Editor’s note: This op-ed is by Howard Shaffer, a licensed professional engineer in nuclear engineering who was a startup engineer at Vermont Yankee.
The fight over the Vermont Yankee plant continues to illustrate the vast gulf between the goals of most people and a handful of diehard anti-nuclear opponents. Those opponents have attacked the memorandum of understanding (MOU) between Vermont and Entergy over the plant’s future.
Signed on Dec. 23, the MOU covers the last year of operation, the decommissioning to follow, and finally site restoration.
I ask myself — why would the opponents attack the MOU when they have gotten what they say they want — the plant closing? Not to mention $10 million of economic support for their neighbors and millions more dedicated to renewable power statewide and the complete restoration of the plant site.
I think their real gripe is with our 60-year national policy of supporting safe nuclear power, currently embraced by President Obama. They oppose it and want to change it. This is certainly their right as citizens. However, having failed to convince the president, the courts, or a majority of Congress, they are trying to change the effect of the policy — the existence of plants — by derailing one plant at a time. They formally intervene in the licensing process, and drag out what was set up by Congress to be an honest way to communicate with the public.
The opposition to nuclear power has turned into an international crusade, as shown by the appearance in Vermont of people from Germany, Russia, India and New Zealand, as well as professional adversaries from Washington. They come to pump up the faithful and influence the public and the Legislature. Even with the plant’s shutdown announced, local opponents must continue their anti-nuclear rhetoric in support of the crusade to give all nuclear power a “black eye.”
Having failed to convince the president, the courts, or a majority of Congress, they are trying to change the effect of the policy — the existence of plants — by derailing one plant at a time.
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To the opponents’ dismay, the Vermont administration has sided with Vermont Yankee for its support for an amended certificate of public good, for operation until the end of the nuclear fuel’s life. (Probably before the end of the year, but could go into next year if there are output interruptions). Disappointed, and angry, the opponents continue their tirades and misstatements, straying at times from a logical policy debate into an emotional, fact-challenged binge. Let us consider the opponents’ following claims:
• Petitions from 51 town meetings to shut down the plant prove democratic support.
Truth: There are nine cities, 237 towns, four gores, and five unincorporated areas in the state. Only 51 agreeing proves the lack of support, doesn’t it? It is particularly strange that opponents would consider themselves supporters of the traditional Vermont town meeting, as their heckling at virtually all public meetings is antithetical to the town meeting tradition of civil discourse.
• The MOU is a “back-room deal.”
The truth: A back-room deal usually means one made in secret and kept from the public, who only learn of it when the results start to happen. The MOU negotiations were conducted by the parties in private, but announced in the media while they were going on. Then the MOU was signed and announced at a joint press conference, with questions and answers. This is a back-room deal? The opponents are mad because they weren’t included. The parties wanted results, not endless delay and ideological posturing.
• The state must hold the owner responsible for decommissioning.
Fact: Decommissioning is in federal regulations, and was when the original license was granted. The state may not infringe on federal jurisdiction — that’s what millions in court costs have already taught us. The state can, however, certainly keep informed, and has some peripheral involvement in the plant’s impact on its surroundings.
• The state must insure that site restoration, beyond federal requirements, will take place.
Fact: It already has! Site restoration, including grading and reseeding, is in the 2002 MOU on the plant sale. The new MOU provides a separate fund for the final restoration.
• Entergy silenced the Legislature.
Fact: The federal courts overturned the Senate’s vote, finding it illegally intruded on authority explicitly the domain the federal government-nuclear and radiological safety.
• The NRC is a captive regulator.
Fact: Congress controls the NRC by controlling its budget. 90 percent of the value of the budget comes from NRCÂ license fees, but the money goes to the Treasury for Congress to parcel out, as is true for other regulatory agencies.
• SAFESTOR is/was a “threat.”
Fact: It is listed as an option in the sale MOU and is detailed in federal regulations. Several plants are in SAFSTOR now, without environmental impact.
• Spent (used) fuel should removed from the fuel pool now.
Fact: This is not physically possible. The pool and transfer equipment were designed to move only fuel that has “cooled” for five years after operating in the reactor. Advocating otherwise is ignorant, reckless or both.
• The owner controls the Decommissioning Trust Fund and might lose it in the stock market.
Fact: The fund is governed by federal regulation and managed by independent trustees. Owners must spend their own money on decommissioning, then get reimbursed by the fund.
• The Dec. 23 MOU undercuts the Public Service Board.
How? The opponents don’t explain, just levels the charge. The board is independent and can do what it finds is in the public good.
• The Vermont government can do whatever “it” wants — i.e. whatever the antis want it to do.
Fact: Federal and state laws apply. Legal contracts, MOUs, etc. are enforceable until a party acts illegally.
The opponents may continue to bellyache and nip at the heels of the plant and the state, to no avail. The last used fuel will probably be transferred to onsite dry casks six years after the final reactor shutdown. Eventually they will probably be moved to a central national site out west, in a place yet to be determined. The process will be long and drawn out, because even though Vermont anti-nukes want the casks gone as soon as possible, other anti-nukes out west will oppose the central site. This is what happened with the proposed Yucca Mountain site.
Decommissioning will remove all traces of the plant itself, and the site made radiologically clean and available for unrestricted use. Some site facilities may be kept for the eventual new owner, which is likely to be a commercial/industrial business that needs these facilities, plus access to the high voltage switchyard, rail siding and interstate highway.