nuclear-news

Vermont Yankee nuclear plant’s days are numbered

The Vermont Yankee nuclear plant’s initial 40-year license expires March 21, 2012, less than 15 months from now….Entergy “a company we can’t trust. The plant is old and leaking. There’s no place to store the (radioactive) waste”.

Vt. nuke fights for future but chances are dimming , Google hosted news,– 10 Jan 2011, MONTPELIER, Vt. (AP) — Vermont’s piece of the,  nuclear age, launched four decades ago, seems to be coming to a close, even as advocates push for a renaissance of nuclear power in the United States.

The Vermont Yankee nuclear plant’s initial 40-year license expires March 21, 2012, less than 15 months from now. And despite a safety and performance record no worse than many of the other 61 reactors that have won 20-year license extensions from the federal Nuclear Regulatory Commission, the Vernon power plant’s future looks short.That’s largely because it’s located in the only state in the country with a law saying both houses of its legislature have to give their approval before Vermont regulators can issue a state license for the plant to continue operating.
The Vermont Senate voted 26-4 last February against letting the Public Service Board issue the new state license. That vote came a month after it was revealed that Vermont Yankee was leaking tritium, a radioactive isotope of hydrogen, into soil and groundwater surrounding the reactor on the banks of the Connecticut River. It also followed revelations that senior plant personnel had misled state officials about whether Vermont Yankee had the sort of underground pipes that carried radioactive tritium………..

Newly elected Gov. Peter Shumlin, then the president pro tem of the state Senate, orchestrated February’s vote to block Yankee’s re-licensing. In his gubernatorial campaign, he referred throughout his campaign to “Entergy Louisiana,” emphasizing Vermont Yankee’s out-of-state ownership.

Shumlin, who grew up less than 25 miles from Vermont Yankee in Putney, said he didn’t give it much thought when the plant split its first atoms three days before his 16th birthday. Now he firmly believes the plant should close when its 40 years are up.

He called Entergy “a company we can’t trust. The plant is old and leaking. There’s no place to store the (radioactive) waste. The world has changed and we need to change with it. It’s time for it to sleep.”

The tritium troubles weren’t the first black eye the plant had given itself in recent years.

The Associated Press: Vt. nuke fights for future but chances are dimming

January 10, 2011 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | politics, USA