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Entergy Admits 2005 Tritium Leak

Posted by Soulskill on from the what's-a-few-neutrons-among-friends dept.

mdsolar writes "The leaking Vermont Yankee nuclear power plant was hit last week by a whistleblower allegation that a previous tritium leak had occurred. Now the parent company, Entergy, has admitted the occurrence of at least one prior leak to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. This is particularly significant for three reasons: because the leak occurred in pipes that company officials later testified under oath did not exist, because the Vermont Senate will likely soon vote to deny Entergy a needed approval to extend the power plant's license for another 20 years, and because President Obama just put taxpayers on the hook for new nuclear power plants in Georgia."

4 of 385 comments (clear)

  1. New by endianx · · Score: 5, Informative

    because President Obama just put taxpayers on the hook for new nuclear power plants in Georgia

    The keyword there is "new".

  2. It's been, what, 30 years? by zero_out · · Score: 3, Informative

    That plant has to be at least 30 years old. I think that technology has changed a bit in that time. In general, new is usually better than retrofitted old.

    1. Re:It's been, what, 30 years? by wizardforce · · Score: 4, Informative

      Nuclear power would be competitive with coal in terms of cost if it were not for the massive amount of red tape. In fact, if you built in the environmental cost that Coal has into the pricing, Nuclear power becomes the cheapest source of energy due to the much much lower CO2 emissions of the technology. France is a perfect example of a country that has cut its CO2 emissions to a third of comparable nations CO2/$ because of the fact that 70+ % of its power needs come from nuclear power.

      --
      Sigs are too short to say anything truly profound so read the above post instead.
  3. Re:mdsolar by SovBob · · Score: 5, Informative

    In case the username wasn't enough, here's some more evidence to suggest that mdsolar might have a bias.

    From mdsolar's profile page:
    http://slashdot.org/~mdsolar/
    "Very recently, I've gotten involved in a startup that plans to rent solar photovoltaic systems in the residential market. My guess is this is going to catch on. My homepage is where you can sign up."

    There's also various submissions and journal entries going back as far as 2007 denouncing oil and nuclear power and extolling the virtues of renewable energy (particularly solar.)