VERMONT YANKEE IS CLOSING!
Entergy has announced that Vermont Yankee will close next year, at the end of the current fuel cycle.
[SYS-CON Media]
Posts Tagged ‘Vermont Yankee’
SPECIAL ENTRY FOR AUGUST 27
August 27, 2013September 17 Energy News
September 17, 2012News not in mainstream media:
¶ Six US nuclear reactors were shut down over the weekend. Three of these did so unexpectedly. Additionally, one that was down for refueling had problems found with the reactor head. The current status is that 15 US reactors are not generating. [US Nuclear Power Report]
World:
¶ According to Oxfam, European biofuel targets will cost drivers more and cause starvation in poor countries. [Telegraph.co.uk]
¶ The UK will soon be importing electrical power from Ireland, through a transmissions system linking the two countries. Ireland is projected to produce much more wind power than it will consume, and will help the UK meet its energy goals. [H&V News]
¶ A Solar electric system funded by New Zealand Aid and installed by engineering students from the University of Canterbury, makes electrical power reliable enough in Tonga for students to use computers. [Radio New Zealand International]
¶ A building under construction in Germany is set to provide the first real-life test for a bio-reactive façade. The system uses live micro-algae growing in glass louvers both to provide shade. The algae are harvested for biomass. [Architecture and Design]
US:
¶ Solar installations in the US are being led by major retail chains to provide for local operations. The chains, motivated largely to save expenses, include Walgreens, Walmart, Costco, Kohl’s, Bed Bath & Beyond, Ikea, and Staples. They are installing solar power in all states. [Kitsap Peninsula Business Journal]
¶ Seismic activity has returned at the Bayou Corne sinkhole. Drillers have hit gas pockets at depths as small as 50 to 90 feet. There is fear that natural gas is escaping into the Mississippi River Alluvial Aquifer, as there are 51 oil and gas-related caverns in the 1-mile by 2-mile salt dome storage facility. [Examiner.com]
¶ Protesters took to boats on the Connecticut River to protest Vermont Yankee’s thermal pollution. The waste thermal energy VY gives off is sufficient to heat every home in Vermont, and most of it winds up in the river, where it kills fish and other aquatic life. [Brattleboro Reformer]
¶ Subsidies for renewable energy are changing. Some have expired, and some are coming to an end, unless they are to be extended. Some have been extended. They exist at all levels of government, and [Wall Street Journal]
August 18 Energy News
August 18, 2012Technology:
¶ IBM has a new thin-film PV technology that can be printed or cast, is made of such common elements as copper, zinc, and tin, and has a 11.1% solar-to-electric power conversion efficiency, setting a new record. [eWeek]
Japan:
¶ National policy minister Motohisa Furukawa said that none of the reactors at Fukushima Daiichi and Fukushima Daini should ever be restarted. [The Japan Times]
¶ A number of large solar projects are planned for the Chubu Region of Japan. [The Japan Times]
World:
¶ The International Atomic Energy Agency said it has made “significant progress” in a number of key areas of its 12 point Action Plan on Nuclear Safety, which was begun after the Fukushima Disaster. [World Nuclear News]
¶ China increased its wind-generated capacity by over 50 gigawatts in the last year. The increase in capacity has averaged 87% each year for the last six years. [RenewableEnergyWorld.com]
US:
¶ Commissioner Liz Miller of the Vermont Department of Public Service is asking the NRC to look into a series of problems at Vermont Yankee. [Boston.com]
¶ Three environmental groups, Beyond Nuclear, Seacoast Anti-Pollution League and the New Hampshire Chapter of the Sierra Club filed suit against the NRC over relicensing at Seabrook. [Seacoastonline.com]
¶ New legislation would enable $50 billion in bonds to be raised for green energy. [SustainableBusiness.com]
¶ New York Governor Cuomo signed legislation promoting solar energy in his state. [PennEnergy]
July 27 Energy News
July 27, 2012Technology:
