Tonopah, Arizona.

We invited guests to visit us in Buckeye over the Thanksgiving weekend and last Saturday, we went on a little tour of the landscape west of Phoenix. Located about 45 miles (80 km) due west of the Phoenix metro, near the small town of Tonopah, sits the large complex you see in the panoramic image above. This plant generates about 3.3 gigawatts and serves about four million people. It is the largest generating station, nuclear or otherwise, in operation in the United States.

Despite the lack of water in the Arizona desert, the plant operates with three pressurized water reactors. Now, I don’t claim to be an expert on nuclear power, but Wikipedia tells me that they get the water they need for the reactors by processing treated sewage from several nearby communities. The online encyclopedia also mentions that the plant was built in the 1980s, completed in 1988 and cost some 5.9 billion dollars to build. The plant supplies power to communities around Phoenix and Tucson in Arizona, and also Los Angeles and San Diego, California. About 2,000 employees work in the facility.

The Wikipedia entry has much detailed information for those interested in the specifics of the plant. You can find out more information here, if you are so inclined. There are some interesting sections on the history, nuclear safety, homeland security and seismic risk described in the article. The plant is owned in part by several power companies including Arizona Public Service, SRP, El Paso Electric, Southern California Edison, PNM Resources, Southern California Public Power Authority and the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power.

About the photo: As you might imagine, visitors are not accommodated at the facility, but the power plant’s drive to the parking lot is open. We drove along the road to the parking lot, I grabbed a couple of cell phone photos to share and then simply turned around at a service road junction. In most browsers, you can click on the image to enlarge it to see a higher resolution view. After our short visit here, we were off to Arlington, Arizona where we enjoyed burgers at the Co-Op Grille, then onto old U.S. Highway 80 to the Gillespie Dam Bridge, a location I featured in an earlier post here at Journeys.

Have a great holiday season, and we’ll see you on Travel Tuesday.

John Steiner