Get News & Views Updates
Most Popular This Week
Popular content
Today's Top News
Vermont Votes No Nukes
Vermont has elected a governor pledged to make the state truly green by shutting its decrepit, leaking nuclear plant. And the town closest to that reactor has voted to take it by eminent domain if necessary, a step unprecedented in world history.
In reaction, the nuke's owner (Entergy) has turned tail and put the plant up for sale. (So far, no bidders).
In direct opposition, this post-election week has been marked by radioactive crowing from a dark age industry demanding massive government loan guarantees from "free market" Congressional Republicans. Armed with oceans of unaccountable corporate/billionaire cash, Karl Rove's new nuclear GOP wants to dump Adam Smith and pump public billions into a failed industry that cannot compete.
The industry continually points to France's industry as a model. But it's mute to the fact that France's leaky, error-prone nukes are owned, operated and regulated (sortof) by the French government. A national socialist prototype, the EDF/Areva edifice---like its counterpart in Japan---would melt and die in an open market.
The US industry's route to taxpayer billions is set to run through subsidized loan guarantees. In 2005, George W. Bush set aside $18.5 billion in loan giveaways for new construction. Barack Obama delivered $8.33 for two new reactors in Georgia, where ratepayers are being forced to foot the bill IN ADVANCE, even if the plants never open. They've already been forced to eat an additional $100 million in rate hikes. Having barely begun construction, the builders already want $1 billion more.
In Maryland, a French-American consortium has fallen apart allegedly because Constellation Energy did not want to pay fees on its prospective loans. In fact, Constellation ducked because it knows that no new reactor can compete in a deregulated state, where ratepayers are not stuck with buying nuke-generated electricity no matter what the price.
Nonetheless, the national industry is now whining that the Department of Energy's loan guarantee program must be "reformed." The official projected failure rate for these loans is 50%. The history of reactor construction is defined by gargantuan cost overruns, perpetual delays and endemic design and performance failure.
But Obama wants more money for the guarantee fund. The industry's Congressionals (from both parties) want to kill even the most minimal fees, requiring little or no liability from the billionaire builders.
But in Vermont, the election day story was different. Democrat Peter Shumlin was elected governor. As speaker of the Vermont House, Shumlin led the charge to deny the state's sole reactor, Vermont Yankee, an extended operating license.
Thanks to complex, unique arrangements made during an earlier ownership transfer, Vermont has the power to deny Entergy a new permit. On February 24, the state senate voted to do just that. No American state has successfully forced shut a nuclear plant. Yankee's owners---whoever they might be---are certain to go to court when the current license expires in March, 2012.
The nuclear industry did pour huge chunks of cash into the Vermont election to defeat Shumlin and strip the legislature of its pro-green majority. But it failed. Shumlin will now be governor, and Vermont's lawmakers are firmly committed to shut-down.
Furthermore, the voters of Brattleboro, the largest town in Yankee's near vicinity, voted 2,387 to 1,826 in favor of forcing the state to investigate taking Vermont Yankee by eminent domain to guarantee its shut-down.
The fate of America's aging reactor fleet has become a major national issue. Owners are now talking of running them 80 years and more.
Every operating US nuke was ordered before 1973. With one exception, all have run more than twenty years. Heavy doses of heat and radiation have embrittled metals and weakened concrete throughout. At Yankee, New York's Indian Point, North Anna in Virginia and quite possibly all the rest, underground pipes continually leak radioactive tritium and other lethal isotopes.
In December a confab of industry-owned Congressionals---along with Obama---will meet in Washington to choreograph the assault on taxpayer handouts for new reactors. They will want to highlight the alleged benefits on more nukes. Their efforts will ultimately be futile, says Michael Mariotte of the Nuclear Information & Resource Service. "Short of simply giving utilities billions of dollars to build new reactors, and then subsidizing the cost of their extraordinarily expensive electricity, it's hard to see what Congress could do to resurrect this deservedly dying industry. The growing anti-nuclear movement will fight every effort to provide any taxpayer subsidies" for new reactors.
