Arnie Gundersen: VT Yankee Closing Permanently, Fukushima still in a World of Hurt(ing)

Wednesday, August 28, 2013

Arnie Gundersen: VT Yankee Closing Permanently, Fukushima still in a World of Hurt(ing)

Published on Aug 27, 2013

A Breaking News Podcast:
Vermont Yankee Closing! Also some other stuff going on at Fukushima that is currently going on (all bad) closer to the end of the podcast.
Entergy just announced that they are shutting down Vermont Yankee Nuclear Generating Station in Vernon, Vermont. We've been saying that Yankee would probably be shut down in 2014 to avoid the expensive modifications that they would have had to comply with as a result of the Fukushima Daiichi triple meltdowns in 2011, as the Yankee reactors were of the same unsafe design. There are 22 other reactors in the US identical to Fukushima, all of which face these costly modifications. We recorded a special podcast today with Arnie and Nat to respond to the news. Listen In

Vermont Public Radio: "Citing Economics, Entergy To Close Vermont Yankee By End of 2014"

http://tinyurl.com/oo87fsu

Citing Economics, Entergy To Close Vermont Yankee By End of 2014

By John Dillon

Credit AP Photo/Matthew Cavanaugh

Entergy Wholesale Commodities president Bill Mohl speaks at a news conference, Tuesday, Aug. 27, 2013, in Brattleboro, Vt., to announce the closing of the Vermont Yankee Nuclear Power Station by end of 2014.

Listen

4:40

Vermont Yankee will close by the end of next year, ending years of litigation over the plant’s future.
But Yankee says financial pressure not lawsuits or legislative mandates are forcing the shutdown.
Gov. Peter Shumlin said he got the call from Entergy Tuesday morning, shortly before the news release went out announcing the company’s decision to shutter Vermont’s only nuclear plant.
Shumlin, an ardent opponent of Entergy and Vermont Yankee, said he now wants to forge a new relationship with the Louisiana based corporation. The governor said his thoughts now are with the plant’s 650 workers.
“Those employees have done an extraordinary job running the plant. They’re dedicated, they’re smart, they’re capable, and we’re going to work with them to find a great jobs future,” he said.
In Vernon, William Mohl, Entergy’s president of nuclear operations, said the news brought tears from some long-time employees. Mohl blamed the closure on the energy market, not the ongoing legal battle with the state.
“This decision was based on the economics of the plant. Not operational performance. Not litigation risk, nor political pressure,” he said. “Simply put, the plant costs exceed the plant revenue and this asset is not financially viable.”
The Yankee plant went on line in 1972. It’s is the same General Electric boiling water design as the reactors in Fukushima, Japan that were disabled and damaged by an earthquake and tsunami in 2011. In the wake of Fukushima, Entergy was facing expensive modifications required to improve safety.

Read More Here
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Seven Days: "Nuclear Expert Says It'll Take At Least 20 Years — and More Money — to Clean Up Vermont Yankee" http://tinyurl.com/plnz23c

BREAKING: Nuclear Expert Says It'll Take At Least 20 Years — and More Money — to Clean Up Vermont Yankee

Posted by Ken Picard on August 27, 2013 at 12:04 PM

In the end, it wasn't the attorney general's federal lawsuit, the Vermont Legislature, the Public Service Board or any of those pesky enviros nitpicking about underground tritium leaks and collapsed cooling towers that shut down Vermont Yankee.
It was the invisible hand of the marketplace.
On Tuesday, New Orleans-based Entergy Corporation announced plans to close the Vermont Yankee Nuclear Power Station in Vernon by the end of 2014. Praising Vermont Yankee's talented, committed and dedicated workforce, Entergy chairman and CEO Leo Denault called it "an agonizing decision and an extremely tough call for us."
Denault touched on some of the economic forces that compelled Entergy's decision, including a "transformational shift" in the natural gas market that has driven down electricity-generation costs, high maintainence costs on the 41-year-old trouble-prone plant and "wholesale market design flaws" that have kept energy prices "artificially low" throughout New England.
So what happens next? Presumably, the plant spends the next decade or more decommissioning the plant and cleaning up the radiation. According to Entergy's press release, the Vermont Yankee decommissioning trust has a balance of $582 million, in excess of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission's minimum financial assurance of $566 million for terminating the plant's license.
But one nuclear-engineer-turned-industry-watchdog isn't comforted by that figure. Burlington-based Arnie Gundersen was the first to raise a hue and cry in 2007 about projected shortfalls in the VY decommissioning fund.

