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Vermont May Revoke Nuclear Plant License
mdsolar writes "Following the Vermont Senate's 26-to-4 vote not to approve a 20-year license extension for the Vermont Yankee nuclear power plant, the Vermont Public Service Board will consider revoking its operating license as well. Meanwhile, the plant continues to operate without its Director of Nuclear Safety Assurance, who has been placed on administrative leave; the Nuclear Regulatory Commission has merely issued a Demand for Information rather than shutting down a plant that is lacking a full complement of safety personnel. It may be that the NRC is not capable of doing what is needed with regard to Entergy, the plant owner, which is also facing prosecution by the Mississippi Attorney General."
What the hell is "Entergy"?
Oh, this can 't be happening! You're operating without a T-437, Vermont!
Sweet mother of mercy!
One of the issues with shutting down Vermont Yankee is that it provides over a third of the electricity to the state. I feel like a lot of the reason it has been treated so leniently is because of the massive increase in price Vermonters face in getting power elsewhere in that kind of volume. Hydro-Quebec provides a good portion of the rest, perhaps they have the capacity, but there's nothing quite like homegrown cheap power.
FTA:
The following week Vermont Yankee officials were accused of misleading state regulators and lawmakers by saying the plant did not have the type of underground pipes that could carry tritium.
Actually, I don't think they were misleading the regulators... It appears that they didn't have pipes that could carry the tritium. If only we could figure out why they were there in the first place.
who owns the place mr burns?
Give me a break. If you strip away the inflammatory wording, this seems like a perfectly reasonable thing to do. When was the last time you heard of a coal fired plant or a coal mine being shut down because they didn't have a "full complement of safety personnel"?
The NRC "merely" did something reasonable rather than taking some draconian action that the fossil fuel industry apologists could then use to argue against the safety and reliability of their biggest competitor ("Look! They had to shut it down for safety violations! Oh Noooooooo!")
-- MarkusQ
the Nuclear Regulatory Commission has merely issued a Demand for Information rather than shutting down a plant that is lacking a full compliment of safety personnel
What's bizarre about the whole thing is the level of radiation leaks that started all this trouble weren't even that high, near the level we can measure accurately. There was no need to lie, unless they were trying to cover up something even bigger. They could have owned up to their troubles and fixed most of what was wrong and probably stayed out of trouble.
Now they're screwed. After the NRC proctological exam, they probably will get shut down. Of course, with all the protections the Supreme Court gives artificial corporate people, you can be sure no one will actually be held accountable.
That's our life, the big wheel of shit. - The Fat Man, Blue Tango Salvage
Okay, so the company suspended the safety director only four days ago, and the submitter is bitching about "lack of full complement of safety personnel", and implying that the plant should be shut down? Give me a fucking break. He has assistants and subordinates that can fill in for him until a replacement is chosen. It's not like he never took vacation or was away from the plant during the time he was working there.
This is a serious situation and needs to be looked into closely, especially given the deceit on behalf of Entergy. I agree that long-term license renewal should not be granted until they agree to additional oversight and put forth concrete plans for resolving the maintenance problems that currently exist. However, the plant is not unsafe at this time, the problems can be fixed, and there is no reason that it shouldn't be.
Seriously, mdsolar, just STFU. It is people like you that make me ashamed to be associate with environmental groups at all.
no the bank will just make Lenny in charge of it.
If you've been following this story you'll see its always submitted with an inflammatory summary. The slashdot janitors are too lazy to read the actual story and fix the summary.
Only the State obtains its revenue by coercion. - Murray Rothbard
I didn't even know a nuclear plant made Tritium.
Never mind that they apparently have to pipe it somewhere.
What amazes me is their Senate voting to effectively shut down the source of over 1/3 of their power generation *before* they have even found a source to replace it. This is the kind of reactionary short-term thinking that leads to poor policy decisions. It's not like they can build a coal power plant over night. Maybe they can drop a few hundred mill on some Bloom boxes. =^)
Comment removed based on user account deletion
What I don't get about this whole situation is why the NRC doesn't bring someone in (either an NRC employee, or maybe a qualified consultant) to be the Acting Director of Safety? Doesn't the NRC have anybody qualified to take over operations of Nuclear Plants when necessary? If Entergy can't run the plant safely, bring in someone who can (at least temporarily, until the 'permanent disposition' of the situation can be sorted out). If Entergy really did something bad, perhaps they should be forcibly divested of their ownership of the plant (probably with some partial compensation, but perhaps not complete compensation, as a punitive measure), and the plant sold to a company who has a track record for running nuclear plants safely?
I'm sure none of the Vermont legislators wants to appear to be taking the safety of Vermont residents 'lightly', so they are rushing to this idea of permanently shutting down the power plant. I do agree that something needs to be done, but shutting down a plant which just needs some repairs (and possibly retrofitting some 'safety upgrades') seems like an irrational, knee-jerk reaction.
mdsolar is promoting:
1) his lame political affiliation and
2) his business "renting" solar solutions
Can you spell opportunist a-la Al Gore?
