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