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| Photo Credit Utilities Service Alliance |
I was recently invited to attend the first annual Clean
Energy Forum, hosted by Energy Northwest in Richland, Washington, which included a tour of the Columbia Generating station.
The Tour
We were greeted at the security gate by three polite security guards who inspected the bus and checked our photo IDs against
a list. This level of security isn't unique to nuclear power stations. You would have to go through a similar procedure to take a tour of
Hoover dam. We also had to leave our cell phones on the bus (which would also be
the case should you ever get the chance to take the highly recommended Boeing, Everett factory tour).
Next, we had to pass through metal detectors very similar to
the ones I had to walk through at the airport. Between the airports and tour, I passed through metal detectors
four different times on this trip.
We were given radiation dose badges (to document
that exposure levels were well-below any amount that could possibly affect
health).
We saw the control room mock-up where crews are trained to
staff the real control room. They ran through a simulated core shutdown from an
earthquake (including a shaking floor and emergency lighting), which took only
a few seconds to complete. It looked complex but I doubt that there were many more gauges, lights,
and switches in that control room than you would find in a 747 cockpit (between
365 and 970 of them, depending on model). Because a control room does not have to fly,
the gauges and switches were quite large and widely spaced in comparison.
Photo of 747 Cockpit National Air and Space Museum