Gundersen, who provided expert testimony recommending the closure of five of the six nuclear plants nationwide that were eventually deep-sixed this year, says he was right that Vermont Yankee was neither economically viable nor safe enough to remain open for another 20 years, as Entergy argued when its operating license was extended last year.

Read More Here

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WPTZ Channel 5 News: "Nuclear Engineer Talks Yankee Options" http://tinyurl.com/ozc4spp
BURLINGTON, Vt. —The news of the closure came as a shock to Arnie Gundersen, a nuclear engineer who has been lobbying against the plant for 10 years. He said the place won't immediately turn into a ghost town and that he has some concerns.
"It doesn't mean we're out of the woods from a safety standpoint," said Gundersen.
Even after Yankee is shuttered in about 15 months, Gundersen said there will still be plenty of activity for at least a few more years.
"The first step is wait five years and get the nuclear fuel out of the fuel pool which is high, down into dry caste storage in the ground," said Gundersen.
Entergy officials have stated they expect to finish decommissioning the plant through a process called SAFSTOR. They said the facility would be drained, secured, then let be for decades.
Gundersen isn't a fan of that plan. "What happens in those 60 years is that the plant's physical structure deteriorates and lets in things like rodents," he said. In his opinion, the better and quicker option is to knock the whole facility down, but that's expensive.

Read More and Watch Video Here

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Entergy's Press Release http://tinyurl.com/ka322pa
& FAQs http://tinyurl.com/q9dom73
Press Release: Entergy's official announcement of their plans to shut down Vermont Yankee Nuclear Generating Station
Entergy Corporation announced that it will permanently shut-down and decommission the single unit boiling water reactor at the Vermont Yankee Nuclear Power Station at the end of its current fuel cycle.
Let's not forget your newest bonus link for today boys and girls:
Japanese Nuclear Propaganda Cartoon

http://youtu.be/sOFg8oWMHRM

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Vermont Yankee nuclear plant to shut down by end of 2014

Toby Talbot/AP

The nuclear plant sits along the banks of the Connecticut River in Vernon, Vt. -

Toby Talbot/AP

The nuclear plant sits along the banks of the Connecticut River in Vernon, Vt.

- See more at: http://www.boston.com/metrodesk/2013/08/27/vermont-yankee-nuclear-plant-shut-down/VthM9oe73f8zeaHdWJJOVN/story.html#sthash.4a2AoSjQ.dpuf

By Martin Finucane, Globe Staff

The Vermont Yankee nuclear power plant will be shut down, the company that owns it announced today, bringing to a close a long-running, divisive battle over the plant.
“This was an agonizing decision and an extremely tough call for us,” said Leo Denault, chairman and chief executive of Entergy.
While activists have criticized the plant for years, the company said its decision was based, in the end, on economics. The company blamed a variety of factors, including the boom in natural gas that has driven down natural gas and wholesale energy prices, the high cost of operating the plant, and what it called wholesale market “design flaws.”
The company said it would operate the Vernon, Vt., plant through the fourth quarter of 2014 to “duly and properly plan for a safe and orderly shutdown” and prepare filings with the Nuclear Regulatory Commission on shutdown and decommissioning.
“We are committed to the safe and reliable operation of Vermont Yankee until shutdown, followed by a safe, orderly and environmentally responsible decommissioning process,” Denault said in a statement.
The company says on its website that 630 people are employed at the plant.

Read More Here

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