This one goes under the heading "better late than never." Tepco is now admitting that the containment buildings may very likely be leaking. No kidding. ____________________________________________________________
We are fortunate to have a new video analysis from Arnie Gundersen examining the implications of the Fukushima crisis for reactors located in the U.S.; and another excellent informational video in which our own Maggie Gundersen, president and founder of Fairewinds Associates, interviews Marco Kaltofen, of Worcester Polytechnic Institute in Worcester Mass.
Mr. Kaltofen is an expert in radiation chemistry and monitoring. He answers some of the questions Fairewinds has been receiving about the nature and pathways of radiation as it spreads, and how exposure can be minimized.
Thanks to nTodd for pointing us toward this choice piece of perspective on the Nuclear Regulatory Commission and it's pas de deux with the power industry.
Tom Zeller, writing on Huffington Post draws our attention to a 1992 document entitled "Perspectives on the License Renewal Process." Sent to the NRC by Northern States Power Company, the paper advocated an extremely lenient approach to relicensing:
In a nutshell, the document argued that the NRC examined aspects of plant operation beyond the scope of what was necessary for license renewal, and the agency therefore ran the risk of making license renewal uneconomical.
Mr. Zeller points out that three years later, in 1995, the NRC changed its rules so as to eliminate entirely the part of the relicensing process that looked at whether or not a facility was in fact, operating in full compliance with it's current license!
Precipitating the 1992 document and subsequent change in NRC rules was a development in the 1980's when a nuclear plant in Monticello, Minnesota that was seeking renewal was found on examination to be so grievously out of compliance that it was forced to close even before its current license had expired.
a result, Monticello's operators -- and the wider industry -- went on the offensive.
Now here is where Mr. Zeller really caught my attention because he linked that last phrase to a NY Times article that used a photo of the collapsed tower at Vermont Yankee to illustrate the point that perhaps the NRC is now entirely too cozy with the industry. While this hardly is news to us, it gives some satisfaction to see others connecting the dots.
It would appear that the NRC has effectively taken the extraordinary step of mandating that a blind eye will be turned on any issues of current use. The only remaining criteria are the plans the applicant offers for future operation! Furthermore, it has taken this step soley for the economic advantage it gives to the industry.
In the wake of the Fukushima disaster how can this betrayal of the public trust be tolerated?
Yesterday the Vermont Electric Co-op sent a clear signal to Entergy Vermont Yankee. They voted 9-1 against signing a 20 year power purchase agreement with the aging plant. One VEC board member described his vote as follows:
“We need to lock in with a credible supplier,” he said. “We need to deal with a company that has the trust and support of the majority of our members. Entergy isn’t that company.”
Entergy had fired off its PR gun a little early on March 30th with a press release that was trumpeted by local online cheerleaders of the plant.
Entergy Corporation today announced Entergy Nuclear Vermont Yankee, LLC has completed negotiations on a 20-year agreement to sell power from the Vermont Yankee nuclear plant to customers of Vermont Electric Cooperative, Inc., the third-largest electric distribution utility in Vermont.
This announcement was quickly shot down by the VEC Chairman, and yesterday’s vote shows the deal had little support. Chalk it up to an ill timed PR move or an awkward attempt to bulldoze the VEC board or…it could be a move sooo sly only a few chosen souls even understand the sheer cleverness. You see according to YesVY blog (which understandably claims no inside knowledge) it was never meant to be about a VEC power deal at all!!
Entergy was sending secret signals to others.
It’s a little long but here put on these special glasses and you will see the message.
I think Entergy is signalling. Signalling can be sort of fancy word for advertising. However, advertising is often comparatively simple: "Strawberries now available at $2.50 a quart." Signalling can be much subtler. For example, a potential employee shows his dedication to his career by going to night school, therefore "signalling" to the potential employer that he will be a very good employee. In my opinion, this press release signals: Entergy Vermont Yankee intends to be open for business after March 2012, and they are willing to give very good power purchase agreement rates.
