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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
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.
"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."
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
I dont see a boo hoo in there, just a rational for shutting down the plant, however you bring up a good point, should the free market system reward destroying the environment, or should regulators have a say in that?
When you cant win, ad hominem.
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...
Vermont Yankee has $543.2 million already set aside in a decomissioning fund. Current estimates of the cost to decomission are about $620 million, meaning that the current fund is about 12% short of the projected cost.
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.
Thanks for the figures - do you know who will fund the deficit? The taxpayer like in many european countries?
Thanks for the figures - do you know who will fund the deficit? The taxpayer like in many european countries?
Read TFA. The NRC is requiring Entergy Nuclear to provide a letter of credit to cover the shortfall.
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.
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.
No, I just forgot to insert the word reason.. It happens when I am doing 3 things at once.
When you cant win, ad hominem.
They can still eat fish - they just get it from somewhere else.
No colour or religion ever stopped the bullet from a gun
Only a complete idiot would say the energy market is "free." Nuclear power is the most regulated industry in America. Derpy Derp.
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
Practically speaking, OP is probably correct in assuming that in the long run, the state of Vermont or the Feds will be stuck with some substantial costs. If they have to, Entergy will probably declare bankruptcy or get their local legislators to relieve them of the responsibility to pay the full cost through some bit of legislative chicanery.
I don't know, I suspect 100% taxation doesn't even begin to cover the externalities that a nuclear power plant imposes on its neighbors. Funny how those externalities never get called "free market manipulation" when they are granted to nuclear power companies by government fiat.
Hardwood certainly burns longer. But it's a crappy substitute for clean energy sources. Those signs would be funny if they weren't so sad.
Let's hope they put enough dough aside to guard their ashes for 100.000 years from AlQaida.
The plant is ancient and creaky. In order to continue operating safely, a new plant would have to be built. If there were no opposition to such a plant, it would still cost far in excess of $1.1b. So sure, if you think continuing to operate a creaky old nuclear power plant just like the one in Fukushima is a good idea, then that $1.1b is just wasted money. As a neighbor of VY, I don't agree—I would prefer not to have my home rendered uninhabitable as a result of an accident.
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?
They apparently have 60 years to decommission the plant.
"Although the plant will close by the end of next year, its legacy will live on at the Vernon site on the banks of the Connecticut River. Entergy has 60 years to decommission the plant under a plan approved by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. The time will allow the company to accumulate money in a fund set up to pay for dismantling and cleaning up the site."
http://digital.vpr.net/post/citing-economics-entergy-close-vermont-yankee-end-2014
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.
I did RTFA and between your figures and the 40 Mio Letter is a huge gap... who cleans up if the company goes bankrupt and the funds run out?
That article doesn't say what you seem to think it says.