The control room is part Oz and part insurance office, with guys in Dockers toiling under fluorescent lights. The security guard hidden in the back with a Glock 9 mm side arm, automatic rifle, gas mask and bank of surveillance monitors is a clue to the sensitive nature of their work. A worker is concerned about even the remote possibility the salve could transport radiation beyond the reactor's walls. Electricity sizzles over high-voltage wires from the plant to the power grid, where it is purchased at cost by the Bonneville Power Administration for wholesale to utilities around the region. BPA carefully planned for the plant's upcoming monthlong refueling by purchasing replacement power, a sign of the plant's importance.
Every kilowatt is needed.
Formed by the Legislature in 1957, the consortium is funded by power revenues. In return, BPA was to receive all of the power from the plants at cost for wholesale to its customers. Pa. The country also has no permanent safe place for its nuclear waste. Even low-level radioactive waste is usually dangerous for up to 500 years. High-level waste remains lethal for millenniums.