¶ Researchers have found technology that may make it possible to produce photovoltaic cells form virtually any semiconductor, without doping. The cells would have low cost and be highly efficient. [Electronics News]
Japan:
¶ Hokuriku Electric Power Co. has submitted plans to tunnel under a reactor at its Shika nuclear power plant to investigate a fault. Separately, it has confirmed that one of the reactors at the plant has had several tons of seawater leak into its pressure vessel, causing extensive corrosion. [The Japan Times]
World:
¶ A Malaysian project addresses poverty in a sustainable and comfortable “smart village.” The village produces both energy and food of its own. [CNN]
¶ In Zimbabwe, solar power makes it possible to cut the electric bill, lower carbon emissions, and take a bath in the cold of winter. [AllAfrica]
¶ In Germany, 26% of electricity supplied in the first half of 2012 was from renewable sources. The “alternative energy” portion of production rose from 3.8% to 22% in ten years. [Clean Technica]
US:
¶ The Vermont Public Service board has denied requests from the Windham Regional Council and the New England Coalition in the case on the Certificate of Public Good for Vermont Yankee. [Brattleboro Reformer]
¶ The US House of Representatives passed a bill that prevents the NRC from taking any “significant regulatory action” until unemployment drops below six percent. [Las Vegas Sun]
¶ Vermont Yankee accidentally drained 2500 gallons of water from its spent fuel pool into a wastewater system. [vtdigger.org]
July 14 Energy News
July 14, 2012Technology:
¶ GE is building a factory for a new battery it says can balance grid loads. [The Green Optimistic]
Japan:
¶ The new Japanese nuclear regulatory agency will disclose documents so citizens do not need to request them. Records will be kept at meetings and made public. [The Japan Times]
¶ After calling a restart of the reactors at Niigata vital, the chairman of TEPCO has come to admit the restart faces trouble. [Asahi Shimbun]
¶ Barriers and buses blocked the way, but the 16th consecutive Friday protest of nuclear power in Tokyo was well attended. [Wall Street Journal]
World:
¶ Regulatory capture of nuclear regulatory agencies is a global problem. [Huffington Post]
¶ The UK is taking title of four tonnes of German plutonium in the country for processing, and giving ownership of an equal amount to France in a title transfer. This means shipping is not needed, and security is enhanced. [World Nuclear News]
US:
¶ Entergy has developed a plan that it believes will convince Vermont the deep bedrock ground water under VY is safe, and so has agreed to resume testing of a well. [Brattleboro Reformer]
¶ The NRC is one of several US government agencies that will be offering retirement incentives to trim its workforce. [Government Executive]
July 2 Energy News
July 2, 2012Japan;
¶ The Unit 3 reactor has been restarted at Ohi. Demonstrators at the site are described as raucous. [CNN]
¶ As time passed, and rain fell, hundreds of protesters remained, blocking the road to the Ohi reactors. Residents of Ohi generally were not protesting, as most of the people in the town are employed or otherwise subsidized by the owner of the plant. [The Japan Times]
¶ Demand for electricity for the month of June fell 4.1% from 2011 to 2012. [Reuters Africa]
¶ KEPCO, owner of the Ohi plant, also restarted a mothballed oil powered plant this weekend. [Reuters]
¶ Masayoshi Son, CEO of SoftBank Corp., is keeping a commitment that his company would build at least 10 renewable power facilities with a combined capacity of more than 200 megawatts. He contrasts his company’s actions with those of politicians who fail to keep their commitments. [Wall Street Journal]
US:
¶ There were about three hundred protesters at the VY gate. Forty entered the grounds and were arrested. [Rutland Herald]
¶ Locked out workers at Pilgrim are losing health care benefits. [Boston Herald]
¶ As government incentives disappear, installations of solar power systems decline, but not by much. The lack of incentives has been made up for by a decline in prices. [knoxvillebiz]
¶ Public Service of New Mexico is adding geothermal generating to its power portfolio. [REVE]
June 20 Energy News
June 20, 2012A quote for today:
