Reflections on Vermont Yankee - 3ANS Nuclear CafeJanuary 21, 2015, 7:00AM|ANS Nuclear CafeThis 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.----------Failure to Politically Engage - Howard Shaffer, PEA Republican State Senator, a supporter of Vermont Yankee said in the Senate , as quoted in the press, that [paraphrased]: If the opponents had invaded Entergy Vermont Yankee's Board, they could not have done a better job of defeating the plant than the plant did to itself. The senator was part of a debate over a vote that would block the State's Certificate of Public Good process and essentially force the plant to shut down.Unfortunately, Entergy Vermont Yankee carried through with the industry's error of misunderstanding the campaign against the plant as a technical and legal policy debate, as opposed to recognizing it for what it truly was-a bare knuckle political campaign.The utility did not do things it should have, and did do things to make the situation worse. "Due diligence" on the politics of Vermont had not been done. Here's a short list of the basic campaign rules that were violated: "All politics are local." - Tip O'Neil, former Speaker of the US House of Representatives. "A charge unanswered is a charge believed." - former US Senator Simpson of Wyoming. Decisions are made by those who show up. Know who your opponents are, as well as their backgrounds. Be the first to get negative information about you into the media. You get to define the issue, not your opponents. Use every means possible to reach the public. Explain technical issues in words the public uses. Do not use definitions of words created for the technology to finesse issues when testifying. It looks like you are trying to hide something. Recognize your situation. If you must legally report all negative information to regulatory agencies, know that your opponents will be waiting for it, in order to spin it their way. (See the fourth rule, above.) Recognize that a commitment of resources is needed to win. A tough campaign may require more than originally planned. Calculate the cost of losing before limiting resources. Full engagement during the campaign is better than trying to salvage defeat in court.________________________Howard Shaffer PE. 2001 ANS Congressional Fellow. Senior Systems Engineer, Public Speaker, Public Outreach, Startup Engineer, Submarine Engineer Officer. Coordinator ANS Vermont Grassroots Project.----------Vermont Yankee Shuts Down for Good - Dan YurmanA combination of "wholesale market flaws" and delusional granola politics combined to produce a squeeze play that forced Entergy to cease operations on 12/29/14 at the 602-MW boiling water reactor after 42 years of operation.The plant produced 72 percent of the electricity generated in the state. However, most of that electricity was sold throughout New England.Although the Nuclear Regulatory Commission had granted the reactor a 20 year extension on its license in 2011, until 2032, Entergy said that the high cost of operation combined with repeated attacks on it from a regulatory angle by the state of Vermont caused the utility to make the decision last August to close it 18 years early.Anti-nuclear sentiment may have also played a role, but it is questionable whether it was decisive in Entergy's view.Vermont's governor, Peter Shumlin, was elected in 2010 on a pledge to shut down the plant when its current license expired. He made unverifiable claims that Vermont, like Germany, could get 30 percent of its electricity from solar power. These off-the-wall statements played well to some Vermonters' "off-the-grid" lifestyle politics.The Vermont legislature and general public opinion were also stacked against the plant. And the business community from granola makers to famous ice cream manufacturers, whose own plants depended on electricity from the reactor, lined up at public meetings to attack it.Entergy, which is a Louisiana business, never got a sense of how to deal with New England greens. Visual props, such as the plant's partial collapse of a wooden structure for discharge of cooling water, provided endless opportunities for anti-nuclear groups to spin the public case against the plant. Never mind that the water wasn't radioactive and was permitted by the state of Vermont to be returned to the same river from which it came.In addition, record low prices for natural gas had an impact on the rate at which electricity from the plant could be sold into regional grids.Entergy said, "Wholesale market design flaws resulted in artificially low energy prices ... and do not provide adequate compensation to merchant nuclear plants for the fuel diversity benefits they provide."A translation of the investor language from Entergy is that it could not compete with the low gas prices, and there was no way to recover value, nor earn revenue, for the firm based on the carbon emission reductions it provided to the region.___________________Dan Yurman blogs at Neutron Bytes and is a former reporter for Fuel Cycle Week.Tags:bwrsvermont yankeeShare: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 - 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
Reflections on Vermont Yankee - 1Although 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.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 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
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
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