[…] Similarly, I think that the question of why Entergy sent this press release at this time cannot be answered by looking at Entergy's relationship with VEC. This press release is a signal to a wider market. Also, this is an upbeat way of signalling: we're ready to sell power to a buyer! If the VEC board turns down the agreement later this month, Entergy's signal would not be as effective.
(As the Royal Wedding and conflicts in the Middle East claim the news cycle, the situation at Fukushima continues to be unresolved; a slowly unfolding disaster whose final dimensional impact remains unknown.
There are important take-aways from the disaster, and there are industry incentives to suppress that conversation. Our own Vermont watchdog, Arnie Gundersen suggests there is no time left to waste in getting to it. - promoted by Sue Prent)
Gundersen implores Congress and NRC to think outside the box. Pause licensing of new nukes and 20-year-life extensions until the lessons learned from Fukushima are applied. Fairewinds Associates recommends that regulators look at the feasibility of emergency evacuation plans, containment leakage, and aging management plans for 40-year-old Fukushima model reactors.
What is it with the media's love of meaningless polls?
In an article in today's Rutland Herald, staff writer Susan Smallheer may have slipped and fallen prey to Vermont poll syndrome by letting another questionable poll punch above its weight. This stands out from Smallheer’s usual Vermont Yankee coverage.
Jefferies does and seeks to do business with companies covered in its research reports. Investors should be aware that Jefferies may have a conflict of interest that could affect the objectivity of this report
So how does a pound of feathers ever weigh more than a pound? Smallheer claims:
The Jefferies report also gave weight to the recent results of The Doyle Poll, the unscientific poll conducted during town meeting by Sen. William Doyle, a Washington County Republican, which showed that 45 percent of Vermonters now favored Vermont Yankee to continue to operate. The poll, which is voluntary and open to repeated participation, showed a flip from 2010, when Vermonters were 52 percent against the relicensing, in the wake of the radioactive tritium leaks at Yankee.
But this poll, Doyle’s latest in his long running series of voluntary, easily manipulated polls, was taken on town meeting day before the almost month old Fukushima power plant problems.
Can’t imagine how the Jefferies report - insightful or not - gives weight to a thoroughly unscientific local poll taken before the Japanese nuclear accident which may shift attitudes. It still weighs a pound.
Recieved my issue of 'Time' magazine yesterday. Japan catastrophe noticably absent, or perhaps 'replaced' is more like it, w/a story which asks 'Can its young people save Japan'? But no story about current events. How about the fact that situation has worsened in some aspects & estimates of how long it will last is now 'months'?
'Health & Science' section seems to gloss over & minimize the effects, especially 'Assessing The Threat' even for the Japanese people.
That plutonium & uranium-laced water is sloshing over the boots of plant workers, er, 'contractors' & their condition, plutonium on the site is not mentioned is odd indeed. One could go on. There are sobering headlines by the dozen & serious news accounts by the score which need to be told regardles of how grim they may appear. Sudden backseat Japan continuing debacle has taken noteworthy, in that with the sheer volume of stories & its continuing development, it seems to be gettinging pushed back more & more.
Several stories on Libya, not surprising & Elizabeth Taylor appropriately gets a few pages. Oh, & there is a story about how crying at work is now 'OK', we have their permission.
In a world where corporate interests take precedence over the best interests of all of us, 'truth' is becoming an ever more rare commodity. Here in 'the land of the free & home of the brave', 'truth' is happily sold out to the highest bidder, processed by the spinmeisters, those who represent & are funded by the special interests, who then spin it to desired consistancy, color it a shade to their liking & serve it to sheepled masses, the gullible public. Intended audience is made clear by the facts or lack therof which are easily recognized by those who are have followed it or knowledgable about the issues.
Depressing to see supposedly reputable news organizations who have allowed themselves to be played by these special interests who then game their viewers or readers by misinforming them.
Meanwhile back in VT where truth still prevails, we can be grateful & thankful for Fairewinds Associates, the Gundersens, to bring it to us, as well as the expert analysis to understand what the latest developments mean to the average citizen.
*note- I took the fact that an update & video was up, but not posted to GMD as perhaps the Gundersens being too busy to post it to GMD. If there is a story, I would gladly take my story down if there was one that just hadn't made it up.
