I went to summer camp as a kid, and once took a tour of the local coal-fired power plant. I’m sure that significant portions of my memory have been supplemented by The China Syndrome and Space Mutiny, but I remember steel girders and corroded stairs, tangles of pipes and men wearing hard hats. Kalgan lurking in the shadows. Our guide opened a small hatch, and behind the door was a blazing sun.

We passed the Callaway nuclear power plant on a recent trip to Kansas City, a plume of vapor towering over the horizon, and I wondered aloud if they offered tours. Kelly said her Chemistry classmates toured the plant when she was in high school. Ian likes factories and plants, and I thought it’d be wonderful to show him the source of a quarter of Missouri’s electricity. But after 2001…who knows?

I wrote Ameren. Unfortunately, they replied:

I am sorry, but we are presently not offering public tours at Callaway
Plant. I can offer you an information packet about Ameren and Callaway.

If you wish to receive a packet, please email your mailing address to me
and we will send you one right away.

Apologies,

Rick Eastman
Supervisor, Business Planning & Communications
AmerenUE – Callaway Plant

Somehow, I don’t think an information packet would do the plant justice, least of all to a four-year-old boy who’s learning to read. I truly understand their reasoning, I just think it’s a shame that our children are yet another step further from the stage.