has no money. The Bonneville Power Administration effectively buys all of Energy Northwest's power and pays all its bills, including millions annually on debt payments for Plant No. 1 on bonds the federal power marketer backed.

For the project to materialize, another party would have to sign a contract to buy the plant's power or be willing to finish the project.

"It would be almost like a new construction project," said Vic Parrish, Energy Northwest's chief operating officer. "If there's any interest in unit 1, we will do some irreversible damage to that facility in the next three to four years."

That's because the agency plans to use the Plant No. 1 generator to help increase the output of the 1,150-megawatt Columbia Generating Station by another 175 megawatts.

Rising power prices wouldn't be the only reason stimulating interest in finishing the project. While there are issues with finding places to store radioactive spent nuclear fuel, the plant wouldn't produce harmful air emissions like gas or coal plants or kill fish like hydroelectric dams.

Also, nuclear plants now are being licensed to run for 60-year intervals, making them a guaranteed resource for a generation.

All that still may not be enough to get the project going again. For now Energy Northwest is just preparing itself to answer questions about the possibility if they are asked, Webring said.

"We're not going to build that plant unless the region wants it," he said.