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Vermont Yankee Nuclear Plant To Close In 2014
stomv writes "Vermont Yankee nuclear plant is to close in late 2014, about 20 years before its (extended) NRC operating permit expires in 2032. Vermont Yankee is a merchant plant, which means that it sells its energy and capacity on the open New England market. The three reasons cited by Entergy, the owner, for closing are: low natural gas prices, high ongoing capital costs of operating a single unit reactor, and wholesale market flaws which keep energy and capacity prices low and doesn't reward the fuel diversity benefits that nuclear provides."
... burning hydrocarbons is really cheap.
Please don't read too much into this, it's a straight economical decision: "The company noted that the estimated operational earnings contribution from Vermont Yankee was expected to be around breakeven in 2013, and generally declining over the next few years. "
Some people die at 25 and aren't buried until 75. -Benjamin Franklin
It's a start. And then, watch how long the dismantling goes and how high the costs will be end the end - and watch very closely who foots the bill...
Living in Vermont I can tell you that electric prices are not cheap. Too bad the electric companies don't pass the saving to the consumer. In my area, Central Vermont Power was purchased by Green Mountain Power and my power bill went up 50% overnight.
"wholesale market flaws which keep energy and capacity prices low and doesn't reward the fuel diversity benefits that nuclear provide"
Boo hoo, free market isn't fair to me.
"low natural gas prices" the price of natural gas just sky rocketed, but we will make it cheaper for a while if you let us frack your water, because... in the end that's all that happens, all your drinking water gets fracked.
I guess that's why Bush bought all that land over one of the World's largest fresh water aquifers.
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2006/oct/23/mainsection.tomphillips
http://blogs.ei.columbia.edu/2010/04/13/the-guarani-aquifer-a-little-known-water-resource-in-south-america-gets-a-voice/
Enough fresh water for 200 years, that's the real Bush legacy.
"If any question why we died, Tell them because our fathers lied."
Energy prices will skyrocket shortly afterword’s
now thats a hard core enegry policy... http://www.reformer.com/portlet/article/html/imageDisplay.jsp?contentItemRelationshipId=4051933
Vermont hippies have been trying to close that plant forever. Now, they're getting their wish, and smacked in the face with burning more fossil fuels. Maybe this will wake some of them up to the environmental realities they have been too short sighted to recognize. It probably won't. But I don't care. Screw those hippies. (I didn't like living in VT)
I've heard this story on NPR, which tends to be known for accurate reporting and lack of sensationalism. This was an excellent summary on Slashdot. I hope the editors, or what's left of them, continue to pick stories that are factual and not sensational. The comments on Slashdot resulting from those type of stories are often more readable too.
For the story itself, it's interesting to see the business side of nuclear and the real reasons why plants are built and decommissioned. ie, its not always about environmentalism or NIMBY. Nuclear is a decent way to generate power compared to fossil fuels because the nuclear by-products can be contained more assuredly than greenhouse gases, assuming that all of the environmental factors are taken into account. Those environmental factors however are what make it difficult to accept because its very expensive to ensure everything is contained.
http://github.com/gbook/nidb
Umm... they're closing the plant because their production costs are too high to compete on the open market.
I think what's Steve is getting at is that the other energy sources will raise their prices now that they no longer need to undercut the nuclear plant.
I'd be interested to see a comparison of the costs of nuclear waste storage with those of carbon sequestration. Nuclear energy would perhaps look more competitive then.
[Sir Garlon] is the marvellest knight that is now living, for he destroyeth many good knights, for he goeth invisible.
Much of the high operating cost is probably related to the Tritium leaks and other maintenance problems. The legislature tried to force the plant to close but failed. Ultimately, this plant needed a lot of maintenance and it is probably a good sign that we are willing to close down leaky plants rather than just keep renewing their licenses and running them into perpetuity. One of the common complaints with nuclear plant politics is that they keep running them long after their usable lifetime, which is a pretty big environmental risk. It's just too bad that we aren't building a new one in its place.
This will be a perfect site for a new nuclear facillity after they decommission and clean it up.
And higher energy prices? We're all screwed, we just don't know it yet.
Vermont Yankee is the oldest running plant. It should be decommissioned in favor of newer designs.
