OLYMPIA, WA – Washington spent much of the 1970s trying to become a center for nuclear power, with plans for five huge fission reactors at Richland and Satsop.
Then came cost overruns, construction problems, and one of the biggest municipal bond defaults in Wall Street history in 1983.
Only one of the five proposed reactors of the Washington Public Power Supply System — or WPPSS, commonly pronounced “Whoops” — was finished at Richland. In 1998, WPPSS became Energy Northwest largely to erase the stigma, and completed the 1,150-megawatt reactor that became the Columbia Generating Station…