In Vermont, the focus will be on shutting an old one. "In holding a fire sale for its systemically mismanaged nuke, Entergy is trying to undermine the Vermont senate's overwhelming vote to close Vermont Yankee's in 2012," says Deb Katz of the Citizens Awareness Network. "Governor Shumlin was elected because of his courageous stand to close Vermont Yankee and replace it with a sane and sustainable energy policy. Exit polls found that over 14% of the electorate voted for Shumlin because of his stand on Vermont Yankee. Without those votes he would not be governor today."
With the Green Mountain State's newly elected pro-green governor and legislature, Yankee may be the first domino to fall in a chain of leaky, rickety, increasingly dangerous elder nukes. With them would go a serious premise of a nuclear future. Stay tuned.
Comments
Note: Disqus 2012 is best viewed on an up to date browser. Click here for information. Instructions for how to sign up to comment can be viewed here. Our Comment Policy can be viewed here. Please follow the guidelines. Note to Readers: Spam Filter May Capture Legitimate Comments...
40 Comments so far
Show AllHmmm... if only we had an immense ball of burning gas in the sky we could use.....
Obama will soon be gutting Social Security to free up more money for corporate welfare for the nuclear industry.
Obama will soon be gutting Social Security to free up more money for corporate welfare for the nuclear industry.
There is a spelling error in the title. Vermon should be Vermin.
Trylon
We don't need a carbon tax, a btu tax is more appropriate. But even more important, if you want a freer market, ALL energy subsidies need to go.
Bill--Let me first declare my biases. First, I favor local decentralized power solutions over the smart grid or any centralized system. The prototype of a fuel cell to store electricity genereated from solar paint systems is one idea, waste-heat recovery is another. Exxon, of all "people", is seriously into algae as biodiesel and in using current distribution systems to get it to the pump.
Second, there is something about a carbon tax that makes me think that this perversion we call our gov't will figure out a way to tax breathing. If Cap and Trade is used it will be the system put in place by Hank Paulson when he was at Goldman Sachs. If that doesn't speak for itself, I don't know what does.
The btu tax, applied across the board would include nuclear. I do not believe nuclear should be given a free ride here. Alternatives can be exempt for 5 years and new ones for five years when they become commercial.
If gov't subsidies went away, nuclear would disappear tomorrow. So would ethanol. If subsidies went away and current environmental regulations were actually enforced, the lowest cost would not necessarily be the dirtiest.
What about mercury emissions, 40% of which come from coal-fired power plants. If the gov't can't deal with this clearly dangerous emission, why do we want to create a whole new bureaucracy?
Bill- A loan guarantee is a subsidy and so is a law that limits liability. Thanks for the James Hanson reference. It would certainly be a system far better than cap and trade but see below for CO2 problem.
I don't know much physics so maybe it isn't a "fuel cell" that MIT is working on, just a storage system. I also think there are a lot more radioactive leaks into ground water than we know. There was a big one outside Chicago a few years ago that got a short news cycle and then disappeared. If they aren't shut down/seriously fined because of these things, that is also a subsidy.
The other thing to be mindful of regarding CO2 is that the forces of reaction are on the march and they deny so we can debate rather than act. Even Hanson recognizes the difficulty. To me, getting to a point of clean renewable energy is more important than "being right" about CO2. I learned this a long time ago from something Jacques Cousteau wrote. Just think how befuddled they'd be if, when they start denying, someone just said "who cares?" and talked about what we need and why (in other words, the start of an action plan) and then talked about the hows.
CASSANDRA: Good post.
No one has brought up the question of what will happen to this nuclear power plant if its current owners walk away. The spent fuels will remain radioactive ambushes for some time. Will citizens/taxpayers be left with the (literal) fall-out like those who reside in states the EPA has designated as top superfund toxic sites? Funds have been cut from this program. America is a nation with abundant wounds on display; notably in the form of its lopped off West Virginia Mountains, its abandoned mining operations left like lesions on the body of the Mother, and in its toxic Gulf of Mexico. Will nuclear hot spots add to the list of similar resource exploitative atrocities? The corporations skim off the easy profits and leave the clean-up to those left behind? Nice use of "free" enterprise.
