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."

Comments

Re:Did they really lie?

[Vellmont]

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.

Maybe, maybe not. I found this statement interesting:

"The Entergy responses were limited to only pipes that touch soil, (not those encased in concrete) that carry liquid (not gaseous matter) and that are part of whole systems as defined by law," Entergy's statement said.

To me that's kind of a lawyering statement where they're trying to get out of any legal repercussions by trying to be very precise about what they say they meant. I don't know the actual quote of what Entergy said to regulators, or the context in which they said it so it's hard to make any definitive analysis here. At this point I wouldn't give the company the benefit of the doubt though.

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Re:Oh, my God. Oh, God, no!

[dbIII]

Nothing could discredit the nuclear industry more than letting things slide.

TMI was a perfect example of starting off well and letting things slide later.
In the early design and construction stages a lot of care was taken, the small risk of getting hit by a large aircraft from a nearby airport resulted in building containment vessels to withstand impact. However years later by the time it was up and running nobody cared much about the control systems and they wouldn't have been acceptable in any other form of power plant, chemical plant or oil refinery in the country. When the accident happened the carefully designed containment vessels which were unique at the time saved everyones bacon but nobody knew what happened because the instrumentation and control systems were rubbish. It was sheer dumb luck that it happened there and not at another of the plants where the consequences would have been worse. It gave us the best sort of nuclear accident you can get - one that wakes everyone up.
Now far too many have gone back to sleep. There are of course plenty of petty idiots that like to pretend that only Russians get things wrong and there is no need to be careful.

Cheap power?

[mdsolar]

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.

Re:Oh, my God. Oh, God, no!

[Dan541]

Three Mile Island is an example of how safe nuclear power is, NOT how dangerous it is.