Even as the Fukushima crisis drops off and on the front pages, several hell-for-leather lets harness the god given power of the atom pro-nuclear bloggers may be showing stress cracks.
At the top of the list is Rod Adams AKA atomicrod who at the very start of the fast moving crisis confidently released a blog titled: Performance of old nuclear plants in Japan demonstrates why much of current regulations are overkill
I also think it is important to recognize the opportunity to explain to people why there will be no health consequences to the public from challenges at Japanese nuclear plants and why that prediction could confidently be made almost as soon as the earth stopped shaking, long before all of the details of the events began to unfold.
Writing today atomicrod seems less inclined to predicting the future, saying in part "What this event has taught me is that I need to retreat a bit." While still making it clear he is 100% touched with atoms he ads:
However, I am now certain that not all operating reactors are equally safe, equally well maintained, or equally well sited. I have always known that there are risks associate with nuclear energy - it is such a concentrated source of power that it is impossible to ignore just how quickly it can get out of control.
…far short of a catastrophe Another supporter goes wobbly“ It is clear that LWRs are not 100% safe.” then speedily rallies to the idea that, for him at least Fukushima is only an accident and not a catastrophe.
To date the consequences of the Dai-ichi accident have fallen far short of a catastrophe. But whether the public is aware of the distinction between an accident and a catastrophy is open to question. For the enemies of nuclear power, accident and catastrophe are the same thing.
My two lessons are:
- upgrading emergency preparedness, especially back-up power
- preventing hydrogen explosions.
She discusses the spent fuel pools then ads
Still, if the Japanese reactors had had available back-up power and if they had been able to prevent hydrogen explosions, the fuel pools would have been fine.
Yes, lesson learned : if only they hadn’t had those problems they wouldn’t have had those other problems. Safe clean logic.
Sometimes you've just got to re-state the obvious. Entergy doesn't understand the meaning of the word "no" and the NRC seems to be suffering from short-term memory loss.
In light of the Fukushima crisis, our "DC-3" (Leahy, Sanders and Welch) have issued the following joint statement:
"It is hard to understand how the NRC could move forward with a license extension for Vermont Yankee at exactly the same time as a nuclear reactor of similar design is in partial meltdown in Japan. We believe that Entergy should respect and abide by Vermont's laws and the MOU signed with the state in 2002, which require approval by the Vermont Legislature, and then the Vermont Public Service Board, for the plant to continue to operate beyond 2012."
The Fukushima nuclear power plant accident in Japan is a terrible tragedy for the people in Japan, and for the people in the path of the moving radioactive cloud.
The Fukushima nuclear power plant was gravely impacted by the earthquake, tsunami, and additional earthquakes and aftershocks. It has been unable to cool the reactor core, and has had an explosion that severely damaged the containment. At the very beginning and half-way through this video you will see an explosive wave that shows that the top of the containment has blown off. A second reactor is also having great difficulty cooling its reactor core.
The Fukushima nuke plant is almost identical to Vermont Yankee (VY). It has a Mark 1 (earliest) containment. The fuel pool is on the top floor, and after the explosion the fuel pool is open to the environment. Many years of spent fuel (the used fuel that is the most radioactive,) is not being cooled and is in direct contact with the air so it is beginning to release significant amounts of radiation.
As a result of this devastating accident, radioactive Cesium, which lasts in the environment for 300-years and is absorbed by muscles in the human body, especially infant hearts, has been detected in the environment around the plant. People near the plant are already receiving as much radiation in an hour as they normally receive in one year. The delayed response to the accident has put thousands of lives in jeopardy. Like Three Mile Island (TMI), significant amounts of radiation are already in the environment, and like TMI, the government in Japan has waited too long to evacuate people. See the truth about TMI here.
The Fukishima Nuclear Power Plant is a General Electric (GE) Boiling Water Reactor (BWR) with a Mark 1 containment. NRC said in 1972 that this containment should never have been built, and the design was ultimately changed, but not until at least 22 Mark 1's were constructed in the US, and it is not clear how many throughout the world. Joseph Hendrie, inside the NRC, said, that the Mark 1 should never have been built, but he did not have the heart to shut them down (see end of post).
