mug     



Make a New Account

Username:

Password:



Forget your username or password?

Search




Advanced Search


Active Users
Currently 0 user(s) logged on.



Follow us on Twitter! or join our Facebook group!

Vote No, Now on Vermont Yankee

by: Deb Markowitz

Tue Jan 26, 2010 at 13:05:05 PM EST


(Continuing the policy of promoting diaries from officeholders and officeseekers - promoted by odum)

 

GMD readers: I wanted to make sure my first of many posts during this campaign cycle, was an important one. Well this is about as important as it gets.

When it comes to Vermont's energy future, we need bold leadership. Today, I spoke out in newspapers throughout the state on Vermont Yankee. Montpelier needs an up-or-down vote now on the aging nuclear plant's future, so we can plan a responsible withdrawal in the two years left on its license. The two most important components of my decision were safety and jobs.

Every week it is a new safety issue. Today, it is the 40 NEW underground pipes containing radioactive material. What will it be tomorrow? Safety must be our first concern and that concern has grown tremendously for me.

But jobs and Vermont Yankee also go hand and hand. You can read in more detail about growing new, clean energy jobs in my opinion piece, but I am just as concerned about finding new jobs for the Vermonters and their communities that will be affected by the closure. Voting now lets us put the plans in motion to build jobs and an energy future without Vermont Yankee.
Speaking out in newspapers and on television is one thing. Making this vote happen is another.

That is why today I am asking all Vermonters to sign this online petition to make sure we get a quick vote on Vermont Yankee.

You can also send this petition and my article to your friends and family. This kind of grassroots organizing is how we will make sure safety and jobs are a priority. It is also how I plan to win this race for governor!
 

Deb Markowitz :: Vote No, Now on Vermont Yankee
Tags: (All Tags)
Print Friendly View Send As Email
Raise Your Voice!
Signed and forwarded (0.00 / 0)
There is NO reason to keep this plant running. It has clearly exceeded its safe operating life - as was expected when it was built. The idea of extending the license beyond its designed life-time was ludicrous to begin with, and now is being shown to be not simply ridiculous, but downright dangerous.

The owners have shown time after time that they have neither respect nor concern for the people of VT, NH, MA, or CT whose lives and health are on the line, should anything go wrong at the plant. They have shown that they will lie, then lie about lying, when caught red-handed, as long as they think they might be able to squeeze another dollar out of us to line their pockets.

Under the current plan, if the plant were relicensed, it would provide only 11% of the state's electricity. If we simply swapped out all the incandescent light bulbs in the state for compact fluorescents, we'd be a good chunk of way to replacing VT Yankee's energy without building anything new at all. Replace those bulbs with LEDs, and we'd be that much closer. Throw in some power strips and a little public education campaign to ensure that things like TVs, cable boxes, computers, and DVD players are turned all the way OFF when not in use, and we'd be able to kiss VT Yankee goodbye with a barely noticeable blip in our electric bills.

The plant is not needed, it is obsolete, it is unsafe, and its owners are greedy liars who don't give one whit about the health or safety of the people of this state.

Let it go quietly to that great storage cask in the sky when its license expires in 2012...

Beware the Everyday Brutality of the Averted Gaze


I agree (4.00 / 2)
Thanks for the comments folks. Already have 73 folks signed onto the petition!

Great, Deb (4.00 / 2)
Signed online and tweeted it.

Can the leg vote without discussing radiological safety? (4.00 / 1)
A "no" vote probably has the perverse result that Entergy keeps operating under an NRC license.  Remember the state is preempted from regulating a nuke based on radiological safety.  Yet radiological safety is exactly the issue right now.  A legislative debate on Yankee will be filled with discussion of that issue and it will feed right into an Entergy federal lawsuit to nullify Vermont's statute and decision.

Maintenance and repair (4.00 / 1)
I think if they are disciplined about it they can -- although that might allow any pro-Entergy legislator to scuttle the vote's impact by pronouncing a single word of two syllables.

As soon as those two syllables appear, whoever is running the show must rule that person's comments out of order.

The way to talk about the latest major concerns is to focus on maintenance and repair deficits, increased costs of shut-down not being met due to negligent monitoring, and the fact that the deal stinks -- 11 percent of the state's power at above-market rates. Not to mention the untrustworthiness of the plant's management (lies, secrets and silence; corporate malfeasance). Why make a new deal with a company that hasn't kept their old one?

Shut it down.

Why aren't the company officials who lied under oath being prosecuted for perjury?

NanuqFC
Have you not a moist eye? a dry hand? a yellow cheek? a white beard? a decreasing leg? an increasing belly? is not your voice broken? your wind short? your chin double? your wit single? and every part about you blasted with antiquity? ~ William Shakespeare (Henry IV, Part 2)

Have you not eroded valves? porous pipeline? a broken tower? an impoverished fund? a tunnel holding noxious wastes? an intoxicated worker? a gushing pipe? Is not your voice speaking lies or your officers gone witless? are you not at risk for falling down at every moment? and every part about you blasted with antiquity? ~ Updated for Entergy VY


[ Parent ]
mushroom (0.00 / 0)
Deb, what will it take to shut this thing down?  A mushroom cloud over Vermont?  Entergy just wants to stick us with the clean-up costs of shutting this thing down and Douglas is on their side.  

When you wake up each morning look around you.  It might be the last time you get to do it.  


GMD Links

Vermont Daily Briefing
Rational Resistance
VT News Guy
VT Digger
Minor Heresies
What's the Point?
Vermont Yankee, evacuation plans, & more
Mulish Behavior
Political Animal (with Steve Benen)
Reason and Brimstone
Blazing Indiscretions
sneigwh
Dohiyi Mir
Blier Watch
five before chaos
Blue Hampshire
Blue News Tribune
Burlington Pol
Norsehorse
Rip & Read
Integral Psychosis
VT Secession
Tenselblog
VT Bloggernaut
Morgan's Gov. race blog
Bureaucracy Blog
Austanspace

Non-political

Candleblog
iBrattleboro
WKVT 1490 AM
Vermont Mornings
False 45th
Bosox Wally

National

Congress Matters
Daily Kos
Open Left
BlogPac
Talking Points Memo
My Left Wing
MyDD
Docudharma
Glenn Greenwald
Firedoglake
Atrios (Eschaton)
Think Progress
Driftglass
Pam's House Blend
Hullabaloo (Digby)
The Plum Line (Sargent)

Legacy Media Blogs

Vermont View
vt buzz
Blurt (7 Days)

International

The Irish Independent
Comment is free...(Guardian UK)
Al Jazeera
Pulse Media
Global Voices
All Voices
Vermonters for a Just Peace in Israel/Palestine




Specialized Feeds:

Google Reader or Homepage
Add to My Yahoo!
Subscribe with Bloglines
Subscribe in NewsGator Online

Add to My AOL
Subscribe in Rojo
R|Mail
Add to Technorati Favorites!


RSS FEED

250-1

75-1


blog advertising is good for you
Event Calendar
February 2012
(view month)
S M T W R F S
* * * 01 02 03 04
05 06 07 08 09 10 11
12 13 14 15 16 17 18
19 20 21 22 23 24 25
26 27 28 29 * * *
<< (add event) >>



Featured Stories
State and Local
National and International




Powered by: SoapBlox