Black Fox Nuclear Power Plant

[nathanm]

Here's a fascinating journey through the Chernobyl region:

Summary: You don't want to be a human living there unless you like cancer, but it sure turned into a nice nature preserve. Just don't eat the wildlife.

[Conan71]

I was Googling around trying to find photos of Black Fox and came across this Interesting link:

http://www.nukeworker.com/maps/facility/BlackFox.html

You can find the nearest bar or Walmart from your favorite nuke plant.

[waterboy]

This is how I recall things going down.  

Carrie Dickerson's activism without a doubt had an influence on the outcome, but the cancellation was due more to economic than environmental concerns.

The problem with the Black Fox plant was that it wasn't needed to meet PSO's customer demand at any time during its lifespan.  The entire reason it was proposed was that Oklahoma was the only state that didn't require a permit from the appropriate regulatory agency, in our case the Corporation Commission, before building the plant.  The electricity was mainly intended to be sold on the interstate grid, but the capital cost would have been added to PSO's rate base, which would have increased electricity rates for PSO customers without benefiting them in any way.  As it turns out, the Corporation Commission discovered they did have the power to approve or disapprove the issuance of bonds to finance the project.  They worked out a deal with PSO to add the pre-cancellation costs to the rate base in return for PSO's cancellation of the project.  

You can see many smaller gas-powered generating plants across the state that do not generate power for local consumption.  The Calpine plant near Oneta/Coweta was built specifically to sell to California.  Last I heard (quite some time ago), it had not sold a single kilowatt, but at least it was not added to any public utility rate base.   These plants located here because of a good supply of low-cost natural gas and because there were fewer regulatory barriers to construction.  

AEP/PSO's issues at present don't involve a lack of generating capacity.  The distribution infrastructure is quite fragile.  AEP/PSO would more productively use its resources to shore up that infrastructure than building new plants just because they can.

Cynical, that matches what I was told by a PSO accountant who shared that info with me in the 80's when our sons were both in Scouts. He was angry and bemused that even though it was not going to be economically beneficial for them, and, that the battle with environmentalists was looming large and unneccessary, PSO still intended to do battle. It was a money loser from the start. Btw, a close friend of mine was arrested for trespass during one of Carrie's demonstrations. Fun times.

[Hoss]

I was Googling around trying to find photos of Black Fox and came across this Interesting link:

http://www.nukeworker.com/maps/facility/BlackFox.html

You can find the nearest bar or Walmart from your favorite nuke plant.

Yeah, I found that as well earlier this morning and chuckled a little.  I just reconnected with an old friend who now lives out in Inola.  Maybe there's a Holiday Inn Express out there somewhere!

[Townsend]

Yeah, I found that as well earlier this morning and chuckled a little.  I just reconnected with an old friend who now lives out in Inola.  Maybe there's a Holiday Inn Express out there somewhere!

You'll be wicked smart.

[Hoss]

You'll be wicked smartsmahhht.

FIFY

[Vision 2025]

I'm curious if PSO still holds the deed for that property.  They could still build a gas powered or biomass plant if they find the cost and risk of nuclear isn't worth it.

As of 2 years ago they still did.

[sgrizzle]

As of 2 years ago they still did.

I was told by someone that they still use it to park train cars on occasion.

I wasn't at PSO at the time, and I don't know anyone who was tied to the project, so I have no real knowledge, but I've heard that even though Carrie Dickerson took the credit, she had no real effect on the decision to abandon the project.

The Coweta plant was mentioned but there is also an independent plant in Jenks. PSO does need some increase in generating capacity and have actually contracted to buy a large portion of the Jenks plant's output. PLants last for decades but PSO is almost entirely natural-gas burning and natural gas prices are higher and more fickle than coal or nuclear.

[heironymouspasparagus]

There was never an economic justification to build the plant.  It was a cluster from the git-go.  Big part of it was the ego strokes for the CEO at the time - can't remember his name, but he really was an arrogant something.  And they lied like dogs to try to push it through.  One of the numbers they kept throwing around was $160 million - like they expected to build it for that.  Later, I heard that had spent that much on the slab that was out there and digging in the dirt. 

Few years later, I got to visit a nuke in Canada.  It was one of the most advanced designs in the world - still is as modern a design as there is, I guess.  There were emergency systems all over the place and when they started to fuel up and start reactor #5, there was a problem.  The thing came within minutes of melting into the ground.  Turns out all the emergency coolant pumps were installed backwards, so when the fuel rod tubes started to sag just before melting, the emergency coolant water wasn't going the right way!  Through the reactor.

And while they had somewhere around 15,000 x-rays of welds of supports holding the fuel rods, when the reactor fuel rod holders were looked at, they could only find about 5,000 actual welds of supports holding the fuel rods. 

Low bid at its best.  Long story short, they went back and fixed it.  I guess.  6 of the 8 reactors are still chugging along.

Here's a link.  5 thru 8 were started up in early '80s.  Got to climb all over the containment room of reactor 5.  Very cool to visit.  Would NOT work there.
http://www.opg.com/power/nuclear/pickering/

Carrie worked hard to stop Black Fox, but the totally stupid economics of the thing are what finally did it in.  And those economics have done nothing but get worse.  Uranium is at 'historic' lows recently, but that is mainly because we are buying it from Russia where they are "mining" it from all their nuclear bombs.  And many of the mines here where uranium is mined for real are filling up with ground water making it impossible to get to AS WELL AS the extra added benefit of ground water contamination for about the next 50,000 years or so.  Yay, team!!

Carrie had a little health food store out in Claremore for a long time - until she died.  Just a little tidbit of clutter for the mind to savor and enjoy.

[nathanm]

I don't terribly enjoy being at the mercy of third party generators for anything but peaking. Remember how they managed to give a good screwing to the ratepayers out in California some years back? 

[heironymouspasparagus]

That was Enron.  And our very own Devon Energy in OKC and Williams Brothers here in T-town.
Enron was the big player - the others were along for the free ride.

Directly a result of FERC deregulation.