found: Brightwater tunnel-boring machine and tunnel parts

[eub]

Sitting in a gravel lot by chain-link around the more-completed cooling tower of the unfinished nuclear plant in Satsop. Rusty. It's not the complete machine; the rearward segment clearly meant to have at least one more segment fitted onto its back face. Cables have been sheared off, and there are cutting-torch lines.

At first glance I assumed it was something to do with the construction of the cooling tower, but it's nothing like that age. I'm pretty sure it's Brightwater gear, going by names and parts mentioned here -- Herrenknecht-brand TBM, and the stacks of concrete segments (manufacture-dated in 2009) are labeled "CSI-Hanson Brightwater".

What's funny is that it's rusty like it's been sitting out in the weather for a while, but the two airlock tubes (apparently named "Helga" and something) are marked as pressure tested this July 13. What's also funny is why truck it to Satsop to drop in an empty lot. And again, then to pressure-test it, and the grease didn't smell old either.

Oh yeah, by some fresh-looking spray-paint markup on the ground it looked like the cutterhead might have been been placed in current position recently, and the TBM's concrete chock blocks had been shifted recently enough to leave vegetation-bare spots.

Comments

[jinian.livejournal.com]

Satsop always makes me sad. My dad worked hard on that thing when I was in kindergarten!

[eub.livejournal.com]

I didn't know that; it must have been quite a job.

A youngish fellow pulled into the lot on his Yamaha(?), and looked up at the tower for a while. He said he'd worked the power plant on a Navy submarine, and was a bit of a nuclear-power geek -- he knew the timeline of Satsop, and the percent completion of the buildings, and felt protective of nuclear power. I'd guess he'd visited Satsop before.

[katybeth]

BMW F650GS

[eub.livejournal.com]

An I-can-tell-it's-not-a-Harley, I should say.

[katybeth]

:)

[georgejas.livejournal.com]

I wonder if they're getting it ready as a backup in case the u-link one breaks down?

[eub.livejournal.com]

I wondered if it might be the one that was stuck and they hauled it out in pieces, but last I see that one was still stuck. It was a Herrenknecht too, and the other on the central segment -- maybe this is the other one, just waiting, and a U-Link backup sounds plausible...

http://www.tunneltalk.com/Seattle-U-Link-Jul10-Construction-mobilisation.php