Difference between revisions of "Springfield Nuclear Power Plant"

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Springfield Nuclear Power Plant

Location Information Use: Energy Source Owner: Charles Montgomery Burns

The Springfield Nuclear Power Plant is a nuclear power plant owned by Mr. Burns and the main source of power in Springfield.

Profile

The plant is notorious for being poorly maintained, largely due to owner Montgomery Burns' miserliness and safety inspector Homer Simpson's incompetence. A surprise inspection found over 342 violations with an estimated $56 million required to bring the plant up to code, money which Burns refused to spend. Notable safety violations that have been seen include luminous rats in the bowels of the building, pipes and drums leaking radioactive waste, the disposal of waste in a children's playground, plutonium used as a paperweight, cracked cooling towers (fixed in one episode using a piece of chewing gum), skeletons in the basement, dangerously high Geiger counter readings around the perimeter of the plant, flashing red alert signs being ignored by employees, the creation of a mutant subspecies of three-eyed fish and a horrific giant spider. The Emergency Exits are simply painted on.^[1]

The core of which is a Fissionator 1952 Slow-Fission Reactor. The plant has come close to meltdowns multiple times but has always avoided catastrophe, often due to Homer's luck.

Security is also shown to be lax, as a ten-year-old spy from Albania disguised as a foreign exchange student named Adil took pictures and got information of the plant simply by asking Homer for a tour.^[2]

Layout

Sector 7-G

Sector 7-G

Sector 7-G is the location of Homer Simpson's workstation, used to help prevent a meltdown in the reactor core. Homer works on a T-437 Safety Console^[3] which displays many buttons and features, including a meter that shows the temperature of the core and a button that controls the emergency override circuit which must be pressed in the event of a meltdown. It also contained a self-destruct button for the plant, which Homer, while asleep, once pressed.^[4] Emergency doors lock down Sector 7-G whenever a meltdown is imminent. The doors directly behind the Safety Console lead to the Heavy Water Piping Facility.^[5]

Sector 7-G was once referred to by Mr Burns as a 'testicle-shrivelling torture chamber' and the people who work there have at various times been classed as 'organ banks', 'seat-moisteners' and 'fork and spoon operators'.

Cooling Towers

The plant has two Cooling Towers. They both appear the same color with the design of an atom with its nucleus and electrons pictured. Coffee mugs, pencil holders and other cylindrical based shapes can be seen around the plant in the style of the cooling towers.

Mr. Burns' office

Mr. Burns' Office

Mr. Burns' Office is located at the top floor of the plant. His office contains multiple trap doors that drop unwanted visitors far from the office (at least one of which contained a pool filled with electric eels^[6]) and suction tubes from the ceiling that can send people to an area in the Middle East which, according to Smithers, was there before Mr. Burns worked at the plant.^[7] Mr Burns' desk hides several buttons that can trigger the traps in the room and also call security.^[8] There is a small array of security screens on the wall, and the bookcases conceal an escape pod and a germ-proof vault. Mr. Burns' office also contains a stuffed mounted polar bear which conceals a secret access-way, or 'corpse hatch' which leads to the sewers. Mr. Burns used it to dump the body of Smithers' father after he died while preventing a core meltdown many years ago.^[9] There is also a balcony behind a large window.

Cafeteria

The Plant cafeteria is where the Nuclear Power Plant staff have their lunches. There is a rotating cake tray which is turned by a man pushing on a level on a giant wheel and axle a few meters under the Cafeteria.^[10]

Decontamination Showers

A shower room where the staff members of the Plant wash themselves at the end of each work day. It was once shown that these showers have a tendency to spout fire.^[11]

Auditorium

The Nuclear Power Plant has a large auditorium where awards to staff members are given and company wide meetings are held.^[12]

Employee Break Room

The Employee Break Room

A break room where the staff spend their coffee breaks. The room is usually stocked with coffee and donuts. There is a bulletin board on the wall that has a poster showing how to perform the Heimlich Maneuver.^[13]

Non Canon

The contents of this article or section are considered to be non-canon and therefore may not have actually happened or existed.

The Future

It is revealed that the plant is going to eventually upgrade the number of cooling towers (and possibly reactors) from two to at least five, perhaps as a response to the future growth of Springfield or its energy demand.^[14]

A decade in the future, Lenny and Carl have been promoted to the executive board, while Milhouse Van Houten has become a supervisor. The plant is operated mainly by robots but Homer still retains his familiar position at Sector 7G.

It is also known that it will have many lawsuits, as written in the billboard at the entrance ("Still operating, despite lawsuits").

Behind the Laughter

The design and folly of Springfield Nuclear Power Plant is often rumored to be based on the real life Trojan Nuclear Power Plant near Matt Groening's home town of Portland, Oregon, or the Hanford Site in southeastern Washington. However, Antonia Coffman, Groening's publicist, has said that the Springfield plant's design is generic and that "the Springfield Nuclear Power plant was not based on the Trojan Plant or any other power plant in the country."^[15] Trojan Nuclear Power Plant opened in 1976 and was infamous for its poor construction and maintenance, resulting in steam generator leaks which ultimately caused the plant to close in 1993 (although other plants replaced theirs). The cooling tower of the Trojan nuclear power plant was finally demolished on May 21, 2006.

Trivia

• A cawing crow is heard in nearly every establishing shot of the power plant; this is parodied in "Kiss Kiss, Bang Bangalore", in which a cow can be heard mooing during an outside shot of the India based power plant.
• The SNPP maintains a map of the United States indicating the status of all of the various nuclear facilities. Homer's job includes replacing most of the burnt out lightbulbs on the map.
• The wall that Homer faces in his work station changes between episodes. In some episodes the wall is a window showing reactor piping; in others it is a map of nuclear sites around the country, a solid wall, or a wall with a plaque saying "Don't forget: you're here forever" that has been rearranged by Homer to say "Do it for her" with pictures of Maggie.
• The plant's condition has actually deteriorated over the last few years. In one early episode, Smithers estimates that it would cost $56 million to bring the plant up to code, while in a later episode the new German owners of the plant discover that the cost has soared to $100 million.
• According to a commentary on a Simpsons' DVD, it's stated that there is an actual Homer Simpson working in a nuclear power plant. It is not sure if this is true since there have been no other sources stating this.
• There is a real nuclear facility near Preston, United Kingdom called Springfield's nuclear fuel production facility.
• An all-ages music venue in Augusta, Georgia bears the name "Sector 7G."
• In The Simpsons Hit & Run video game, you can press the 'Vent' button on a reactor, causing radioactive emissions, even though the button says 'Do Not Press!'.
• Also in Hit and Run you can drive through the core and discover that Mr. Burns' house is connected to the plant
• The unofficial Simpsons Archive website (http://www.snpp.com/) is named after the power plant.
• Continuity Series Goof: In The Blunder Years, the nuclear power plant had opened when Homer, Lenny and Carl were 10. However in The Way We Was, Homer is in his teens when the power plant opened. And in "Homer's Enemy, Lenny says that Homer got the job when he came the day the nuclear power plant opened.
• Sector 7G has the same alphanumeric code as the production code of season 1, which was 7GXX.

Appearances

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References