Trojan Nuclear Power Plant Site, Oregon

The only nuclear power plant in Oregon opened in 1976, and shut down twenty years early, after cracked steam tubes were discovered in 1992. When it opened, the plant had the largest pressurized water reactor in the world, capable of producing 1,130 megawatts. It cost $450 million to build the plant, and about $250 million to make it go away. In 2005, the 1,000-ton reactor was filled with concrete foam, coated in blue shrink-wrapped plastic, then shipped up the Columbia River on a barge to the Hanford Nuclear Site in Washington, where it was placed in a 45 foot deep pit - the first commercial reactor to be moved and buried whole. The 500-foot-tall cooling tower was imploded in May 2006. The spent fuel rods are still stored on site, as they are at all the other commercial reactors in the country. The 800 or so highly radioactive rods are stored in dry casks, next to the Columbia River, in a secure, monitored, and manned facility, for the indefinite future.