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Will WPPSS Plants Rise Again? by Ross Anderson Seattle Times, February 5, 2001

When the lights and computer screens flicker around the Puget Sound area, listen closely to the east, where you're liable to hear a chorus of I-told-you-so's.

Eastern Washington is entitled to say so. Nearly 20 years after Northwest utilities abandoned four of five planned nuclear plants, the region is suddenly groping for precious megawatts — precisely the crisis that had been predicted by nuclear proponents east of the mountains.

It just took a little longer than they expected for regional electricity demand to outstrip supply.

"Even one or two of those plants would have been a pretty good insurance policy for us now," says Vera Claussen, a longtime public-power official from Grant County.

Claussen stops short of saying I told you so. "But you hear quite a bit of that around here these days."

Even Gary Zarker, head of Seattle City Light, concedes that the regional energy crunch lends itself to the rethinking of the failed Northwest nuclear-power program.

"I wouldn't have built five of those nukes," he says. "But one or two would be a big help these days."

That's why two Eastern Washington lawmakers — State Rep. Larry Crouse, R-Spokane, and Sen. Bob Morton, R-Orient, Ferry County — are proposing that the Legislature take a look at the possibility of salvaging one of those abandoned projects, or building another one.

"Nukes are a possibility," Crouse said last week. "They're widely used in Europe and Japan. They are clean, long-lasting and very effective."

Power experts are more skeptical. It would take many years and billions of dollars to build a nuclear plant, they say. And there are still environmental issues.

Rocky time in energy politics

Claussen's public service has spanned a tumultuous period of energy politics. For nearly 20 years, she has been a commissioner with the Grant County Public Utility District and with Energy Northwest, a consortium of public utilities that used to call itself the Washington Public Power Supply System: "WPPSS."

During the last energy crisis, in the mid-1970s, WPPSS decided that the region's vast hydropower grid would not be able to keep up with demand, which was growing at about 7 percent per year. To fill the gap, it decided to build five nuclear plants — three on the Hanford nuclear reservation near the Tri-Cities and two at Satsop, Grays Harbor County.

In the early 1980s, WPPSS collapsed amid huge cost overruns and double-digit interest rates. As electric rates rose, the region found ways to conserve, diminishing the need for more power plants. Northwest ratepayers were stuck with more than $7 billion in WPPSS debts.

"I was never for building all five of those plants," Claussen recalls. "We shouldn't have started the last two. Everything went against us — bidding laws, interest rates and horrendous environmental regulations that drove up the costs."

Eventually, four of the five projects were mothballed or abandoned. The one that was completed, now called Columbia Generating Station, produces an average of 1,150 megawatts of power — enough to light the city of Seattle.

Meanwhile, the WPPSS acronym — often pronounced "whoops" — has become synonymous with public debacles, which explains why the system changed its name to Energy Northwest.

Crunch raises question

But this winter's energy crunch raises the question of whether the region should have built at least one more of those plants. Utility officials acknowledge that the 1,150 megawatts from the existing plant are crucial to keeping the lights burning around the region. When that plant unexpectedly shut down for a few days last summer, the Northwest teetered on the brink of rolling blackouts.

Plant 1, whose concrete shell sits adjacent to the existing Richland plant, was about 65 percent complete when it was mothballed in 1982.

It was maintained in that state for 12 years, at a cost of about $5 million per year, until the system decided to abandon it in 1994.

Meanwhile, only a few small gas-burning turbines have been added to the region's electricity grid during a decade in which energy demand has grown dramatically.

"There have been lots of plans and announcements," Claussen says. "But nothing has come on line.

"People talk about filling the gap with conservation, but conservation can only get you so far. We need more generation, but nobody wants to be the one to step forward and say: Let's build a plant NOW."

That's beginning to change. There are plans for gas turbines from Whatcom County to Satsop and along the Columbia River, where there are major power lines to transmit power to Seattle and other major markets.

But there are no plans for more nuclear plants.

Vic Parrish, the chief executive at Energy Northwest, concedes that another nuclear plant would help the region through the winter, but he does not advocate trying to complete what he calls "Unit One."

"We haven't done anything irreversible at Unit One," he says. "But we are in the process of cutting the place up. And it would be very, very expensive. I would guess $3 billion to $4 billion and four to five years."

The region could build several small gas-turbine plants that would generate as much electricity for less money and in far less time, he adds. "And the need is now, so nuclear probably shouldn't be on the table."

Rudi Bertschi, a Seattle energy consultant who chairs the executive board at Energy Northwest, agrees that nuclear power is not a solution.

"Nuclear power remains tremendously expensive technology, with huge upfront costs. Natural gas is the opposite, with relatively low upfront costs but higher fuel costs."

Over the short run, at least, gas turbines remain the technology of choice — along with renewed efforts at conservation driven by higher electricity rates, he says.

Lesson to be learned

Either way, the experts agree that the lesson to be learned from today's crisis is that the Northwest cannot afford to put all its energy eggs in one basket.

For nearly a century, the region has depended on cheap, clean hydroelectric power from the Columbia and other rivers. But, much as the WPPSS planners predicted a generation ago, the region now needs far more power than its rivers can supply — particularly in a dry year.

This year's shortage is aggravated by environmental regulations, which require utilities to spill water over dams to accommodate migrating salmon — water that otherwise would be used to generate precious megawatts.

"Our projects are losing about 15 percent of their power production for fish, and nobody knows for sure if we're actually helping the fish that much," Claussen says.

"I think people need to take a bigger view of the world. There's nothing wrong with being an environmentalist, but people in Seattle don't realize that most of their power comes from this side of the mountains. We need to take a more balanced view."

Nuclear critics argue that it was financial mismanagement, not environmental laws, that led to the WPPSS disaster.

"We're still trying to find a responsible way to deal with spent nuclear fuel," says Chuck Clarke, a former regional EPA director and adviser to the Seattle Mayor's Office.

Parrish, of Energy Northwest, says the lesson is that the region needs to diversify its energy resources. Behind the WPPSS debacle, he says, was a legitimate effort to find new sources of energy, so the Northwest would be less dependent on wet winters and deep snowpacks to drive their hydroelectric dams.

"We need some nuclear, some coal, oil, gas, conservation," he says. "Regions that have diverse energy portfolios are in a lower-risk situation."