Nuclear power was the best idea of the last century but we now know of so many better and cheaper ways to safely generate stable and reliable power that to continue to pursue the old idea of nuclear energy is foolish. That toxic technology has killed thousands, rendered vast areas of Europe with toxic levels of radioactivity and has burdened thousands of future generations with the obligation of securing and maintaining the waste created by this idea whose time has passed.
The sooner that our governments move our energy production to safer and more reliable systems like geothermal, the better. Building up an entirely new and stable energy system based upon the vast heat resource under our feet would boost our economy out of the recession we are in while improving our security and safety through the complete dismantling of the toxic legacy of nuclear power generation.
Freeze in the dark for all I care you fucking hippies.
Shoes for Industry. Shoes for the Dead.
Entergy claims they have saved Vermonters $300 million over 8 years http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/editorial_opinion/editorials/articles/2010/02/26/leaking_credibility_vt_yankee_must_step_up_or_face_closure/ But they have also failed to contribute to the decommissioning fund required for all nuclear plants and the deficit seems to be just about that much. So really, what they have been doing is faking cheaper power to constrain competition in a dishonest manner.
Stodgy old protestant I'm afraid. I do get romanticized on slashdot which is a little uh, disturbing. I support nuclear power in naval propulsion applications but it is pretty clear that civilian nuclear power is a mistake. I have a fairly low acceptance-to-submission ratio for articles, around 0.16 last I checked.
Entergy is hundreds of millions of dollars behind in its decommissioning fund for Vermont Yankee, more now that they have contaminated the site so badly: http://www.rutlandherald.com/article/20100201/NEWS02/2010362/1003/NEWS02 It is not cheap power, it is creative bookkeeping.
Someone has been fooled by the coal is radioactive propaganda.
What would be the point of appointed inspection teams, allowing surprise audits, etc. (wait, they currently have the option of not to allow inspectors to enter their plant??) if there are no actions taken when flaws are found? They can only keep saying "Okay, you wronged us. Next time you wrong us, we'll actually do something!" for so long... Surprise audits can find flaws but we have already found some. If we do nothing about those we already know of, demanding surprise audits would be just a joke.
I suggest reading my other post here or in fact anything at all which describes the events at TMI.
TMI was an example of fairly unique good initial safeguards put in place for other reasons and dumb luck saving us all from the complacency and stupidity that had set in prior to the accident. It was an example of what could happen which woke up the nuclear industry for a while and resulted in a lot of effort to prevent worse incidents from occurring.
Your post is an example of the sort of stupid complacency that led to the accident, but that's not a problem unless those responsible for implementing or even funding the safeguards believe this bullshit as well.
TMI was like sacking all the highly trained tiger keepers at a zoo and letting part of a fence rust away, and then the tiger not finding it's way out through a gap in the second fence before someone tracked down the keepers. There's no point pretending this stuff is safe, "clean", "too cheap to meter" or whatever - it requires adult supervision by people that take it seriously and not just PR. Pretending it's safe just leads to less expensive effort being put in to make it safe until the next thing that happens which scares a lot of people. TMI was the ideal accident since nobody died and the nuclear industry stopped taking stupid shortcuts for a long time. A lot of the US plants of that era were a lot more dangerous than Chenobyl, but they got shut down or upgraded after TMI.
It's not just a nuclear thing, the power industry, chemical industry and also large public works like highway bridges also suffers from this short term approach.
Just shut it down and let the lights go out in Vermont.
Oh, and how much extra mid-east oil will we import to make up for that clean, carbon neutral power? Enquiring minds want to know.
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
Is this a follow up on the tritium scare engineered by some?
I summarize it by : OMG there's a tritium leak that make the water undrinkable by regulation, if you are dumb enough to dig a well under that power plant!
There are probably 1000s or enterprise leaking contaminated oil in the ground that are making water far more undrinkable than this, for years after the leak is gone. And those companies would be just as clueless to plug their leak. So why treat this differently?
Now, show me a major leak that has an impact and I'll agree with it. As it is, I am calling this whole campaign a troll.
ID: the nose did not occur naturally, how would we wear glasses otherwise? (apologies to Voltaire)
It's not that Vermont is totally anti-nuclear energy, but it's just the track history of this particular plant. We've had plenty of "minor" accidents/leaks/etc. I mean 2 years ago, a water coolant tank collapsed from dry rot... DRY ROT... it is quite clear that nobody is running the place, or that they are severely understaffed. In either case the plant is very old technology by today's standards. It designed lifetime was for 40 years, it will hit that in 2012. It is time to close it. If it had been properly cared for in it's past 40 years, it could give us 20 more years of life. But thats not the fact, it has been neglected and abused in many ways, and it is no longer safe. They already won a battle to raise power production over 100% of its designed rating, what happened when they did? Pipes started bursting and leaks formed. AFAIK they still haven't made it back to getting >100% again since then. We still have 2 more years, how about we think about a new plant instead?
But... this goes against all the conservative's claims that "industry self-regulation" is all the world needs.
