Dear Editor,
George Santayana wrote: “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.”
Reading the recent commentary in VTDigger by Justin Neuman advocating the return to nuclear power reminded me that Neuman is not alone in supporting this incredibly bad idea. The New England governors, including our own governor, have also endorsed this silliness.
We have a power shortage, compounded by the Trump administration’s attack on renewable energy. And electricity prices are higher than they should be, in my opinion, partly because we are not well served by ISO New England, which controls much of the power sources Vermonters are using at any given time, often ignoring our own renewable energy resources, such as wind.
But as Neuman points out, there are 58 casks of highly radioactive waste on the banks of the Connecticut River in southern Vermont, with nowhere to go. Creating more waste that we can’t remove is simply insane. The politics of disposal are irrelevant. Nuclear waste is perhaps the most toxic substance on Earth, and to create more with no place to put it makes no sense at all. Those casks may be safe tomorrow and next year and next decade, but they will not be safe forever, and the damage of having that waste in this four-state river is incalculable.
The idea of having data centers in Vermont is also foolish. I have been to Loudoun County, Virginia, where there are cluster after cluster of windowless buildings, each the size of a football stadium. They were great for construction jobs, but each of these monstrosities employs just a handful of people. The people of Loudoun have rebelled, and the politicians are scrambling for cover. The county has become the national poster child for why you don’t want a data center in your town.
Much of this is driven by the enormous growth of artificial intelligence. Let us not endanger the future of New England or the future of Vermont by using a power source that has no answer for the question: “How can we safely dispose of a waste product which would make much of New England unlivable if those casks ever leaked?”
And someday they will leak, hopefully long after we have solved the problem of safe disposal. Casks along the banks of the Connecticut River are not the solution.
Howard Dean
Burlington, Vt.