“By telling the naked emperor to go get dressed, the Court has delivered an overdue rebuke to the NRC’s bad habit of pushing for the nuclear power plants while postponing the problems, as we now know the Japanese to have done at Fukushima. It’s hard to see how federal and state officials can justify putting more taxpayer or customer money at risk on new reactor projects until this situation is resolved.” Former NRC Commissioner, Peter Bradford [International Business Times]
Technology:
¶ Scientists and regulators are trying to figure out what to do about the potential for solar storms to disrupt nuclear plants, the electric grid, communications, and so on. [AOL Energy]
Japan:
¶ TEPCO’s report on the disaster has been announced by the chairman of the committee drafting it. According to CNN, it draws the stunningly obvious conclusion that TEPCO was not prepared for what happened. [CNN]
¶ Industry minister Edano has apologized for the fact that the Japanese government failed to use radiation maps supplied by the US during the disaster, with the result that evacuees were put in the path of fallout. [Business Recorder]
World:
¶ Solar panels are reducing Australia’s mains electricity consumption. [Eco-Business]
US:
¶ According to the US DOE’s National Renewable Energy Laboratory, current renewable technology could supply 80% of the electrical power in the United States by 2050, but government agencies grossly underestimate the apparently exponential growth in renewables. [Washington Post]
¶ A protest is planned for July 1, in which anti-nuclear activists plan to swarm the gates at Vermont Yankee. [Valley Advocate]
¶ Workers at the Pilgrim plant will vote on a new contract. [Boston Globe]
¶ A total of 174 MW of solar panels were installed in New Jersey during the first three months of 2012. [NJ Spotlight]
June 19 Energy News
June 19, 2012Japan:
¶ Closing down all fifty nuclear plants in Japan would result in a loss to Japanes utilities of ¥4.4 trillion ($55 billion). [The Japan Times]
¶ The Japanese Nuclear and Industrial Safety Administration has admitted it was negligent and is apologizing for shoddy management. [The Asahi Shimbun]
US:
¶ The Vermont Yankee nuclear plant is running at 36% of permitted power because of a problem that produced smoke in the reactor building. An Entergy spokesman said they did not know what the cause was, but they did know it had nothing to do with safety. [Keene Sentinel]
¶ The Massachusetts Attorney General is appealing the Pilgrim license renewal, saying the NRC abused its discretion in issuing the license without considering the Fukushima Disaster. [Fox News Boston]
¶ The NRC has determined that the problem at San Onofre stems from design flaws and says it is not possible to know whether one or more of the steam generators needs to be replaced. The flaws are said to have resulted from bad computer modeling. [Newser]
¶ The 24 groups and individuals, including the New England Coalition on Nuclear Pollution, have joined to file a petition to stop the NRC from licensing or relicensing plants until the waste issue is resolved. [Clean Energy News]
¶ San Diego Gas & Electric has completed a 500 kV transmission line to link a solar farm in the Imperial Valley to San Diego. [Utilities Network]
June 12 Energy News
June 12, 2012Japan:
Prime Minister Noda is telling the people the Oi reactors need to be restarted, and others as well. He wants the ones that can’t be restarted to be replaced with new nuclear reactors. [Article at theenergycollective]
Fifteen months after the disaster, the Wall Street Journal’s Japan Realtime is starting a column called “Fukushima Watch,” which it says is intended to better served those who are “obsessed” by the matter. [Article in the WSJ’s Japan Realtime]
World:
According to some pundits, now is the time to invest in nuclear power, because investors fled after Fukushima, driving down stock prices. They say the future of nuclear is the brightest of any form of energy. [Article in Wall Street Daily]
Worldwide investment in renewable energy was $257 billion in 2011. [Article in Fuel Fix]
The International Energy Agency is calling for $23.9 trillion in spending on clean energy by 2020, and $140 trillion by 2050. [Article in AlertNet]
Is it possible to raise enough money to meet the demand?
