Vermont Nuclear Plant Seeks Decommission But Lacks Funds

mdsolar (1045926) writes with this bit of news about the Vermont Yankee Nuclear Plant shutdown. From the article: "On Friday, the Vermont Public Service Board voted to authorize Entergy Nuclear Operations, Inc., the operators of the Vermont Yankee electricity generating station ..., to close down their nuclear power plant by the end of this year. Because Entergy planned to shut the Vermont nuclear plant down prior to its licensed end-term, the board was required to approve the shutdown....

Entergy has reserved just over $600 million to date for decommissioning the Vermont nuclear plant, according to the Department of Public Service. This amount will not be adequate to meet the costs of full deconstruction, estimated at more than $1 billion according to the company's 2012 Decommissioning Cost Analysis report."

Comments

If you take the profits

[Pop69]

Then you pay the costs associated with them.

If they've failed to properly provide for shutdown and decomissioning costs then it's their problem, they should be forced to pay them rather than pleading poverty and being allowed to walk away from their responsibilities

Re:If you take the profits

[peon_a-z,A-Z,0-9$_ !]

Except in this case the plant was approved for twenty additional years of operation in 2011 and is now being shut down.

Therefore, contrary to your assertion, they were properly planning for the costs but that planning did not encompass irrational public opinion shutting down the plant ahead of schedule.

The people therefore who demanded it be shut down will also be the people who pay the extra costs associated with shutting it down.