Predictably, promoters of Brian Dubie's agenda have seized on the ISO-New England statements about Vermont Yankee's withdrawal from the power auction, to do a little campaign cover-shot. It's no longer possible to link to the editorial content of the St. Albans Messenger, so you will just have to take my word for it that Emerson Lynn's Sept. 1 editorial is all over this opportunity. Get this:
...understandably, the other states in the region cant' be too happy about it. They are already beginning to talk about how the cost should not be borne by them, but by Vermont. If we cause the problem (deny the company its license) then Vermont should share more of the burden in making sure the energy source is replaced.
He goes on...and on...and finally gets to the point of lambasting Peter Shumlin for his opposition to relicensing.
Here is my e-mailed response to Mr. Lynn:
'Looks like another election year fact-check is in order when it comes to the ISO-New England and Vermont Yankee. In your September 1 editorial, you refer to the ISO as "independent." Even though it may be independent of control by any single power supplier, it is nevertheless a vehicle of the energy market as a whole, and so represents the interest of all the companies that supply power in New England. To imply that the ISO is entirely independent of Entergy is therefore somewhat disingenuous.
The ISO's clucking over the possibility that Vermont Yankee soon will not be part of the configuration of power suppliers to New England as a whole is kind of like an entity representing "big dairy" scolding Vermont for wanting to protect it's small dairy farms. As the coordinating arm of an industry dominated by big power corporations, it is unsurprising that they would take a dim view of replacing a plant operated by one of their constituents with alternative sources. If the ISO is indeed suggesting that Vermont should bear more of the burden of replacing the megawatts lost from the grid when VY goes off-line, the idea is absurd. Vermont has hosted Vermont Yankee for forty years, while consuming only a very small portion of its output. For forty years, the state has absorbed all of the risk of hosting the plant on its soil; and when it's gone, we will be the state that must cope with a long-term clean-up issue of unknown proportions.
ISO's sabre-rattling is most unbecoming, and if Brian Dubie is foolish enough to pick-up this line of argument in his campaign for governor, he can well expect that Vermonters will consider this disloyalty rather worse than what was displayed in his recent banner ads announcing that Vermont is in 47th place as one of the least friendly places in which to do business in the United States.
