Safety First
Columbia Generating Station, like all commercial nuclear power plants in this country, is equipped with elaborate and redundant safety systems. The purpose of these safety systems is to protect the public, employees, and the environment from the harmful radioactive materials inside the plant. To contain radioactivity, Columbia Generating Station employs six major barriers:
The plant design also employs a "defense in depth" philosophy that takes into account a multitude of possible accident scenarios. Nothing is left to chance or speculation – from equipment malfunction to earthquakes to power interruption, each possible situation is studied, analyzed, and practiced. Additionally, each safety system has built in redundancy and backup to ensure reliability across this wide range of accident scenarios.
For example, the most serious accident scenario would be a loss of coolant to the nuclear fuel core caused by a large water pipe breaking. To prevent loss of cooling water, several emergency core cooling systems are built into Columbia Generating Station. Any one of them can supply needed water to the reactor vessel at a moment’s notice. These systems are powered by three independent sources of standby emergency power.
Another important part of plant safety is emergency preparedness. A rigorous and ongoing training program is in place to ensure that our employees are well prepared to handle any situation. Classroom instruction, hands-on practice, and full scale emergency drills are just a few of the methods we use to help keep our employees and our community safe. Emergency preparedness is yet another part of plant operations that is closely monitored by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission; additionally, we coordinate many of our training activities with city, county, and state authorities.