As noted below, when funds fell below minimums, they got more time to make up the shortfall. It seems to me that any gov't support or postponement of a bill because once again we the people guarantee it is a subsidy.
But the other really big subsidy which I forgot about is the promise to dispose of the nuclear waste. The taxpayers are on the hook for billions and the bill gets bigger every day. I can't imagine one plant being competitive if they had to capitalize the cost of 10,000 years of storage.
Sorry, Bill. I know you are not some troll, just a person with a different perspective, and you certainly have more direct data based knowledge than most of us.
But it is simply not the government's job to take possession of the spent fuel. I have no idea what it actually costs to bury nuclear waste but the gov't made a commitment to do so based on some pie in the sky 50's futuristic fantasty that science and technology will solve all our problems. 50 years later, there is till no safe way to deal with large quantities of radioactive waste. And what a surprise--the gov't has backed off, although not legally and officially. Ultimately, the waste is the taxpayers' problem, that is if there are any taxpayers left. Then it simply becomes a problem for those who live near the waste or drink the groundwater into which it has leaked. As all other environmental disasters, eventually, the gov't takes charge and is never adequately reimbursed.
Then there is the political dimension. We have to go to war to keep Iran or North Korea from developing nuclear power because of the weapons connection. If we'd done the right thing from the start, this would not even be an issue. And I don't know what goals these countries have, but a model of clean, sustainable energy should be and should have been our focus. After all, we are the "Leaders of the World" and we all know the game is follow the leader.
For me, any way you look at it, nuclear power is a foolish place to allocate resources.
We need an emissions tax on all Strontium-90 production and on Cesium-137 production. These are waste products that we know statistically, will leak out and kill Americans, just as they have leaked routinely at Millstone and spectacularly at Three Mile Island.
We also need an emissions tax on Uranium ore waste tailings. Why isn't that stuff safely put back into the ground before the dust blows around?
Also, depleted Uranium is a toxic waste product of sorts. It's shipped to Iraq where thousands of our soldiers got sick from it. That's called blowback. Just for making the noxious stuff, we need a tax to help fund the VA that cares for the victims.
harvey wasserman
vermin yankee is good.
the warning about obama gutting social security is now spreading. he is gutting our energy future for nuke, which are as big a scam as the subprime mortgages industry.
today i was told by a "liberal" that he supports nukes because obama does. the industry now crows that obama has done more for nukes in 2 years than gwbush did in 8.
we are really up against it....but will ultimately prevail
I wouldn't think voters in Brattleboro would support eminent domain under most circumstances, and I can tell by the close vote ---- it's a close vote if you know Brattleboro ---- it wasn't an easy decision. (You may remember Brattleboro made news by voting to arrest Bush and/or Cheney for war crimes if they showed up.) Having lived within twenty miles of Vermont Yankee at one time, I understand how long overdue these decisions are.
Shumlin won by only a percent, I believe, and my guess is that corporate America is keeping a close eye on Vermont, therefore pumping money into the opposition. After all, the story is that Shumlin will support single-payer health insurance. I'm wishing I had never left.
Interesting that the nuclear industry points to France as a model, when even the French government hasn't convinced Europe it knows how to handle nuclear waste. Today there are protests in France and Germany as what some call "Chernobyl on Wheels" moves a train load originally from Germany then reprocessed in France and now on its way back to Germany. Last I heard the train had been rerouted.
I will state that I am not in favor of VT Yankee being re-licensed for 20 more leaky years.
VT Yankee new deal for VT is a higher price, less power staying in state and no talk about the money they have not put up for cleaning it up.
The new Gov. has said it clearly he dose not trust the owners.
BUT: I will predict that the feds or the courts will over ride the VT legislators who want it closed.
We have a modern American myth that the best way to handle dangerous enterprises is for the government to set up a quasi-public corporation, beholden to its own major stockholders, with the government taking on all the risk. This scheme didn't work with Fannie and Freddie. It should cost the taxpayers $200 billion or so.
