Dr. Conca reports that despite two unexpected outages, the nuclear power plant near Richland, WA generated a record 9.6 billion kWhrs of electricity in 2016, edging out its previous record of 9.5 billion kWhs in 2014. The Columbia Generating Station, operated by the non-profit Energy Northwest, has been generating electricity constantly for thirty-two years, but seems to have really found its groove over the last six. The power plant electricity output has been steadily increasing over this period because of continuous management and safety improvements, well-timed maintenance, technology replacements and power uprates, done when production is halted to replace fuel. But the most important reason for the reliability is that nuclear takes so little fuel and just keeps going and going.
Unlike fossil fuel plants that have to be fueled continuously, refueling of nuclear plants only happens every two years because nuclear produces so much power using so little fuel. The Columbia Generating Station produces uses 5% of 20 tons of fuel each year to generate 9.6 billion kWhs of electricity. Compare this to a coal plant which uses almost a million tons of fuel to produce the same amount of electricity, not to mention the 2 million tons of CO2 it produces that enters the atmosphere. Columbia low-cost power is absolutely critical if we are to achieve this state and the regional clean energy goals, said Mark Reddemann, Energy Northwest CEO. The next refueling outage for the Columbia Generating Station is in May 2017. The Columbia Generating Station has also added about 40 MW of production capacity since 2011, bringing the total to 1,190 MW. The plant has operated at 93% capacity since 2012, meaning it is producing its maximum power almost all the time.
Original URL: https://www.forbes.com/sites/jamesconca/2017/01/06/nuclear-power-in-washington-state-continues-to-break-records/#b93968c5a72d
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