I'm sure many Vermonters have been turning the same question over in their minds that I have. What relationship does that ominously percolating reactor at the Fukushima Dailichi plant in disaster-struck Japan have to our own little hot pot at Vermont Yankee? As it turns out, the answer is,"quite a bit."
Like VY, Fukushima's troubled reactor is a BWR (Boiling Water Reactor) with a G.E. Mark 1 containment design. Also like VY, it appears to be approaching 40-years in operation.
I did a little digging and learned that there is reason for concern about the ability of the Mark 1 containment design to successfully hold up to pressure.
The NRC, who has never met a reactor they couldn't relicense, just yesterday signed-off on another twenty years of wear, tear and capricious management for VY. Gives you pause, doesn't it?
I've fixed the link. It seems to have been my error in coding. It should work now.
According to this morning's Free Press, the NRC is poised to relicense Vermont Yankee as early as next week. It's time to flood the NRC with calls and e-mails expressing alarm and opposition to continued operation of the plant.
Telephone numbers are given on their website:
Public Affairs 301-415-8200
Safety or Security Concerns 1-800-695-7403
I decided an e-mail was in order, but there is no e-mail address given. You have to go to this page. You'll find an embedded submission form which you fill-out and send.
With an emboldened plutocracy flexing its muscles all over the country, it's good to have another reminder that our DC delegation continues to look out for the poor "step-children" who have been generally cut-adrift in the current round of economic blackmail. In this case, those "step-children" are the twin causes of environmental and human safety, both of which Entergy apologists would willingly sacrifice on the altar of "cheap" energy, just to keep VY burbling away well past its sell-by date.
Our own "DC 3" have all signed onto a letter drafted by Bernie Sanders, who sits on the panel charged with oversight of the NRC, urging that regulatory body to ensure that clean-up of Vermont Yankee is undertaken immediately following closure of the plant.
The lawmakers called it "unacceptable" that Entergy, which owns the Vermont plant, could engage in "decades of delay" before cleaning up the site along the Connecticut River at Vernon, Vt. "Immediate decommissioning will assure Vermonters that the plant is being disassembled safely," the delegation wrote. An immediate cleanup and shutdown of the site also would allow the plant operator to take advantage of the skills of many long-term Yankee employees who otherwise would lose their jobs.
In the letter to Commission Chairman Gregory Jaczko, the delegation requests a meeting with the full commission; and that the meeting should include Governor Shumlin,
because of the "enormous consequences" for Vermont and the state's "vital interest" in the plant's safe shutdown.
Tying swift decommissioning to job retention is a brilliant and entirely legitimate strategy, which should steal some thunder from one of VY's dwindling arguments against closure.
As we know all too well,
Entergy has indicated it favors a so-called "SAFSTOR" decommissioning method, a process that the delegation letter said "would let Entergy off the hook" for cleanup and waste disposal for years or even decades. "While Entergy may prefer leaving the plant to sit like an abandoned factory because it has not saved the necessary funds to fully decommission the plant, this is not the safest option for Vermonters," Leahy, Sanders and Welch wrote.
"We have a right to our own opinions but not our own facts." Suffice it to say, Entergy Louisiana & VT Yankee still do not get this. Judging from past & present behavior, they never will. Their display of inherent dishonesty which was found to be corporate-wide, including being caught deliberately giving false information to VT regulators, legislature & those tasked with oversight has proven this, as well as abject failure at the 'transparency', as promised. Since then, things have only worsened.
On the anniversary of the historic and infamous vote by VT senate to close Entergy Louisiana owned Vermont Yankee, on schedule, by nearly unanimous 26-4 vote, Entergy Louisiana continues its fear mongering campaign and 'sky is falling' message to VT residents with all out assault on the state. The big prize? To overshadow and thereby obscure VT's victory, all taking place on the anniversary of the vote, hopefully with favorable outcome for them.
Obvious mission to undermine the will of the people by overturning the vote taken one year ago to shutter VY on schedule. Using their corporate might, attempted muscling of VT is very bald. This includes VT business community aligned with AIV-Entergy is also a member, and very own Entergy sponsored VTEP, a 'diverse business group' in which all members share at least one thing in common, all support VY continued operation-Entergy is also a member.