We're giving "public" utilities monopoly power, letting big stockholders run things, and then the citizens take the risks of dying. Heads I win tails you lose. This is the worst possible mixture of public/private.
I don't guarantee that a government-run public corporation would do any better, because our government is corrupt as sin. Look at military contracting, for example. However, the government can (in theory) at least pursue goals that are for the public's good and not for maximizing sheer profit.
Funny, the pro nukes people always bring up France as an example to follow but when it comes to universal health care, not so much.
In 2000, Germany committed to moving away from nuclear and fossil fuels in favor of solar, wind, geothermal, biomass and other renewable energy sources. We never hear about that option in the US. Germany is closing down and phasing out its nuclear plants. Belgium and Spain are phasing out their nuclear plants in favor of renewable energy. Austria, Denmark, Greece, Ireland, Portugal and Norway have no nuclear plants and have legally restricted the building of nuclear plants. We never ever hear about them in the US, it's always France, France, France except when it comes to universal health care.
When in the name of fark will we do something that favors the people over corporations? Why do the farking corporations always get their way in this country? Callous predatory murderous mine owners buy judges and politicians as insurance. So when miners die, these thug CEOs never are prosecuted for murder, as they should be. Oh yeah, they buy politicians by the dozens. That was easy.
hasn't this governor-elect also campaigned on a state-wide universal public health care?
hasn't obama prohibited the states frou having their own public universal health care?
if i'm right on both accounts, it's something to watch closely!
2/3 of massachusetts would love to have a universal single payer, except the rest, one third that has moneyand power, of the state is too gainfully employed by medical mafia (pharmas, corporate hospitals, insurance, and sundry related programs) to let that happen. scottie brown is the monster out of that absurdity.
and as i heard, currently, the states are not allowed to have their own public single payer, though some states want to.
Curiousteve is right. As it stands now, the new healthcare bill prohibits states from pursuing single-payer. That provision was the final holdout for Representatives such as Kucinich or Weiner or Conyers, but they lost. California has passed single-payer three times, but the governor has vetoed. So we could have two states sometime in the near future, Vermont and California, in a huge states' rights battle with the current administration. When it pleases them to do so, the Tea Party is all about states' rights, but I can't see them helping out in this particular issue. In fact, this clause alone will provide the cover for Republicans caving on their promise to repeal the health care law. How they actually frame that argument escapes me ---- probably they will find another bit of "escape rhetoric." But they need the health care bill, legally, to prevent states from adopting single-payer.
Vermont, as I understand, is appealing to Congress to allow a waiver, giving the state the option of single payer health care.
As for Vermont Yankee, unlike the BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico caused in part by an aging blowout preventer, Vermont Yankee has had every ounce of use that can safely be extracted, and no more is worth the cost of a huge nuclear spill into the Connecticut River. This would impact Massachusetts, and Connecticut as well as Vermont and New Hampshire, and the ocean, including Long Island Sound. How horrendous the accident could be??? who knows, but trying to get a few more watts out of an old hulk is not at all worth the risk. We have to live within an energy budget,
and we should have started a long time ago.
i heard somewhere that vermont and some other states were making a move for their own statewide public single payer health care system, against the current one. i believe that's the way to go, as it's obvious that some states are dead set against a universal single payer. hopefully they will capitulate as soon as they see the see change in vermont and others progressive states, as happened in canada.
regarding vermin yankee, i'd bet it's more than a few more wattage that is at stake. my guess is, the vermins are trying to sandbag against potential legal fallouts and dump the cleanup cost to the public.
"Vermont Votes No Nukes"
I am so tired of reading bad news. This is great news. I look forward to the time when this will be the law of the land-"No Nukes"
I will call my representatives to ask why Americans do not have that on the voting ballot in every state. I wonder if all citizens of the U.S. would be as sane as the people of Vermont. I hope so
But my senator, Lamebrain Alexander, says nuclear energy is green energy. I am deeply conflicted.---MD