Reflections on Vermont Yankee - 1ANS Nuclear CafeJanuary 19, 2015, 8:30PM|ANS Nuclear CafeAlthough the nuclear power station known as Vermont Yankee had another 18 years left on its license, it was shut down for economic reasons at the end of 2014. Entergy Corporation,the plant's owner, and others have cited the low price of natural gas in the region as deterministic, but the reality is that many other issues were also at play.Seven authors-who have no official connection to Vermont Yankee, or to Entergy-have provided their opinions on the shutdown of the plant, its implications for the region, and possible implications for other nuclear plants in other areas of the country. This is the first of three posts presenting these opinions.----------The Price Is Not the Lesson - Meredith AngwinVermont Yankee was a small stand-alone plant (620 MW), exactly the type of plant which has the highest costs per kWH produced. So, when natural gas prices dropped to lowest prices in years, the plant was closed because it wasn't economical to keep it open. That's the agreed-upon story, anyway.By saying "economics," Entergy (the owner of Vermont Yankee) can claim it never yielded to opponent pressures or pressures from the state government. With "economics" as the reason, opponents can claim that they opposed the plant, but that they didn't shut it down. Opponents can say that the pain of layoffs cannot be laid at their door: "It's just economics."In other words, the story that the "plant shut for purely economic reasons" is a story that works for all the participants in the battle. However, this story is not a future guide for the nuclear industry. All plants can eventually be "uneconomical" if the opponents are determined enough to make them so.When the state of Vermont tried to block Vermont Yankee's 20-year license extension, Entergy took them to federal court (and won) costing them millions of dollars in attorneys' fees.The opposition legislators continued to hit Entergy in the pocketbook, making sure that Vermont Yankee faced many new Vermont taxes. "Generation Taxes" suddenly spiked to $12 million a year. The state of Vermont wanted Entergy to pay $770,000 to the Red Cross to prepare to shelter 6,000 people just in case there was ever an evacuation. Entergy knew that there would be no end to arbitrary taxation by the state of Vermont.In my opinion, the lesson for the nuclear industry is that we must be engaged and working at the local level. We must oppose anti-nuclear activists with our own local groups and local supporters. Not everything is decided in Washington, D.C. We need local boots-on-the-ground. The plants have economic challenges, but many of their challenges are local, and political. That is the true lesson of Vermont Yankee.Meredith Angwin blogs at Yes Vermont Yankee. Among nuclear bloggers who have their own blogs, Angwin has been has been closest to the action involving the plant over the past five years.Vermont Yankee's owner, Entergy, says the unit's closure is because natural gas prices have plummeted and its generated power is no longer economically viable. I don't believe this is the main reason for termination. In my opinion, the economic rationale is a smoke screen for an unspoken, over-riding reason.Vermont Yankee has been under a socio-political attack for decades. I think that Louisiana-based Entergy no longer had the heart to continue countering what seemed to be a never-ending plethora of contrived political and pseudo-legal challenges.Vermont Yankee is a geographical outlier, and it is not improbable that Entergy has tired of managing its far-distant social, political, and cultural problem child.In addition, the current market for selling electricity makes gas generation more profitable than Vermont Yankee. However, permanently closing it assumes that the financial advantage with gas will always be the case.This is a naïve notion. The only true constant in the energy market is change-itself. Closure of Vermont Yankee shows that Entergy has not adequately considered this undeniable truth._____________________________________________________Leslie Corrice has two blogs at the Hiroshima Syndrome website (Fukushima Updates and Fukushima Commentary) and is author of two E-books concerning the Fukushima accident.Tags:bwrsvermont yankeeview from vermontShare:LinkedInTwitterFacebook
Elk River - Rural America's First Atomic Power Plant Elk River Generating Station, Rural Cooperative Power Association, Elk River, Minnesota.The Elk River reactor, as it was generally known in the AEC parlance of the day, was a pioneering effort in America's nuclear energy history. Hailed widely as "Rural America's first atomic power plant," the intention was to provide a pilot installation of a small, simple, and inexpensive nuclear steam supply system that could be duplicated at many far flung locations. Unfortunately for the concept, the Elk River plant in the end proved unable to meet the task for technical reasons; yet, it remains firmly in history as one of the well known early nuclear energy installations. What follows is a brief history of the project and its major players.Go to Article
Nuclear Energy for Puerto Rico BONUS nuclear plant as it appears today (Photo courtesy US DOE)Among the many different reactor concepts being investigated in the late 1950s and early 1960s was the idea that the steam produced by a boiling water reactor, which normally goes straight to the turbine building, could be superheated (or have further heat added once it was already steam) by nuclear energy. This would greatly increase the efficiency of the plant, as well as make dry steam at a high pressure that would allow the use of (less expensive) commercially available equipment in the steam plant. Two reactors were built to investigate the idea of performing both processes in essentially the same reactor-one in South Dakota and (perhaps incredibly to today's readers) another of a very different design on the island of Puerto Rico.Go to Article
DTE Energy to receive COL for Fermi-3Yesterday, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission announced that its commissioners had approved the award of a Construction and Operating License (COL) for DTE Energy's prospective Fermi Unit 3, to be built on the site of the existing Fermi-2 near Detroit, Mich. The COL will also notably be the first for the GE Hitachi ESBWR, or "Economic Simplified Boiling Water Reactor," a Gen-III+ nuclear plant with passive safety.Go to Article
Reflections on Vermont Yankee - 3This is the last of the three-part series presenting the opinions of nuclear industry experts on the closing of Vermont Yankee. Thank you to Dan Yurman for helping to coordinate all of the authors/articles in this three-part series.Go to Article
Reflections on Vermont Yankee - 2This is the second of three posts presenting the professional opinions of experts in the nuclear field on the Yankee Vermont closing.Go to Article
Another Nuclear Design Approved by the NRC• This week the GE-Hitachi ESBWR design received its Design Certification from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.Go to Article
The Latest Sop to Nuclear OpponentsVermont Yankee will go into decommissioning at the end of its current fuel cycle. The last day of operation for the nuclear plant is now set for December 29, 2014. Entergy, the owner, elected this course last year after financial analysis indicated the plant's unprofitability in a future of projected low natural gas prices.Go to Article
The Final Entrant - Last Nuclear Utility in Japan Applies for Restart Shika NPP Unit 2. Courtesy Hokuriku Electric Power Co.Yesterday, the saga of nuclear energy in post-Fukushima Japan reached an important milestone as the final utility that owns nuclear power plants in that country applied to the regulator for restart, in an event that snuck under the radar of most news venues.Go to Article
Pathfinder: A Path Not Taken Pathfinder Atomic Power Plant. Press photo, Will Davis collection.The recent U.S. Environmental Protection Agency announcement of policy regarding carbon emissions from power plants has triggered a renewed interest in nuclear energy over the past few weeks; along with this of course comes a focus on small modular reactors (SMRs) and their availability for replacing existing fossil-fueled plants or facilities. We have discussed this topic here at ANS Nuclear Cafe before, in terms of the possibility of adding an SMR onto an existing facility-see "The Hook-Ons."Go to Article
A CAN-CAN Dance around Vermont Yankee DecommissioningOur Sierra Club local chapter recently sponsored a joint presentation-by two local anti-nuclear groups. A small audience of attendees heard of the horrors that citizens might expect during Vermont Yankee's upcoming decommissioning. The presenters claimed that their participation in decommissioning will be needed to insure that all goes well because Entergy, and the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission, can't be trusted. Included as usual was a litany of things about to go wrong-all caused by nuclear power!Go to Article