|
ONE
RESPONSE TO ENTERGY CORPORATION’S 2011-04-18 PRESS CONFERENCE
ANNOUNCING ITS FEDERAL REEMPTION LAWSUIT AGAINST THE STATE OF
VERMONT
PRESS CONF. and LAWSUIT AT WWW.ENTERGY.COM
By Raymond Shadis – Technical Issues Advisor to New
England Coalition
207-882-7801 (CELL)
207-380-5994 NEC OFFICE 802-257-0336
- Entergy took several hundred words to say to Vermont what Maine’s Governor could have taught
them how to say in three.
- Entergy went to lengths to describe the lengths to
which the $14 billion corporation had gone to accommodate Vermont;
including application, accompanied by the testimony of ten witnesses,
for a certificate of public good (CPG) from the Vermont Public Service
Board. What Entergy skipped was that two of those witnesses , were found
guilty of giving false testimony and that Entergy VY was sanctioned
a result by the VPSB. Those giving false testimony included
Entergy’s lead witness, Jay Thayer, the senior corporate officer entrusted
with pushing license extension through the State of Vermont. The false
testimony concerned the presence of underground piping that could carry
radionuclides.
- Entergy complained that Act 160 (requiring
legislative approval) prior to the VPSB issuance of ANY decision on VY
relicensing was not part of the original 2002 MOU. I was present
in the legislative meeting room when Entergy dropped all opposition to
Act 160 - giving tacit approval to its affirmative vote out of committee
and to passage. In surmise that at the time, Entergy was confident that
the legislature would never vote VY a deal too good to refuse.
- Entergy argued that ACT 160 moved the decision from a
regulatory decision (by the VPSB) to a political one (by the
legislature/politicians. However the three member VPSB is
comprised of political appointees (two lawyers and a retail
merchant). The Vermont
Senate has within its membership comparable regulatory expertise and is
appointed by the people. Entergy’s regulatory decision /political
decision distinction fails the straight-face test.
- Entergy claimed that VY had “no” emissions.
Simply not true. Tritiated water is an emission. The many
radionuclides found in the soil are emissions. Routine stack
releases of radioactive isotopes of Xenon, Krypton, Iodine, and the rest
are emissions, the discharge of toxic biocides, solvents, cleaning
agents, rust-proofers, and other chemicals in discharge waters and
cooling tower spray or drift are emissions. AND the greenhouse
gases emitting during refinement, enrichment, and manufacturing of the
uranium fuel are prodigious; all in highly electric energy – intensive
processes for the most part generated by high-sulfur coal-burning
plants. The deceptive thing about Vermont Yankee’s greenhouse and
acid-rain emissions is that they unseen arrive on the wind and somewhat
ahead of the trucks bringing in the nuclear fuel. Lastly, although
it is a small incremental addition, Vermont
Yankee’s emergency diesel generators are test run annually; their
importance dramatically illustrated at Fukashima in Japan.
- Entergy claims that VY is reliable and points to two
“breaker-to-breaker” runs (refueling to refueling without stopping) in
the last several years. This claim would be worth something more if they
could also claim that there were no significant equipment failures,
human errors, or violations of state and federal regulation during this
period (cooling tower collapse, transformer fire, insulator failure,
feedwater piping leaks, condenser in-leakage, main steam isolation valve
test failures, pump seal failures, control panel failures, stuck turbine
stop valves, cooling tower header leaks, high pressure coolant injection
system failures, torus in-leakage, security breaches, steam dryer
cracking, tritium to groundwater leaks, and much more.) A better
definition of a reliable plant is one that can produce electricity
without violating regulations and without ignoring equipment failures;
such a plant might be more reliable because it shuts down occasionally
to properly address such failures; not because it keeps pushing its luck
to keep running despite them.
- Entergy should drop the suit and cut its losses.
Entergy would do well to consider that if VY has been only marginally
profitable or not profitable over the last few years because of
unanticipated maintenance costs and regulatory delays; the prospects for
the proposed extended period of operation are realistically even more
grim. We will do our best to make this picture clear to
Entergy. Truly, the operative discussion should focus on the
question of just how far apart are we on what course of action would
best serve both Entergy shareholders and the State of Vermont.
- New England
Coalition’s Board of Trustees will be meeting Tuesday AM. High on
their agenda will be to decide on a legal or other response. NEC
legal counsel and consulting experts are preparing their recommendations
to the NEC Board.
This
announcement was sent to NEC Line 2 [necnp@necnp.org] by New England
Coalition (NEC). If you wish to update your mail address or to be removed
from our private email list please email us at necnp@necnp.org
or call us at 802-257-0336. Thank you.
NEC,
organized and founded in 1971, is the region’s sole advocate for
environmental and nuclear safety with intervenor status in the Entergy
Vermont Yankee federal relicensing process, and is an intervenor in two
open dockets before the Vermont Public Service Board Docket 7440 – Shall
Entergy Nuclear Vermont Yankee receive a CPG for an additional years of
operation and less widely reported Docket 7600 – opened as a result of
Entergy’s misinformation in Docket 7440, re: underground pipes and
groundwater contamination.
New England
Coalition is a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization. All contributions are
tax-deductible. Donate at necnp.org
using PayPal or send a check to NEC, PO Box 545, Brattleboro , VT
05302
|