Power Supply System (WPPSS, pronounced "whoops"), to provide a mechanism for PUDs to pool their resources for new generation. WPPSS was a bush league operation, run on a low budget by • managers that were generally from tiny utility districts with little to no experience with major construction projects. Their first proj-,. ect was a 27 megawatt dam, built for about 14 million dollars. WPPSS then turned its attention to a joint project with some regional IOUs, retrofitting a .steam turbine to one of the military plutonium breeder reactors on the Hanford Reservation in Washington, managing to raise the $65 million needed for their sh~re•of the project. The reactor was not particularly reliable, but when it worked it produced up to 860 megawatts of power, making it by far the largest nuclear plant in the world at the time. Flushed with success, enthralled with the prospect of a·nuclear Northw_est, WPPSS picked up their central offices in Seattle, moved to H~nford, and proceeded to become one of the rriost s~cretive organizations in the region, firmly entrenched in theit commitment to nuclear power. The crunch began in the '60s. Armed only with graph paper and rulers, the utilities were expecting electrical demand to continue its f~ntastic grnwth rate indefinitely. Hydro resources were expected to be fully developed by the mid-'70s, with shortages expected by the mid-'80s ..BPA was already ending its firm power commit_!llents to the IOUs; although it continued to offer PUDs power at a flat rate until 1974. I~ the late '60s, BPA and the region's utilities • formulated their plans for the future of the Northwest electrical grid. For,them, the answer was ob.vious: coal and nuclear power. Romance Without Finance In 1970,1the regi,9n's utilities unveiled the Hydro Thermal Power Program (HTPP), which called for the con truction of one new major coal or nuclear plant a year, every year, for a total of 26 by the year 2000, nearly trip1ing the region's firm power supply. HTPP was the ultimate centralization of the regional grid, with BPA moving to the foreground as the dominant planning agency for the region. , The plants were supposed to b~ financed by a consortium of public and private utilities. This created quite a problem for most of the region's PUDs, since they didn't have any money to invest. BPA cam~ to the rescue, however, neatly sidestepping the provisions of the BPA charter prohibiting investment in generating facilities through a complicated bit of creative bookkeeping knowp as net billing. Under net billing, PUDs spent the money they would have normally used to bl¼y power from the BPA on building nuclear and coal plants instead. BPA gave them power for free, with the only limitation being that PUDs couldn't spend more than 87% of what the BPA power was worth on a new power plant. . Net billing had some pretty heavy implications. BPA was not only committing.the U.S.·government to an indirect subsidy of coal and nuclear power plants, but was agreeing to be the principal bearer of risk as well. No matter how much the plants eventually cost, and even if they never generate a single watt of power, BPA is committed t.o paying off the full cost of the plants. If the.BPA has to_/ raise its rates to cover its net billing obligations (for example, over half of BP N s recent doubling of wholesale power rates was to cover the failure of a single bond issue.for two net billed nuclear plants), every utility that buys power from BPA is committed to helping to pay fonhose plants., whether they invested in them or not. Construction began on the first phase of HTPP in the early '70s, including 3·coal and·5 nuclear plants. The plan began to fall apart almost immed,iately. C<;mstruction costs were higher than anyone had dreamed. IOUs found themselves financially overextended. Expected costs for plants tpat PµDs had invested in rapidly outstripped what PUDs were paying for BPA power, leaving BPA with no choice but to make the power more expensive. ln,1973, an InterJanuary 1981 RAIN -Page 9 Armed only with graph paper and rulers, the utilities were expecting electrical demand to continue its fantastic growth rate indefinitely. nal Revenue Service decision essentially eliminated BPA from investing in thermal plants not already covered by net billiµg, dealing a staggering blow to the future of HTPP. The program continued . for a while longer, with utilities announcing plans for another 5 • nuclear and 6 coal p1ants, to be completed by 1990. But by the mid-. '70s, HTPP had collapsed, with massive cost overruns anq construction delays draining the financial resources of the region's utilities. Meanwhile, as the implications of HTPP became clearer, Congressman Jim Weaver (D-Oregon) and the Natural Resources Defense Council filed separate lawsuits challenging different aspects of BPA's decision-making authqrity in HTPP and ·requiring a comprehensive Environmental Impact Statement that would open HTPP to public scrutiny for the first time. , With HTPP stalled and power shortages expected within 10 years, utilities panicked. In 1976, BP A: announced that-it would not be able to meet its projected firm power commitments after Jun~,1983. Regional utilities began dropping dark hints about the future, combined with a high powered campaign against consumer interest and environmental groups opposing the continuation'of HTPP. (Probably the three most effective.spokesmen in this campaign have been the three most recent BPA administrators.) Ytilities then introduced the initial version of the recently-passed Northwest Regional Power Bill, launching a three year battle to allow BPA to directly • subsidize HTPP1 for both public and private utilities.DD Coming in Par} Two: The utility perspective, the renewable alternative, and the promise and peril of the Northwest Power Bill. ,, Tnc Troj,1n Nuclear Power Plant
RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy NTc4NTAz