The NRC has voted to renew Vermont Yankee’s operating license. Frustrating, sure, but nobody seriously entertained the possibility that it would go any other way. The big fight will come with Entergy’s court challenge to the Vermont legislature’s power to regulate the licensing itself.
Here’s the to-the-point statement from Vermont’s Washington delegation on the relicensing:
“It should surprise no one that the Nuclear Regulatory Commission has voted to extend Vermont Yankee’s license for another 20 years. The NRC has never denied a nuclear plant an extension, and in fact has granted 62 straight license extensions. We believe that Entergy should respect and abide by Vermont’s laws, which require approval from the Vermont Legislature, and then the Vermont Public Service Board, for the plant to continue to operate beyond 2012.”
whether or not their license is renewed has nothing to do with their right to operate in the State of Vermont.
Solidarity amplifies their individual voices and, by extension, our own.
No big surprise — especially after pressure from Republicans– that the NRC approved the license extension.
As an NEC trustee, I listened to the NRC call (as best I could; it kept cutting out). NRC Chairman Jazcko was very clear that this decision is about safety, and that safety is the NRC’s purvue; he reiterated that there are other regulatory bodies that Entergy needs approvals from, and he would not speculate on what would happen if it went to the courts. (So I heard some nice clear bright lines re: preemption).
By keeping the license approval process alive for 60+ months, the New England Coalition raised a lot of safety issues — like submerged cables and metal fatigue — that left up to Entergy’s lawyers would never have come to light. And if the New England Coalition hadn’t kept at it for 5 years, imagine how much harder it would have been to for everyone working on the successes of those years — such as passing Act 160 and attaining the subsequent Senate vote. A lot of legislators may have folded with the fed’s approval. So the long fight was well worth it.
And now with the NRC decision out of the way, we can concentrate on important things like prompt, safe decommissioning (which will keep alot of workers employed and return the property to a useful condition).
Is the plant safe? Operating at 120% for 20 more years than it was built for? I close my eyes and float on a river in Egypt.
“We’ve never met a reactor we couldn’t relicense.”
Nevermind Radioactive Contamination
Not Really Cancerous
No Real Caution