Who Told Vermont To Be Stupid....

Uranium (Nuclear Minerals) / Nuclear Power - Economics, Design, & Industry

Date posted: 09/03/13

Dr. Conca indicates that the Great State of Vermont threw away cheap clean energy this week out of ignorance and fear. Vermont chose to be stupid, and will hurt the environment as a sidebar. Earlier this week, Entergy Corporation announced plans to close and decommission its Vermont Yankee Nuclear Power Plant in Vernon, Vermont. The power station was producing over 70 percent of the State power, carbon-free. I guess we do not have to envy Vermonters anymore. The station will stop power production after its present nuclear fuel runs its course and move to safe shutdown at the end of 2014. The station will remain under the oversight of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission throughout the decommissioning process and for the decades following until final disposition of its waste, and the building itself, is finalized. The official reason given by Entergy was a combination of financial factors including: - abundant low-cost natural gas from fracking shale, - financial investments required by an increasingly onerous regulatory environment brought on by unfounded fears from the Fukushima disaster even in the face of a stellar safety record and a completely different safety case, and - wholesale market design flaws that maintain artificially low energy and capacity prices in the region, and actively suppress the benefits of the lowest costing energy that merchant nuclear and hydroelectric plants have long provided the people of Vermont (Marv Fertel, NEI). But we all know the real reason. Nasty politics and ignorance. Retiring a plant because of its age is a good reason, but closing a plant for the above reasons is not wise and may be stupid.