Environmental Value

Nuclear Power & the Environment

Nuclear power is America’s largest domestic source of clean energy. Nuclear power facilities do not release carbon dioxide or result in any other significant air pollutants.

• As a result of this clean electricity generation, Columbia Generating Station annually prevents a fossil fuel replacement equivalent of about 4,400,000 metric tons of carbon dioxide from entering the atmosphere.
• That’s the same amount of carbon released by approximately 778,000 cars each year.

Carbon Footprint

• Nuclear energy’s life cycle greenhouse gas emissions are comparable to renewable energy, such as wind and hydropower, and far less than coal or natural gas-fueled power plants.
• The mining, processing, and transportation of nuclear fuel all require energy inputs, which are typically drawn from carbon-emitting energy sources.
• Construction of a nuclear power plant also generates carbon dioxide and other air emissions from:

• • The fabrication of steel
  • Production of concrete
  • Transportation of construction materials
  • Operation of construction equipment

River Intake & Discharge

Nuclear power plants like Columbia Generating Station withdraw a considerable amount of water from nearby water bodies for cooling purposes, but relative to the overall volume of water in the Columbia River, those withdrawals are insignificant.

If you look towards the Columbia Generating Station on a cold day, what can often be seen is a tall column of pure water vapor rising from Columbia Generating Station’s cooling towers. The water is from the Columbia River, which is used for the cooling water system.

Key facts about Columbia Generating Station’s cooling system:

• The cooling system withdraws approximately 20 million gallons of water from the Columbia River daily,  and returns approximately 2 million back to the river.
• The average Columbia River flow rate through the Hanford Reach during the hottest parts of the year is over 33 billion gallons per day.  Columbia Generating Station utilizes just 0.05% of that total flow to provide electricity to nearly 1 million homes.

Water Safety & Regulation

Water in the station’s cooling system does not come into contact with water used in the reactor, so radioactive materials are not present in the station’s effluent stream.

Discharge of water from the power plant into the river is regulated by the Clean Water Act’s National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System (NPDES) permit program, which establishes station-specific effluent limitations for parameters such as:

• Flow volume
• Temperature
• pH
• Chlorine
• EPA’s 126 priority pollutants