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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."
Entergy is a power-production company
http://www.entergy.com/
Heh, not sure if you were being sarcastic or not. But although I support nuclear power, maintaining long-term credibility and safety does require regulation, and action to follow through when the regulations are not met. Nothing could discredit the nuclear industry more than letting things slide. (The fact nobody thinks to make any long-term changes every time another couple dozen coal miners are buried alive is a separate issue...)
No matter how pro nuclear power one is, it's really, really hard to support licensing and approving operating permits for an outfit who apparently can not read the blueprints for their own nuclear power plant. AFAICS, Entergy is not capable of safely operating a coffee maker, much less a 600MW nuclear reactor.
You can't see ANYTHING from a car, You've got to get out of the goddamned contraption and walk...Edward Abbey
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
It's presumably the same thing that drives the different approaches to safety between passenger cars and passenger aircraft.
Stalin said "The death of one man is a tragedy, the death of millions is a statistic."
However, from the perspective of the news media, "The death of one man is an obituary, the death of millions is a long-running and frankly rather tedious investigative series on page A15, and the deaths of a few hundred all at once is days of front page stories with large pictures"....
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
No matter how pro nuclear power one is, it's really, really hard to support licensing and approving operating permits for an outfit who apparently can not read the blueprints for their own nuclear power plant.
It's not hard at all. Read some of the other comments to this story and you'll see it's quite easy for some people. There's a crowd that, any time any safety issue relating to any nuclear plant is mentioned, react with howls of "OMG the liberal socialist greenies want to take our clean safe never-has-any-kind-of-problem-EVAR nuclear power away!!!" They're pretty much the other side of the same coin as the "nuclear power is dangerous 'cause it's got atoms in it!!!" types, and just as ignorant.
The correlation between ignorance of statistics and using "correlation is not causation" as an argument is close to 1.
mdsolar is promoting:
1) his lame political affiliation and
2) his business "renting" solar solutions
Can you spell opportunist a-la Al Gore?
It's designated lifespan. We don't know what the design life was, nor do we know how long that could be extended with judicious maintenance, upgrades, and equipment replacement.
Can you be Even More Awesome?!
It was one of the worst nuclear disasters in US history. It caused no immediate deaths and released an amount of radiation which, statistically, is probably responsible for one death.
Worst nuclear disaster. One death.
Meanwhile, literally thousands of people die in coal plant-related accidents every year, with an estimated tens of thousands dying every year from the pollution released.
Safety is not an absolute - it is relative to the alternatives - and by that measure, nuclear power is ridiculously safe.
Breaking Into the Industry - A development log about starting a game studio.