When you think about Washington’s power grid, your mind probably jumps straight to the massive concrete walls of the Grand Coulee Dam or the spinning turbines of the Columbia River. It makes sense. We’re a hydro state through and through. But there’s a massive, steaming tower sitting out in the high desert of Benton County that does a staggering amount of the heavy lifting for our light switches and data centers. Honestly, nuclear power plants in WA state are often the "forgotten" backbone of our carbon-free energy goals, and the conversation around them is getting weirdly intense as the state tries to figure out how to keep the lights on without coal or gas.
Most people don't even realize we only have one operating commercial reactor left. It’s called the Columbia Generating Station. It’s tucked away on the Hanford Site, but it's not actually part of the infamous "cleanup" project that usually dominates the headlines. It’s its own thing. And while it produces about 10% of the state’s electricity, the history of how we got here is littered with half-finished towers, billions in debt, and a sudden, desperate pivot back toward nuclear technology.
The Giant in the Desert: Columbia Generating Station
The Columbia Generating Station isn't just a backup. It’s a beast.
Operated by Energy Northwest, this third-generation boiling water reactor has been humming along since 1984. It pumps out about 1,200 megawatts of power. To put that in perspective, that’s enough to power a city the size of Seattle. Every single day. Rain or shine. Wind or no wind. That’s the "baseload" factor that engineers get so stressed about. While wind turbines in the Gorge are great when the breeze blows, the nuclear plant just sits there and cranks out electrons at a 90% capacity factor.
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The fuel itself is fascinatingly dense. We’re talking about small uranium pellets, each roughly the size of a pencil eraser. A single one of those pellets contains as much energy as a ton of coal or about 150 gallons of oil. When you walk through the facility—which is a labyrinth of steel, steam pipes, and security checkpoints—you realize the sheer scale of the engineering.
But it’s not all sunshine and carbon-free rainbows. The plant draws water from the Columbia River for cooling. While they use a closed-cycle system with those iconic evaporation towers to keep the river water from getting too hot, environmental groups have spent decades keeping a close eye on the intake screens to make sure salmon fry aren't getting sucked into the works. It's a delicate balance. The plant is licensed to run until 2043, which sounds like a long time until you realize how long it takes to build anything new in this sector.
The Ghost of WPPSS: Why We Stopped Building
You can't talk about nuclear power plants in WA state without mentioning the "Whoops" factor. That's WPPSS—the Washington Public Power Supply System.
Back in the 70s, the plan was to build five massive nuclear plants across Washington. It was an ambitious, maybe even arrogant, attempt to future-proof the Northwest. They started building at Hanford and over at Satsop in Grays Harbor County. If you’ve ever driven toward the coast and seen those haunting, empty cooling towers rising out of the forest, you’ve seen the remains of Plants 3 and 5.
They never finished them.
Cost overruns were astronomical. Mismanagement was rampant. Then, the 1979 Three Mile Island accident happened, and public sentiment soured overnight. By 1983, WPPSS defaulted on $2.25 billion in municipal bonds. It was the largest municipal bond default in U.S. history at the time. It left a scar on the state’s psyche—and its checkbook—that lasted for generations. People stopped saying "nuclear" and started saying "never again."
Why the Narrative is Shifting Toward SMRs
So, if we had such a bad experience, why is everyone talking about nuclear again?
Basically, it's the climate. Washington passed the Clean Energy Transformation Act (CETA), which mandates a 100% clean energy grid by 2045. Hydro is tapped out—we aren't building more big dams. Solar and wind are growing, but they can't handle the "dunkelflaute"—a German word engineers love that describes those dark, still winter weeks when the sun doesn't shine and the wind doesn't blow.
Enter the SMR: Small Modular Reactors.
Instead of these massive, billion-dollar custom builds, SMRs are designed to be factory-built and shipped to a site. They’re smaller, safer (theoretically), and easier to cool.
The X-energy Partnership
Energy Northwest is currently working with a company called X-energy to potentially deploy a four-unit SMR plant near the existing Columbia Generating Station. This isn't just a "maybe" anymore. They’ve signed a joint development agreement. This Xe-100 model is a high-temperature gas-cooled reactor. Instead of water, it uses helium, and the fuel is wrapped in "TRISO" pebbles—basically ceramic-coated billiard balls of uranium that are virtually impossible to melt down.
TerraPower and the Bill Gates Factor
While TerraPower is building its first "Natrium" reactor in Wyoming, the company is headquartered in Bellevue, Washington. The brainpower for the next generation of global nuclear tech is literally sitting in an office park in the 425 area code. They’re looking at using liquid sodium as a coolant, which allows the plant to "store" heat and ramp power up and down to complement wind and solar.
The Elephant in the Room: Waste and Hanford
It would be intellectually dishonest to talk about nuclear power in Washington without addressing the Hanford Site.
Let's be clear: the radioactive sludge sitting in 177 underground tanks at Hanford is NOT from nuclear power plants. It’s from the Manhattan Project and Cold War plutonium production for nuclear weapons. But for the average voter, "nuclear" is "nuclear." The struggle to vitrify (turn into glass) that waste has been a multi-decade, multi-billion dollar headache.
The waste from the Columbia Generating Station is different. It’s "spent fuel"—solid metal rods. Currently, it just sits on a concrete pad at the site in dry cask storage. It’s safe, it’s monitored, and it’s not going anywhere because the U.S. still hasn't figured out a permanent national repository like Yucca Mountain.
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Is it a problem? Yes. Is it the same as the leaking tanks at Hanford? Not even close. But trying to explain that nuance during a town hall meeting is a nightmare for developers.
Looking Ahead: What Actually Happens Next?
The future of nuclear power plants in WA state isn't going to be decided by scientists. It's going to be decided by economics and the Department of Ecology.
The cost of SMRs is still an unknown. The first few units will be expensive. But as we see coal plants like TransAlta in Centralia shut down, the pressure to find high-output replacements is mounting. We're seeing a weird alliance form between some labor unions (who want the high-paying trades jobs) and climate activists (who realize we can't hit 2045 goals without nuclear).
If you want to stay ahead of this, keep an eye on the "Site Certification" process with the Washington Energy Facility Site Evaluation Council (EFSEC). That’s where the real fights happen.
Next Steps for the Informed Citizen:
- Track the Xe-100 Project: Follow the Energy Northwest board meetings. They are public. This is where the actual money for the new SMRs near Richland is being allocated.
- Check the Grid Mix: Use tools like the MISO or BPA balancing authority maps to see where your power is coming from in real-time. You'll be surprised how often that 10% from nuclear is the only thing keeping the frequency stable during a cold snap.
- Support or Oppose with Specificity: If you're worried about nuclear, focus your advocacy on spent fuel long-term storage solutions rather than just "closing the plant," as the latter often leads to an immediate spike in natural gas usage. If you're pro-nuclear, advocate for streamlining the EFSEC permitting process for carbon-free baseload.
The "Whoops" era is over, but the shadow it cast is long. Whether Washington becomes a global hub for SMR technology or stays a "hydro-only" state will likely be the biggest energy story of the next decade.