(Continuing the policy of promoting diaries from officeholders and officeseekers – promoted by odum)
GMD readers: I wanted to make sure my first of many posts during this campaign cycle, was an important one. Well this is about as important as it gets.
When it comes to Vermont's energy future, we need bold leadership. Today, I spoke out in newspapers throughout the state on Vermont Yankee. Montpelier needs an up-or-down vote now on the aging nuclear plant's future, so we can plan a responsible withdrawal in the two years left on its license. The two most important components of my decision were safety and jobs.
Every week it is a new safety issue. Today, it is the 40 NEW underground pipes containing radioactive material. What will it be tomorrow? Safety must be our first concern and that concern has grown tremendously for me.
But jobs and Vermont Yankee also go hand and hand. You can read in more detail about growing new, clean energy jobs in my opinion piece, but I am just as concerned about finding new jobs for the Vermonters and their communities that will be affected by the closure. Voting now lets us put the plans in motion to build jobs and an energy future without Vermont Yankee.
Speaking out in newspapers and on television is one thing. Making this vote happen is another.
You can also send this petition and my article to your friends and family. This kind of grassroots organizing is how we will make sure safety and jobs are a priority. It is also how I plan to win this race for governor!
There is NO reason to keep this plant running. It has clearly exceeded its safe operating life – as was expected when it was built. The idea of extending the license beyond its designed life-time was ludicrous to begin with, and now is being shown to be not simply ridiculous, but downright dangerous.
The owners have shown time after time that they have neither respect nor concern for the people of VT, NH, MA, or CT whose lives and health are on the line, should anything go wrong at the plant. They have shown that they will lie, then lie about lying, when caught red-handed, as long as they think they might be able to squeeze another dollar out of us to line their pockets.
Under the current plan, if the plant were relicensed, it would provide only 11% of the state’s electricity. If we simply swapped out all the incandescent light bulbs in the state for compact fluorescents, we’d be a good chunk of way to replacing VT Yankee’s energy without building anything new at all. Replace those bulbs with LEDs, and we’d be that much closer. Throw in some power strips and a little public education campaign to ensure that things like TVs, cable boxes, computers, and DVD players are turned all the way OFF when not in use, and we’d be able to kiss VT Yankee goodbye with a barely noticeable blip in our electric bills.
The plant is not needed, it is obsolete, it is unsafe, and its owners are greedy liars who don’t give one whit about the health or safety of the people of this state.
Let it go quietly to that great storage cask in the sky when its license expires in 2012…
Thanks for the comments folks. Already have 73 folks signed onto the petition!
Ms Markowitz is a very clever candidate. She demands a vote now, but does not in any way indicate how she would vote if she was in a position to do so. Very clever! And very old school political! Come on Debbie, tell us how you would vote. Do you want Yankee shut down? Do you want it to continue, but safely. Tell us what you would do. Your op-ed piece is remarkably similar to many put out by the Douglas administration. So folks, you want more Douglas, you now have two choices – Dubie or Markowitz.
Signed online and tweeted it.
A “no” vote probably has the perverse result that Entergy keeps operating under an NRC license. Remember the state is preempted from regulating a nuke based on radiological safety. Yet radiological safety is exactly the issue right now. A legislative debate on Yankee will be filled with discussion of that issue and it will feed right into an Entergy federal lawsuit to nullify Vermont’s statute and decision.
Deb, what will it take to shut this thing down? A mushroom cloud over Vermont? Entergy just wants to stick us with the clean-up costs of shutting this thing down and Douglas is on their side.