Part of the dysfunction of the current nuclear regulatory regime is that it's so expensive and difficult to open a new plant, that we end up with an older set that has a worse operating-cost and safety record than could be achieved with new technology. It's a bit like setting new-car safety and economy requirement so high that people continue to repair and drive their decades-old models -- sure it looks good on paper, but the reality is a net decrease in safety and economy.
So yeah, Vermont Yankee, please shut it down. And let's build something from the last few decades to replace it (and maybe some of the other 60s-era designs) which will undoubtedly be a huge safety increase.
Vermont Yankee is also a lying incompetent organization.
like their ancestors did 3 years ago.
"He took a duck in the face at 250 knots." -- William Gibson, Pattern Recognition
It's not like Vermont hasn't been doing its best to stop Yankee from operating. They've tried to deny the nuke plant a license (www.burlingtonfreepress.com/article/20130814/NEWS03/308140006/Vermont-Yankee-focus-shifts-to-Public-Service-Board-after-appeal-court-ruling) and have been battling Entergy for years about operating the plant and has been escalating the costs of operating Vermont Yankee.
The government of Vermont has done its level best to kill the plant and it's succeeded. Good or bad, you decide, but it's a case of representative democracy getting what it wanted.
You and me have no excess capacity IE cash. We can only jump on the cheapest thing we can get.
When we switch to bloom boxes our country will be safer from attack also.
But gone will be the grid and its market manipulations.
Hard to believe their excuse when the 'Northern Pass' project at $1.1Billion, or more by now, is still trying to be pushed through.
Your telling me that an existing power plant can't supply demand and needs closing, but a MASSIVE new project is more economical?
This is bullshit greed, and politics. Infrastructure, demand, and capacity are in place. Someone isn't making enough money, so they're throwing in the towel.
Public utilities are regulated by government forces. If this happens it will be because the government allows it to happen. Too many people around here think that public utilities can just decide how to conduct business and roll with it. Totally incorrect. They have task masters who keep them in check. Just keep that thought in mind the next time your bills start to go up... someone at the top (who probably has their finger in the pie) let this happen to you.
They can still eat fish - they just get it from somewhere else.
No colour or religion ever stopped the bullet from a gun
Somewhere far, far away, yes. The offshore contamination in Fukushima prefecture doesn't just affect people who live there, you know. Fish don't pay attention to legal boundaries.
How many fish species migrate hundreds or thousands of miles? Genuine query.
No colour or religion ever stopped the bullet from a gun
Let's hope they put enough dough aside to guard their ashes for 100.000 years from AlQaida.
The people who run the plant killed it with lack of maintenance. They neglected rust (how basic is that) and allowed the cooling tower to collapse. They are incompetent and they should not be running something that could become another Fukushima
http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2013/06/17/2158951/pandoras-promise-nuclear-powers-trek-from-too-cheap-to-meter-to-too-costly-to-matter-much/
The closure of this aging power plant was inevitable.
The construction of new nuclear power plants is plagued by the same issues. Nuclear power is just too costly even with the substantial subsidies it currently receives. The issues of nuclear waste and proliferation only make the case more difficult.
Nuclear power's time has past. It never was very good and now the financial and technical problems are overwhelming.
I don't read your sig. Why are you reading mine?
i just threw up a little in my mouth when i read "fuel diversity". ...
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another poison factory closed. a few hundred to go nevertheless
side question: real reason is that they have nowhere to store another 30 years of used fuel bundles?
Basically each saltwater fish that is not small reef fish migrates hundreds or thousands of miles. And the kind consumed by humans have the most agressive migration behaviors (Sardine, Tuna, Hering and Salmon)
There are no folks in Fukushima because radiophobic hysteria forced the evacuation of an area that isn't more radioactive than Denver, Colorado. Meanwhile, the fish are fine. The scary Iodine is gone now, too.
like their ancestors did 3 years ago.
Three years ago, further back, and still today, you aren't supposed to eat freshwater fish in the beautiful and pristine state of Maine (and other states).
http://www.maine.gov/dhhs/mecdc/environmental-health/eohp/fish/2kfca.htm
It IS fucked up, and we need to take better care of the environment, but if this is your main concern, the Fukishima disaster falls behind coal fire plants and lumber mills in significance.
Many many fish do, and you have to remember it's not just individual fish, it's an ecosystem.
