Vermont weighs longer life for state's aging nuclear reactor

[Mugu]

By DAVE GRAM ASSOCIATED PRESS WRITER via seattlepi.com

MONTPELIER, Vt. -- Vermont's love-hate relationship with its lone nuclear power plant is coming to a head: Lawmakers have to decide next year whether to shut down the reactor in 2012 as scheduled or keep it humming for another two decades.

Vermont is as known for its green living as its green landscapes, and some environmentalists in the state have come to appreciate nuclear power for its low greenhouse gas emissions, said Steve Terry, a former journalist who covered the construction of the Vermont Yankee plant in the late 1960s.

But the plant's benefit "comes in a clash with a rather determined minority that has opposed nuclear power for basically radiological safety issues," said Terry, who went on to become vice president of Green Mountain Power Corp., one of the 36-year-old plant's first owners.

The debate among lawmakers about whether to shutter the plant could only happen in Vermont, the only state with a law giving its Legislature veto power over continued operation of a reactor beyond the expiration of its license, said Linda Sikkema, group director for environment, energy and transportation at the National Conference of State Legislatures. Such questions generally are left to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.



http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/national/1110ap_vermont_reactor.html">Complete article

[oldgrowth]

1. This is what we did to our money sucking Trojan Nuclear Plant,

http://hansv.com/trojan_implosion/

[NickB79]

2. Too bad there aren't any videos of the natural-gas turbines replacing it

Looking up Trojan Nuclear Power Plant on Wiki, I note that it says:

"While operating, Trojan represented more than 12% of the electrical generation capacity of Oregon. For comparison, more than 80% of Oregon's electricity came from hydropower from dams on the Columbia and Snake Rivers, with the rest mainly from fossil fuels."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trojan_Nuclear_Power_Plant

Now, looking at the latest data from the EIA (http://tonto.eia.doe.gov/state/state_energy_profiles.cfm?sid=OR) under Net Electricity Generation, it states that nuclear supplies zero of Oregon's electricity, hydroelectricity is at 54%, and natural gas has shot up to 34%!

Removing that reactor allowed millions of tons of CO2 to be released into the atmosphere by it's replacements.

[ThomWV]

3. Nuclear power will be our primary source in the future

Make no mistake about it, nuclear power is the power of the future. The only real shame is that we stopped development and building of the plants decades ago.