The current crumbling fleet of nuclear power plants demonstrate how the current version of nuclear power is not a sane and safe climate solution. No facility shows this more clearly than the Vermont Yankee nuclear power plant.
Responding to CLF’s requests, the Vermont Public Service Board (PSB) issued an order opening an investigation into whether Vermont Yankee should be shut down immediately, in light of continuing radiation leaks at the facility. The investigation will also consider whether Entergy’s license to operate the plant should be revoked or any penalties should be imposed for violations of Vermont law. (See the Order at pg. 9). A prehearing conference is scheduled for March 10, 2010 at the Public Service Board in Montpelier.
This news follows Wednesday’s historic decision by the Vermont State Senate not to extend the plant’s license beyond 2012. As they reaffirmed on page 6 of the order the VT PSB has the authority to take action – including a shut down – when a nuclear power facility in its jurisdiction is improperly managed.
CLF Senior Attorney Sandra Levine said it best: “Wednesday’s Senate vote was a positive step toward putting this aging facility out of its misery, but it did not address the immediate problem: Vermont Yankee is continuing to leak radiation with impunity. We commend the Public Service Board for stepping up to hold Vermont Yankee accountable for its actions. The plant is not being managed responsibly. It should be shut down.”
Sally Shaw
Immediate shutdown is necessary to stop the outrageous insult to VT’s groundwater resources and the Connecticut River. But will the PSB act immediately, or only after more months of hearings? Can CLF hasten the verdict by filing for an injunction in the state court system?
Rod Adams
Is it remotely possible that CLF’s push to shut down Vermont Yankee has something to do with the work that CLF Ventures, Inc. does for competitive energy sources like the AES Corporation’s 750 MWe combined cycle natural gas power plant in Londonderry, NH (http://www.clfventures.org/practice_aes.htm) or the Aroostook Wind 500 MWe facility in northern Maine (http://www.clfventures.org/practice_wind.html)?
Of course, it is entirely possible that these competitive ventures have nothing at all to do with efforts to remove 620 MWe of reliable, emission free electricity from the New England power grid. I am sure that CLF has completely divorced itself from the knowledge of the impact of the balance between supply and demand and the impact of that balance on the profitability of client projects.
The tritium that has been measured at Vermont Yankee is an exceedingly small quantity. A person could drink water at 80,000 picocuries per liter for an entire year and only accumulate a radiation dose of 16 mrem, which is quite a bit lower than the normal background radiation dose in the US of 350 mrem. No tritium has been measured in the CT River, which means it is not there. (Radioactive material is very easy to detect at levels that approach single atoms.)
Natural gas drilling in the Marcellus has the potential for releasing FAR more radioactive material to the environment than the small leaks found at VY.
Rod Adams
Publisher, Atomic Insights.
Sally Shaw
Mr. Adams is mistaken about the risk from drinking tritiated water at 4 X the maximum contaminant level set by the EPA. Dose calculations alone don’t predict cancer risk. The National Academy of Sciences BEIR VII report showed that risk is linear down to the lowest possible dose, there is no threshold below which there is no risk of a fatal cancer, and women and children are far more vulnerable to the effects of ionizing radiation than Reference Man on whom the standards are based. The fetus is even more vulnerable than women and children and Tritiated water, being indistinguishable by the body from regular water, is likely to bathe the fetus at the time when it’s cells are rapidly dividing. This is well documented and known to lead to birth defects, childhood cancers like leukemia, and brain cancers. But surely you know that, as well as you know that CLF does not have a profit motive here. To suggest otherwise is extremely cynical.
Seth Kaplan
This requires a much more in-depth response about tritium as well as the relative hazards posed by the plant and about the relationship between CLF and CLF Ventures (our affiliate that does the work that Mr. Adams describes).
The observation about the potential issues raised by “fracking” and shale formations is a good point that our allies in New York and Pennsylvania are wrestling with.
However, I would just observe that neither CLF or CLF Ventures has had any relationship with AES for nearly a decade. The Londonderry plant was a good project in terms of putting lower carbon generation in place but it was undertaken at a very different time and our efforts are now focused on ZERO carbon solutions. But most fundamentally, I would just note that Mr. Adams has a time sequence backwards – CLF and its affiliates are willing to work with wind developers because of our principles and positions shaped by the absolute need to drastically reduce our greenhouse gas emissions, we don’t take positions because of that engagement.
Old and crumbling nuclear power plants like Vemont Yankee simply don’t cut it as a sustainable and long-term climate solution.
Rod Adams
Sally – as you said in your comment, the widely accepted model of hazard from radiation doses is that the risk is proportional to the dose all the way down to the point of zero dose – which means that there is never a zero risk from any dose.
However, my point about very small doses implying very small risk is quite true, especially since there is no such thing as a zero dose. The normal background radiation dose in the US is about 350 mrem per year, but there are wide variations in that dose, with some people getting just a couple of hundred mrem and others getting as many as a few thousand millirem depending on where they live, where they work – granite is a common source of exposure – and what they do for recreation – flying also increases doses.
When it comes to competitive energy sources like coal, oil and natural gas, there are radiation impacts on the human environment that exceed, often by several orders of magnitude, the radiation that is allowed to leave a nuclear plant.
That tritium that has been so widely discussed never left the Vermont Yankee plant boundaries. It is very easy to detect at exceedingly low levels; if it had been found outside the boundaries I am sure that Arnie Gundersen would have let everyone know. After all, he is getting paid about $300 per hour for supplying as much negative information about VY as he can find. That is pretty good compensation for a guy who was once a nuclear engineer but then entered into the teaching profession.
Yes – there is money involved in this discussion. CLF may not have a “profit motive” but I am certain that their employees like getting paid on a regular basis. “Non-profit” does not equate to “no money”.
Sally Shaw
Rod, you fail to understand that Entergy does not own the groundwater under the reactor site, the people of Vermont do. It is a public trust resource. Entergy does not own the Connecticut River, into which THEY CLAIM in many documents to the NRC that their tritium is running, the people of America do, as it is a navigable river and a public trust resource. Alice Stewart showed decades ago that natural background radiation (which is more like 100mrem than 350–that latter number includes accumulated man-made routine radioactive contamination from nuke plants, nuke mining, nuke weapons testing and use in the form of DU–and early studies of the VY site before the nuke was built showed a natural background of about 70mrem), anyway, Stewart showed that natural background radiation was enough in itself to cause many child cancers. She showed in a huge study of all the child cancer cases in Britain back in the 50′s and maybe early 60′s that there was no sane rationale for intentionally adding to children’s body burden of cancer-causing radiation, unless of course you have something against children. Given all the facts, society sometimes chooses to accept risks in exchange for benefits. But in this case, VT does not need the power, there is an overabundance of cheap power on the grid already and more renewable energy coming on every day. And the people of Vermont are NOT being told the truth by Entergy or NRC or the VT Dept . of Health about the harms of radiation exposure. They are being intentionally confused by people who know better than to equate “safe” levels of exposure with the “maximum CONTAMINANT level” of 20,000 pCi/L that is set by the EPA. Children, as you know, are many times more harmed by the same exposure to radiation as adults. The fetus cannot tolerate radioactive assault at all, nor can any well-informed and sane parent. And the lone voice of Arnie Gundersen I would trust far sooner than all the “independent” highly paid law firms usually retained by Entergy to absolve them of any responsibility for anything.