Last week Governor Douglas stated that Entergy must shake-up its management at Vermont Yankee if it were to restore trust .It was also noted that Wayne Leonard CEO of Entergy pointedly didn’t take the time to return the governor’s phone call.
Late yesterday a clear two part message did arrive for Vermont from the head of Entergy.
Part one: A top executive whose name CEO Leonard reportedly refused to utter, but who is known to have been Jay Thayer was disappeared, eh …placed on administrative leave.
Part two:Times Argus
Leonard told the analysts Vermont Yankee was not profitable, not "covering" its capital costs, and was projected to lose money over the next two years. …"It is a terrific plant. It would be a great loss to society as a whole to shut that plant down, but from a financial standpoint without some changes for Entergy it wouldn't make much difference in the bottom line," Leonard said, according to a transcript of the telephone conference call, explaining the need for a new power contract with utilities.
Its kind of the verbal equivalent of a letter with words cut from magazines and pasted onto a sheet of paper, a blackmail note message .
It almost yells out, We don’t really need this plant! Alright Vermont put our extended license and a long-term power contract in a briefcase and leave it in New Orleans or we close this plant, take our 650 jobs, our electricity and go home. We mean it Vermont, Governor?
Regarding finding the radioactive leak’s source CEO Leonard did take the time to note briefly they had “very good leads” and "We're narrowing it down pretty quickly," he said, according to transcripts of the conference call.
Do you get the feeling Entergy thinks Vermont is just a bunch of expendable hicks? I do.
If Vermont Yankee is losing money, it means
1. electricity from VY will be expensive in the future because of the high costs of operation, and
2. Enexus will be even weaker financially than we thought before, and
It’s always about money and earnings when dealing with a for-profit corporation like Entergy.
What they’ve always had their eyes on are those hundreds of millions of dollars set aside to retire VT Yankee…. something to raid perhaps right before declaring bankruptcy, while leaving the VT taxpayers holding the bag.
What we need is a national non-profit corporation to manage all of the existing nuclear facilities with a Safety First mandate.
And the Administration should put aside money on effective R&D to solve the nuclear waste issue… not simply another safer Yucca Mountain storage facility.
This is a worthy moonshot goal that is the tip of a deadly iceberg.