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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."
Oh, this can 't be happening! You're operating without a T-437, Vermont!
Sweet mother of mercy!
Entergy is a power-production company
http://www.entergy.com/
The region currently has a power-generation surplus of 4,000-5,000 megawatts, meaning it could lose up to 16 percent of its generation and not face a power deficit.
The article seems to take very lightly that the region has enough spare capacity to power only 3-4 Deloreans...
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
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:
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.
AccountKiller
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
huh...thought it had something to do with walking trees
rewriting history since 2109
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
Comment removed based on user account deletion
"I did not have sexual relations with that tritium."
-- Braden's law of data: All data spends some of its lifetime in an excel spreadsheet.
I think perhaps GPP was a comment on the absurdity of corporate naming schemes. "We can't just be 'the power company,' we need a name that proactively maximizes stakeholder value by black-belt leveraging of core mission parameters ... I know! Entergy! It's like 'energy' but with a 't' for extra six-sigma network impact!"
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?
The Vermont legislators aren't "rushing to this idea of shutting down the power plant." They're voting not to extend the license, thus stopping the plant's operation at the end of its designed lifespan. Entergy wants to run it for another 20 years past that.
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?!
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.
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.