The Indian parliament has never debated nuclear power, and so the issue is entirely dependent on the prime minister, who is directly in control of the Department of Atomic Energy. [Article at CounterCurrents]
US:
In a 2007 interview, Allison Macfarlane said the nuclear industry could not grow without subsidies. Now she is nominated to Chair the NRC. [Article in Business Week]
Industry leaders are backing away from coal. [Article in FierceEnergy]
The National Conference of State Legislatures is filing papers in support of Vermont’s appeal of the ruling by Judge Murtha of the U.S. District Court in Brattleboro. [Article at CBSNews]
Duke Energy and Sumitomo have announced completion of a 131 MW wind farm in Kansas. [Article in REVE]
The appeals court ruling saying the government could not grant licenses until waste management has been cleared up could give the state a basis for refusing the Certificate of Public Good to Vermont Yankee. [Article in VTDigger]
June 10 News
June 10, 2012US:
A Duke Energy wind farm will soon house a 36 MW storage battery. [Article in OA Online]
Opinion:
Johnny Johnson, Prairie Island tribal council president, spoke to the press about a decision made by an appeals court on Friday. The decision instructed the NRC to review its practice of allowing in situ long-term nuclear waste storage. He said, “Today’s court decision is a strong signal to the federal government that rather than avoiding its responsibility and looking for ways to legalize long-term radioactive storage at temporary sites, the federal government needs to comply with the law to build a permanent repository and remove nuclear waste from Prairie Island.” The Federal Government needs to obey the law! Wow! The Federal Government needs to accept its responsibilities! Bravo!
The quote appears in an article in the Post-Bulletin, of Rochester, Minnesota.
Here, in New England, we have a lot of groups of people working to bring some sanity to the use of nuclear power. The New England Coalition (NEC) puts efforts into legal and legislative battles, and is among those who represent science based sanity before public boards and the NRC. The NEC has also provided legal and technical support to the states of Maine, Massachusetts, Vermont, New York and New Jersey, including support helping produce Friday’s court decision. Pilgrim Watch has worked tirelessly in court and before the NRC to close the Pilgrim nuclear plant. Many other groups, such as the Citizens Awareness Network, and Safe and Green, have worked to increase awareness among the public of the dangers they face for the sake of the profits of corporate owners and managers.
Johnny Johnson has eloquently reminded me once again that we are all in this together. Vermont Yankee, Pilgrim, and Indian Point take up much of my attention. Fukushima gives me bad dreams. But there are groups fighting the same fight in Minnesota, and, indeed, all over the world. Johnny Johnson has reminded me of the eternal and cosmopolitan nature of valuing responsibility and lawfulness, which our government and corporate leaders seem to have forgotten.
June 8 News
June 8, 2012Technology:
A new study shows increases of probability of cancer for children who have CT scans. [Article at CNN]
Japan:
Prime Minister Noda says it is necessary to restart the two reactors at Oi, a decision expected to be confirmed by the cabinet, but opposed by the Governor of Fukui Prefecture, who has some say in the matter. [Article in the Climate Spectator]
A former Japanese ambassador said in an interview on the situation at Fukushima that the situation there is gravely dangerous. [Article at PanOrient News]
The Japanese Prime Minister will have extraordinary authority during any nuclear crisis in the future. [Article at Daily Yomiuri Online]
An executive at Tokyo Gas is predicting a 50% cut in the use of nuclear power for the future. [Article in The Japan Times]
Crews entered the rooms housing the suppression chambers of units 2 and 3 for the first time since the disaster, looking for the sources of leaks, but were unable to find any. [Article in RTT News]
World:
The International Renewable Energy Agency has released two reports, one dealing with the socio-economic impact of renewable energy, and the other dealing with employment prospects of the renewable sector.
US:
Engineers found a coolant leak at Davis-Besse as the reactor was being readied to start up after refuelling. [Article at Cleveland.com]
San Onofre will probably be offline until at least the end of summer. [Article in the Los Angeles Times]
The NRC will hold public meetings on San Onofre. [Article in the Los Angeles Times]
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