Companies lying in order to maintain profit? How could that ever happen? Companies never lie!
Essentially the same point about cooling was rated interesting on another thread: http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=1553308&cid=31279916
Because without them, plant operators would not spend a tenth of what they do on safety currently.
Typical response from people with no idea where Vermont is. Unless every member of our state's ENTIRE POPULATION holds 2 or 3 positions at the plant, there aren't "millions" of jobs on the line... and as mellon pointed out, it's better for everyone to lose them via closure rather than via radiation poisoning.
Daniel Gwozdz (VWSpeedRacer)
I've followed this story for many years nw, as I am a lifelong resident of Vermont, and I can't say I am surprised, but a LOT of the facts about this story are not being told here, or are misrepresented. /. is the story about how Entergy is trying to spin-off a subsidiary company called Enexus, and then sell the reactor (and all liability) to that company, wiping their hands clean of all responsibility. It is widely speculated that Enexus is over-leveraged and may not be able to afford the decommisioning costs (in the hundreds of millions, before any discovery of leaked tritium). VT certainly cannot saddle these costs if Entergy/Enexus leaves the burden to us.
First it Is important to know that the VT Legislature did not and can not rule on the safety aspects of the Vernon, VT reactor. Their ONLY area of concern is the reliabilty of the plant to provide base-load energy to the state. Vermont is unique in this way... No other state legislature has any role to play in determining the future of a nuclear reactor. The VT Legislature was given the role of assessing reliabilty of the reactor as part of the terms of sale when Entergy purchased the plant about a decade ago. The decision about the safety of the plant is the purview of the Public Service Board, which I believe is the norm nationwide.
Also important but seemingly ommitted here on
Yes, the Entergy officials did make misleading statements regarding buried pipes. Whether this was intentional or out of ignorance does not matter, really, in the eyes of Vermonters who no longer put much trust in the company that owns the plant. Because of this, many legislators and the Governor who once strongly supported the 20-year relicensing have changed their minds or have greatly reduced their support for a yes vote on the relicensing matter.
The Legislature voted on the reliability of the plant, which despite it's age has continued to score well on safety (I've heard it gets an A+, but I don't see how a letter-grade applies to such a broad concern). Perhaps the legislature was ALSO allowed to rule on the reliabilty of the company who owns the plant... That would certainly drag-down the plant's reliability assessment, in their eyes.
Finally, the "1/3 of the energy in VT" statement being bandied about is misleading. The reactor does generate the equivalent of 1/3 of VT's base-load, but I believe the amount of VT's power that comes from VT Yankee is 11%, as we get our power from a very diverse power portfolio. VT Yankee sells us what we need from them, and sells the rest to other states on the "NorthEast Grid." we probably get more energy from Hydro-Quebec's massive surplus, but I don't have the figures to know for sure.
This is a very touchy subject in VT right now. Rabid pro- and anti- nuclear power opinions are everywhere... I just about refuse to discuss the matter openly with friends and acquaintances these days. I hear LOTS of FUD regarding "skyrocketing power-costs" that are "certain" to come if the reactor is nt relicensed, but it seems unlikely it will actually put us in poverty. We've enjoyed low rates (~$.041/Kwh), but Entergy/Enexus is going to increase that to ~$.06/KWh if they do get relicensure in their new contract with the state. It is said that we can expect to meet that rate for the amount of energy we'll need to replace.
In the interests of full-disclosure, I personally would like to see VT get it's energy needs met elsewhere. There are a number of growing companies in the state that have a chance to supply "green-energy" if there was a demand. When the US is lagging far behind countries like China in the science and business of green energy, it makes sense from tecnological and economic viewpoint, not just environmental. Unfortunately, I expect the unique Legislatorial decision will be overturned by deep pockets and a lawsuit, and in the end corporate interests will end up sticking our small state with a cleanup bill that will be orders of magnitude greater than any accumulated energy cost savings to date. We will have to wait and see.
The Vermont Senate stayed away from the safety issue as that is NRC territory. What distressed many people was the costs of decommissioning and major distrust of the ability of the owner, Entergy, to finance shutting the plant down. Entergy has a plan to spin off its nuclear power plants to a debt-laden independent corporation. Unfortunately for Entergy, Verizon has just completed a spin-off of its land lines to Fairpoint Communications. Fairpoint took on heavy debt...and went bankrupt. We see the same thing as possible with the Entergy spin-off, except this time the rate-payers will pick up the costs. My rural electric cooperative sold its interest in nuclear generation a decade ago and will produce two-thirds of its power from the methane generated from our garbage.
Are plastic pipes rated for nuclear applications? http://www.timesargus.com/article/RH/20100227/NEWS04/2270342/0/NEWS02 Seems like weakening bonds with ionizing radiation in a hydrocarbon polymer might lead to oxidation and weakening of the material. Even UV seems to weaken it.
Nobody wants radioactive trees, or the hulking fern of doom.
Any sufficiently advanced intelligence is indistinguishable from stupidity.