Springfield Nuclear Power Plant

Springfield Nuclear Power Plant 280px

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, the core of which is a Fissionator 1952 Slow-Fission Reactor, is poor and badly maintained, largely due to owner Montgomery Burns' miserliness, especially considering having over 342 violations and bringing the plant up to code would cost $56 million. The plant itself has come close to a meltdown several times. Its safety record is appalling, with various episodes showing 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 even a giant spider. The Emergency Exits are simply painted on. The Plant experienced several near meltdowns multiple times, though all of them were prevented by imbecle safety inspector Homer Simpson, one time by picking a random button while closing his eyes.

Adil took pictures and got information of the plant by spying during a foreign exchange trip.

Layout

Sector 7-G

Sector 7-G is where Homer's workstation is located. The workstation is for safety inspection, used to help prevent a meltdown in the reactor core. Homer works on a T-437 Safety Console , which among many buttons and features, has 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. 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.

Sector 7-G

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 and 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 is located at the top floor of the plant. His office contains multiple trap doors that drop unwanted visitors far from the office, and suction tubes from the ceiling that can send people to an area in the Middle East (according to Smithers, it was there before Mr. Burns moved into the Plant). Mr Burns' desk hides several buttons that can trigger the traps in the room, and also call security. 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 and a balcony behind a large window. There is a secret access-way to the sewers under the plant, where Mr. Burns dumped the body of Smithers' father after he died while preventing a core meltdown years ago.

Cafeteria

The Plant cafeteria is where the staff of the Nuclear Power Plant 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.

Mr. Burns' Office

Decontamination Showers

A shower room where the staff members of the Plant wash themselves at the end of each work day.

Auditorium

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

Employee Break Room

A break room where the staff spend their coffee breaks. The room is usually stocked with coffee and donuts, and there's a bulletin board on the wall that has a poster showing how to perform the Heimlich Maneuver

The Employee Break Room

Non Canon Appearances

The Future

The episodes "Future-Drama" and "Lisa's Wedding" reveal 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.

In Lisa's Wedding, set a decade in the future, we also discover that 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 unknown if these futures are definite, or are merely possibilities as Professor Frink's machine in Future-Drama suggests.

Behind the Scenes

• 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 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!'.
• The unofficial Simpsons Archive website http://www.snpp.com is named after the power plant.

Real Life Inspiration

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." 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.