With VT news media at its disposal, in this past year continuing to the present VT has been bombarded with full page ads from Entergy Louisiana promoting VY as they & apologists attempted to explain away the series of failures spanning six years which served as evidence the plant had fallen into a state of disrepair due to faulty maintenance procedures by the company.
Ads were stopped when VT AG ruled they contained false information. Media blitz from Entergy Louisiana including employees and VT businesses all appearing as virtual bots in Stepford-like trance, as well as slanted & erroneous missives from a variety of sources, primarily VTEP staffers doing double duty as 'energy lobbyists' to legislature, Brad Ferland & Guy Page. Also including academicians from NH & VT, who have no nuclear experience or credentials, as evidenced by their irrelevent and inaccuracy-laden commentary. Valley News 1/19/2011 letter titled, "The Truth About Tritium" by Thomas Curphey, is a mere straw man argument as tritium itself has never been the main issue but the spin orchestrated by Entergy Lousiana. Another, Brattleboro Reformer "Free speech, energy choices and public health" op-ed by Gerry Silverstein, frequent VY apologist to VT news media, in which he compares the health of 38 year old plant to a 38 year old human body, was very strange since this is from a UVM professor teaching medical students. Facepalm.
Step 3: Report the event to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission on December 22.
Step 4: keep running those sappy "I am Vermont Yankee" ads on TV. Ignore the fact that nobody much cares how nice the employees of Vermont Yankee are, but we care very much about whether they are competent enough to run the plant and honest enough to be trusted with the public health and safety. I keep waiting for them to identify one of their employes as a fork and spoon operator from Sector 7g, but so far no luck.)
Good work for Reformer reporter Bob Audette to come up with this. The source for some of his analysis was an e-mail from Vermont Yankee. Apparently no explanation was available for why the information about the leaks, which VY had in April, or its analysis of the leaks, which they had in October, wasn't disclosed to the NRC until just before Christmas.
Oh, and if you're wondering, the collection of press releases and news updates on the Vermont Yankee web page doesn't say anything about this latest set of leaks. Not even in the section they call "We're all entitled to our own opinions, but not our own facts".
Maybe, in Entergy lexicon, "facts" means "stuff we couldn't keep covered up any longer".
Happy New Year to Vermont from a Texas judge! Judge Jon Wisser issued a temporary restraining order that threw a monkey wrench into the plans for a "hurry up" vote to expand access to the nuclear dump where Vermont plans to send material from VY.
The plan up for a vote was to expand access to the low-level nuclear waste dump in West Texas to all states and commercial nuclear companies. Unbelievably, Vermont's two representatives on the committee for the dump planned to vote for the plan, even though it was likely to shut Vermont out by taking such waste on a first-come, first served basis, as reported earlier this week here by BP and quoting a December 1 report by Vermont Digger.
Texas Vox, "the Voice of Public Citizen in Texas," regards the order as a win for folks who oppose the dump entirely.
The final vote on the plan was to have taken place on Tuesday, January 4, by the members of the Texas Low-Level Radioactive Waste Disposal Compact Commission - just before Governor-elect Peter Shumlin will be inaugurated. That vote is now apparently on hold.
Texas Vox reports that at least 4,000 anti-expansion comments were received during the public comment period, which ended on December 27.
Stay tuned.
PS: As someone with a Vermont ISP, I found the (presumably state-tailored) advertising (by Google) on the Texas Vox site interesting: "Click to hear more about the safety of Vermont Yankee." followed by "www.iamvy.com".
Hope springs eternal in the breast of Vermont Yankee supporters who maintain that, even after countless leaks, squeaks and outright collapses; even after the legislature voted to let it go, and even after the man who led that vote is seated as Governor, there still could be some way to keep the infernal thing in operation. In today's Free Press, VY spokesman Larry Smith and Brad Ferland of Vermont Energy Partnership both expressed the hope that the Legislature could somehow be persuaded to take up the matter again; and Steve Costello of CVPS says
"If it could be shown to be safe, we want it,
But there's the rub. Every story coming out of VY over the past two years has provided more reason to believe that it is definitely unsafe to operate the plant beyond it's predicted closure date.
