BOOM!

They blew up the Trojan Nuclear Powerplant's cooling tower roughly 28 minutes ago (at 7am Pacific). Well, not blew up as much as dynamited. Saying 'blew up' makes it sound less like a planned and controlled demolition then it was.

Apparently the cost of dismantling Trojan will be roughly the same as the original cost of building it, on the scale of $340 million or so (though the construction was 30 thirty years ago, so the true cost is far less when you figure inflation). Just the cooling tower today, two more years until the storage dome gets taken down and they haven't contracted a bidder for that or decided how to do it yet.

Of course, this still leaves the Hanford nuclear waste site and the Tillamook military site (((which produces C & B material (which also had a hurricane earlier this week and everyone on site has been required to wear a hazmat suit since (but trust the goverment, nothing is wrong, it is just a minor unnecessary precaution...))) in the northwest that needs cleaning up still...