Here's a link to a pic of the NOAA map of radiation spread. It's quite possible to have affected a great many different fish.
http://americanlivewire.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/07/fukushima__noaa_rad_plume.jpg
Given the financial conditions and the ongoing market situation, I think this is a good decision taken just in time. Rather than waiting for the situation to get any worse, they have saved everyone the time and resources. Vermont residents will definitely feel the pinch but given the situation, sooner or later this had to happen. But I think they should try selling this plant instead of shutting the plant. The hazards and costs of shutting down a nuclear plant are huge. Once nuclear always nuclear!
- PopplerAlert
afterword’s
Dropped out of hgh school, did you? Hows the greengrocer business?
The governor and Vermont Senate have focused on shutting down Vermont Yankee full time. I hope they get back to work now on issues like Job growth and insane taxes The Senate claims energy costs will decrease if they shut down Yankee so I look forward to that decrease, I feel for the 630 people some of who I know that lost jobs.
We need lower cost, cleaner, smaller, nuclear plants. Hitachi has for a long time built a 10MW portable plant (suitable for a neighborhood). What we really need is a very small portable 150kW (201 horsepower) nuclear reactor design. It could be used to power a car, or a neighbourhood of 50 homes. A light 300kW version could power an aircraft. Inherently safe means even if the plane crashes, you don't have any meltdown, or radiation. We've been building essentially slightly upgraded versions of the same reactor for 65+ years. Its like the internal combustion engine: very slight improvements to fuel economy, slight improvements to performance, slight improvements to pollution, but basically Otto cycle engines like those produced in the 1890's (occasionally a manufacturer tries to produce a Sterling cycle or other type of engine, but its rare, and usually not for long). Doing fundamental changes (like going from highly enriched fuel with unenriched coolant/moderator) and slightly enriched fuel and enriched moderator/coolant, where the fuels are usually solid metals, but never molten salts that self-moderate (inherently safe). The US government could have funded a molten-salt reactor in 1974, but they argued that they didn't want to fund a reactor design that they couldn't use to build nuclear bombs.
The offshore contamination in Fukushima prefecture doesn't just affect people who live there, you know.
Yes, it does.
http://news.discovery.com/earth/oceans/will-fukushima-mutate-sea-life-130828.htm
I submitted the post (yesterday). Any chance I can get some +1s for the "excellent summary" I provided?
(yeah, karma whoring, I confess)
Support a few technologists in Washington.
There's a market "flaw" that "keeps.. prices low"? Sounds more like a feature than a flaw.
Hundreds of miles isn't a huge amount of lifetime travel for something that spends all day moving in the water for a few years.
We're probably talking about that whole side of Japan, since the various fish and critters will spread out north and south along the coast. They get contaminated either through eating kelp that absorbed it, or direct exposure. Then there are the fish and critters that eat them and go even further away to be eaten by other fish and critters, and so on. Don't forget about ocean currents carrying contaminated water, debris, seeds and animals, or the water which evaporates, forms clouds, and rains on the western side of North America. It spreads slowly but surely through a much larger and less well-mapped ecosystem and slowly raises the overall contamination over a large area. How large the area could get has not been and probably cannot be firmly established, and nobody knows what the maximum level of contamination could be.
For fun, let's imagine a theoretical worst-case scenario, however unlikely it is. The leaks could continue, all the wildlife there could die of radiation poisoning, and it could cause a dead area like the one at the mouth of the Mississippi river. (That was caused by fertilizer runoff though, not radioactivity.) Imagine how contaminated any wildlife that goes anywhere near that will be, possibly becoming hazardous even to handle on a fishing boat. Fishing nets don't discriminate based upon health, they discriminate based upon size. Or what if it destroys breeding grounds for some species, and causes some particular edible wildlife to become endangered?
Does that help illustrate the issue?
Back in my day, we'd go swimming there on summer days. The local families will miss that. You know, where the water is unnaturally warm because it cooled the reactor. Even in the shade it was like bathwater.
There are some really big clams in there.
I turned out just fine.
Just got this extra leg...
The radiation levels in the ocean after Fukushima were nasty, but all short-lived isotopes.
Just a question of how many people are going to die, and how much damage to the environment is gonna happen this time.
That article doesn't say what you seem to think it says.