Apparently, supporters think that the sale of VY to a different entity could somehow put things right again; but simple commonsense predicts that any new owner of the antediluvian facility would most likely be regarding it as a strategic liability to be minimally maintained and mined for whatever tax credits or incentives might be available before an unceremonious death- dump on Vermont's front stoop. And a couple of years of marginally cheaper power are supposed to be enough to keep us on the hook? Please... we may be a rural state but we weren't born yesterday!
Some, like Orleans Senator Vince Iluzzi envision a scenario in which the sale of VY to a different entity might allow the NCR (Nuclear Regulatory Commission) to overrule Vermont's Legislature and renew VY's license unilaterally.
"Vermont may not have jurisdiction over Vermont Yankee," said Illuzzi, who voted against the plant in the Senate this year and said if there were a new vote, he's not sure how he would vote.
Now that would be really well-received by fiercely independent Vermonters.
Arne Gundersen, who advises the Legislature on all things nuclear, doubts that the NRC would intrude to such a degree, although he can well see Entergy courting any legal maneuver that might further delay the inevitable shut-down.
That's a little like sending the Lusitania in to rescue the Titanic," he said.
One thing is certain, before that glow-farm on the banks of the Connecticut River is finally shutdown, VY and her owners will have milked every opportunity available for delay.
While interest is focussed on Governor-elect Peter Shumlin and his nascent administration, outgoing Jim Douglas ("Governor Sissorhands," as he has been widely known) wanders the state in a sort of farewell tour, sloshing with jocularity and tepid humor. According to the Messenger, at a Rotary toast in St. Albans today
"Douglas...joked that his next career goal is as a greeter at the St. Albans Town Walmart."
It may look like the Douglas administration, now a "lame duck," is backing harmlessly away from the table, but don't count your giblets before they're gravy. Only today, we learn that a couple of Douglas appointees are hurriedly concluding negotiations on an obscure matter that may have greater influence over the fate of Vermont Yankee than either the determinations of the legislature or the will of the people. Now this is pretty wonky stuff which, rest-asssured, both Entergy and the Douglas Administration very much hope will not engage the majority of Vermonters. Vermont Digger has the story, and you'd best read the whole thing very carefully.
It seems that, back in 1998, when VY's "sell-by" date was still fourteen years in the future, Vermont made a compact with Texas
"to establish a permanent repository for low-level radioactive waste generated by nuclear power plants and medical and research facilities in Vermont and Texas. The compact was set up for the two states' exclusive use. (Maine was originally a part of the agreement but dropped out). In 2009, Waste Control Specialists received a license to open a radioactive waste landfill in West Texas for the compact that is now under construction."
Between 1998 and the present, I think we can fill in the blanks. Time went by; the economy of both states got dicey; and someone decided it might be a good idea to offset the cost of constructing and operating the landfill by admitting a "few more" member states into the compact. Appointed by Douglas, Vermont's only two representatives to the Texas commission, Uldis Vandis and Steven Wark, are among those supporting the move to admit more states. Several Texas commissioners apparently disagree.
"Critics say the new rules could transform the landfill into a national repository for low-level nuclear waste and that it could fill up quickly because demand for landfill space is high. Thirty-six states are not currently part of a radioactive waste disposal compact."
Sometimes we feel a little lonely around here, thinking, "Doesn't anyone else see what we're seeing?" Today, someone else sees it. The title of this morning's Burlington Free Press editorial speaks for itself: "Regulator's partisanship chips away at credibility".
I could quibble, pointing out that Dave O'Brien didn't have much credibility to begin with, but the key is that the whole world is now seeing that Dave O'Brien's loyalties are to the Douglas/Dubie administration and their wealthy friends, and not with the people of Vermont. Here's a sampling:
You should read the whole editorial. I'll just say that I'm very pleased that one of our leading daily newspapers is saying what we've been saying all along: We need someone who will be an independent defender of the health and safety of all Vermonters.
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.
250-1
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