Economy

The idea to use clean, cheap nuclear power became popular in the 1960s, and WPPSS, which would come to be better known as "Whoops," saw an opportunity to meet growing consumption demands in the Northwest. It planned a system of five nuclear power plants that would be financed by a public issue of bonds and repaid with sales from the plants. The bonds were issued, but the robust sales that WPPSS had anticipated never materialized.1

... The biggest problems were endemic cost overruns, sloppy management, and outright idiocy. An example of WPPSS's problems involved a pipe hanger, essentially a bracket to hold pipes in place, that was redesigned and rebuilt no less than 17 times, costing more with each revision. ...