July, 2024
I’ve driven out Highway 8 a number of times … out to the coast, to go camping out there, to visit friends out there, or even just for a day’s drive, etc. Several times I noticed the two cooling towers of the Satsop Nuclear Power Plant off to the south of Highway 8 (photo below). I didn’t much like seeing that, but it is what it is, yes?
So on this camping trip, I drove through the very small town of Satsop (notice the town has the same name as the nuclear power plant) to get to Schafer State Park. The Nuclear Power Plant was named after this small town. And yet, the power plant wasn’t adjacent to the town, or really very near the town, or so it seemed to me.
But the two nuclear cooling towers were obvious even from the small road that led through the very small town of Satsop. I knew nothing much about the Satsop Nuclear Power Plant, the workings or the processes of this nuclear power plant. But it called to me. I wanted to learn what there was to learn. So today I paid attention to the questions in my mind, and drove south from the town of Satsop to check it out. Satsop Nuclear Power Plant here I come!
Photo below … the two cooling towers of the nuclear power plant as seen from the small country road that led through the very small town of Satsop. As the bird flies, those cooling towers are about 3.2 miles from where I was on that small road when I took that photo. (Click to enlarge photos.)
The image below is from Google Earth … it’s a bird’s eye view looking straight down at the power plant facility. The two huge cooling towers are obvious. The RED arrow is the road I took to drive into the facility. I assumed, of course, that I would not be allowed onto the grounds, much less anywhere near the workings of the nuclear stuff.
The bottom line on the sign below said it all … “Trespassers will be prosecuted”. Ok, then, I was ready to stop at the gate and turn around and go away.
But … there was no gate! No gate, no guards, and no more signs. I drove onto the grounds VERY slowly in case anyone did want to stop me. But no one did.
I was amazed to get so close to the cooling towers … one in the photo below. And yet, I noticed the hundreds of bags in the photo below and thought that was odd.
Wood shavings?! Next to a nuclear power plant?
And then I scratched my head, and then I looked up “Satsop Nuclear Plant” online on my cell phone. Ha! This nuclear power plant had never been finished! It never produced power. And there are no “nuclear” things onsite. Nothing. Nada. It isn’t operating and it never was. There are no “nuclear” things on the premises.
Here’s this combined info from two current websites about this facility … the Satsop Nuclear Power Plant was a planned facility in Washington state, designed to house two 1,250-megawatt pressurized water reactors. Construction began in 1977 but was halted in 1983. About three billion dollars were spent to partially build this facility. It was about 75% complete at that point. Then it was put on hold because of a budget shortfall. The site now hosts the Satsop Development Park.
So, about three billion dollars were spent to partially build this facility, and then it was put on hold because of “a budget shortfall”. I think I might read that as a budget “miscalculation”.
On the other hand, I don’t particularly like the use of nuclear power. It’s dangerous. These plants have been known to blow up and kill everyone in the area. And there’s concern that the people who work there have shortened life spans and more illnesses while alive. So, all in all, I guess I’m ok that this facility has never been a working nuclear power plant.
BUT … I’m still curious about what’s here. Let’s go see it if we can, ok?
I drove in. No one stopped me. I drove almost everywhere. I drove around all the buildings, and almost to the cooling towers, although there were fences around the towers that kept me out.
In the photo below, I was able to drive around behind those buildings and approach that cooling tower.
In fact, I got so close that I took the three photos below.
Notice the HUGE door that was open near the top of this cooling tower.
This third photo (below) was of some sort of machinery that would have been installed inside the cooling tower (above). It was on the ground right at the bottom of that huge cooling tower. It was at least 14 feet in diameter and about 80 feet long. And it was sitting there, rusting.
The photo below shows another tower … not a curved cooling tower but something else like that I suspect. Notice the exposed, bare wire re-bar sticking out of the top of the tower. Work stopped on this tower before it was completed.
And here’s a photo looking inside/through this tower … completely empty.
Then there was this partial building below. There were no signs saying what its intended use was. But those sure are thick concrete walls! If that’s a six-foot chain link fence, then that first huge wall is somewhere around 2.5 to 3 feet thick.
Most of the buildings that were to be occupied by humans were empty, shuttered and locked and deteriorating.
So, you saw one of the huge curved cooling towers in the photos above. Here’s the second one …..
I figured I wouldn’t get any closer to it than I had to the first one.
But look! I swear, honest to goodness, that chain link fence wasn’t any more than 20 feet away from the bottom of this cooling tower. And it was only a six foot fence, pretty darned easy to jump over.
But look closely. The cooling tower is empty … there’s nothing inside!
Holy cow, they spent three billion dollars to build empty buildings that do nothing.
In the aerial photo below, the YELLOW circle shows a “power station” on the property. It was the original power station that was built to take power from the local power grid and supply power so this nuclear facility could be built. It simply supplied power for the construction of this nuclear power plant … and it still, today, supplies power to the “Satsop Development/Business Park” … and it supplies power so employees can “maintain” the nuclear power plant facilities. The photos below show this power station from ground view.
So … there definitely is a “Satsop Development/Business Park”. Inside a very few of the buildings that were built originally to house administrative offices and facilities for technicians and other workers for the nuclear power plant, there are now a few private businesses and one “training center” (what’s that for?). So this power plant (photos above) still supplies power to those businesses and the street lights and water supply pumps, etc.
But, there’s yet another power grid station on the property … in the YELLOW circle below. It’s huge! It was built to be the OUTPUT power station that took power FROM the nuclear power plant and then send it outside. This power station has buildings multiple stories high … the area it covers is about 1,000 feet on a side or about the size of 15 football fields. It too, continues to be maintained even though the nuclear plant produces no power.
So, all in all, I had a great time here. For one thing, I was allowed to get so close to everything. I saw equipment and buildings that were interesting, some with descriptive signage. But as well, some of what I saw raised questions. Signs said that the cost of completing the facility was prohibitive and that this nuclear power plant would never be completed because building specs for a nuclear power plant are different today than they were back in 1977. So why is it still being maintained? And, what is that one huge power station for, the one that supplies outgoing power from the nuclear plant, when the nuclear power plant isn’t producing any power, and why is it still being maintained? Yes, I know, maybe the cost of demolition is considered more than the cost of on-going maintenance … but for how many decades?
Even if I never get the answers to those questions, I had a great time. I will likely (hopefully) never get as close to an operating nuclear power plant as I did to this non-operating facility. That’s just fine with me. 🙂
The word/name “satsop” comes from the Satsop native people who lived here before immigrants arrived from Europe. The word means “made river” or “make/do stream”. As is often the case, words in other languages don’t always have a literal translation into English, and vice versa.
In the end, the word/name “Satsop” will NOT remind me of this power facility, but of the comfortable, small, rural community that is the village of Satsop, Washington, population 675 at the 2010 census … and the word/name “Satsop” will remind me of the Satsop people who lived here for thousands of years, and who still live here today, in peace. May we all be so fortunate. Blessings everyone! 🙂