Despite all the best efforts of Entergy to keep a lid on the controversy over Vermont Yankee’s leaks-and-creaks, and to push through its bid for relicencing, it appears that, internationally speaking, the cat is out of the bag.
This, just in from the global giant of environmental activism, Greenpeace:
Greenpeace Crashes Entergy Shareholder Meeting to Deliver Message from Vermonters to Close Vermont Yankee
JACKSON, MS – Greenpeace today crashed Entergy’s annual shareholder meeting, demanding the company stop its
effort to overturn the Vermont Senate’s vote to deny re-licensing for the Vermont Yankee nuclear reactor.As Entergy executives delivered statements about company profits, Greenpeace activists delivered a letter from Vermonters
demanding that Entergy retire the reactor as scheduled in 2012. Entergy shareholders, upper management, and board members
were presented with the open letter at their lunch tables, which is available at: http://www.greenpeace.org/usa/…
“Entergy’s effort to overturn the Senate’s denial of a certificate of public good are in vain. Vermont Yankee is an aging and dangerous
nuclear reactor that will not be a part of this state’s energy future,” said Jarred Cobb, Greenpeace Organizer in Vermont. “Vermonters
are sick of Entergy’s leaks and lies, and are committed to closing this reactor.”The Vermont Senate voted on February 24 of this year to deny an extension of a certificate of public good for Vermont Yankee
to operate past its scheduled retirement date in 2012. The decision was 26-4, and overwhelmingly rejected Entergy’s push to extend
the license of the 40-year-old reactor. Vermont Yankee employees are under investigation for lying under oath, and it took the
company months to find and stop a leak of radioactive tritium.
The bottom line on VT Yankee revolves around the hundreds of millions of dollars in the plant retirement fund.
In my opinion Entergy has always been looking for a way to legally absorb them while foisting the complete retirement costs onto the Vermont public.
Look for them to continue with delaying actions to build the fund up even more… especially since the total funds to date are little more than 1/2 the projected actual costs to retire VY.
It will be interesting to see how close they can come to trumping our state senate’s vote to not renew.
Also… the real driver behind the Obama Administrations’ push to build one or two new nuclear facilities is the fact that constructing one costs around 4 to 8 billion dollars.
As they say in Congress… “That’s real money!”
And real money is a huge driver in our current corporate contributions = free speech economy & political landscape.
I remember thinking that Greenpeace’s tactics were confrontational and ineffective back in the ’70s, and they still are.
Governor Douglas has gotten away with screwing the state on energy (No wind, no CT river hydro, Yes VT Yankee), while getting a medal from “green” HydroQuebec.
Meanwhile, Dubie has the edge in the coming race, while still hiding under his rock.
Nationally, the right gets traction blaming the anti-Wall Streeters for Wall Street’s failure, and blaming environmentalists for our energy failures.
Someone’s missing something important when that happens!
It’s not enough to dissent. The other side loves the way we dissent.
We need to reach more people. We need a better message, delivered better.
We need to succeed, not just be loud!