Without the commercial nuclear power plant north of Richland, the Bonneville Power Administration would be buying power to meet its commitments.

The Washington Public Power Supply System plant alone stands between Bonneville and a very expensive bill for outside electricity, said Bob Mazurkiewicz, a supervisory engineer for Bonneville.

"Without (the plant), Bonneville would have been buying. We could have handled things for a couple of hours (with the dams), but over a longer term, we would have to buy power," Mazurkiewicz said.

And that power would have been expensive.

Last year at this time, electricity on the spot market was selling for about 1.2 cents a kilowatt-hour. Today, it's selling for 5 cents a kilowatt-hour, said Perry Gruber, a spokesman for Bonneville.

Low temperatures have created high prices, Mazurkiewicz said. When it gets cold in population centers west of the Cascades, demand for electricity jumps sharply.

In addition, the price of natural gas to power combustion turbines has gone up, forcing operators of some marginal plants to shut them down and causing others to raise the price of their spot-market electricity.