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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."
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
You hit the nail on the head. I'm a life-long Vermonter. While there were a few eternal protesters about the plant during the last 20 years, by and large we were happy to have it. It makes a bunch of jobs, and provides a lot of power to the state at very competitive rates.
Fast forward to 2002 when Entergy took over, and nobody here is happy. They cranked the plant up to 120% of its designed output, as parts started to fail inspection. The decommissioning fund, which was based on the stock market, tanked. We won't be able to afford to decommission it until 2060 or so now. It will sit mothballed and hot until then.
All this was the lead-up for their petition to extend the operation of the plant 20 years beyond its initial license. It's scheduled to cease operation in 2012. They want to suck another 20 years of profit out of it. Of course, at 120% of the operating power, with parts still failing inspection, and without the money to decommission it. That's the framework for all the issues in the Senate. As has been well noted, they completely shot themselves in the foot with their inability to answer detailed questions about the plant to the Senate.
Vermont is a tiny state. It has the 2nd smallest population in the US. Probably a majority of towns have populations in the thousands. The biggest city is about 60k. When we vote people into state government positions, they are our friends, neighbors, and relatives. They are not some nameless face we saw on a poster. We've done business with them, drank a beer with them, shook their hand and looked them in the eye. Because of that, our state legislators do NOT screw around much. If something is going to be bad for their community, it gets shut down. If you screw over the 4,000 people in your town, you're probably going to have to move.
Because of this climate, Entergy can't get away with lying to the senate then writing a bunch of checks to cover the issues. They were asked point blank if they had any buried pipes. The answer was, "not that we know of". A year later, and buried pipes are leaking tritium into the ground water. When pressed, they answered, "Oh, well we define "buried" as encased in dirt, and carrying liquid. If it's underground, but encased in concrete, and carrying vapor, it's not considered "buried".
As I said, our legislators don't screw around. They got that sort of response from a company that we've steadily lost trust in, and the end result is that we're denying their 20 year extension to operate.
Velociraptor = Distiraptor / Timeraptor