What's New?
ASLB rejects new contentions...but not on their merits
VPSB rejects spent fuel storage reconsideration
NRC comes to town for environmental scoping
VT Supreme Court motion for uprate stay [ PDF ]
New contention on steam dryer integrity-ASLB [ DOC ]
Joram Hopenfeld declaration on steam dryer integrity [ DOC ]
Sen. Clinton Pushes For ISA
NY Rep. Introduces ISA bill. [ DOC ]
5th NRC Commissioner objects to Uprate implementation [ PDF ]
NEC Press Release on ISA for NY [ DOC ]
MA Lawmakers call for halt to Uprate [ DOC ]
For more news and information, visit EvacuationPlans.org
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Overarching Reactor Power Boost Considerations
The Reactor Power Boost will:
- increase the likelihood of an accident,
- increase the potential consequences of an accident,
- increase the amount of radioactivity produced and released from the plant,
- increase radiation exposure to workers and at site boundaries, and increase the rate at which high –level and low-level nuclear waste is produced.
Issue Point 1: NRC approval for the reactor power boost is going forward without a thorough physical, systemic, and diagnostic examination of New England’s most veteran commercial reactor. Vermont State and its citizens are concerned that uprate may mean more breakdowns and a less reliable electricity source, yet NRC has offered a pilot-program engineering inspection only. This inspection of a mere 45 selected items found 8 safety-related defects.
The inspection was less than 5% of the scale and scope of the 1996 Maine Yankee Independent Safety Assessment – a team diagnostic inspection requested by Maine’s Governor in order to assure citizens that Maine Yankee was safe. It wasn’t that Maine Yankee was considered a bad reactor. At the time Maine Yankee had NRC performance scores superior to those of Vermont Yankee.
Issue Point 2: Under extended power uprate, Vermont Yankee will be pushed to 120% of its carrying capacity for water and steam flow and for heat removal.
Click here for further issue points: Advanced Issue Points
www.necnp.com
NUCLEAR RELATED ISSUES
IN THE NEWS
http://www.vermontguardian.com/local/032006/StallVYUprate.shtml
Citizen group makes last-ditch bid to stall VY uprate
By Kathryn Casa | Vermont Guardian
posted March 2, 2006
BRATTLEBORO — A Vermont citizens group has made an 11th hour appeal to forestall the nation’s first contested power increase at a commercial nuclear reactor.
The Nuclear Regulatory Commission is expected to issue its approval today for a 20 percent power uprate at the Vermont Yankee reactor in Vernon. But in a letter to the commissioners dated Feb. 27, the Brattleboro-based New England Coalition (NEC) has formally asked them to withhold permission for the uprate until the group’s safety-related appeals are heard later this year.
Allowing the VY uprate to proceed would "deny New England Coalition effective redress and due process and subject New England Coalition, it’s constituents and members living within the emergency planning zone of Vermont Yankee Power Station to irreparable harm of unnecessary increased risk of accident an accident consequence," asserts the letter, which was written by Ray Shadis, NEC’s technical advisor.
NRC spokeswoman Diane Screnci acknowledged the commission had received the letter. She had no further comment, except to add that there had been no precedent for such a request. Vermont Yankee’s is the first uprate to undergo the NRC hearing process. None of the more than 100 uprates approved by the NRC has been formally contested.
Observers see the coalition’s bid to stall implementation as a long shot. Under NRC rules, the time to make such an appeal would have been when the draft evaluation was issued.
The New England Coalition is the first citizens group to be granted intervenor status in an uprate before the NRC. With the state of Vermont, the coalition is questioning whether the 33-year-old reactor is capable of withstanding the additional pressure and stress of a 20 percent uprate, the maximum allowed by the NRC.
In his letter, Shadis reminded the commissioners of a Dec. 16, 2005, letter they had written to Vermont and Massachusetts members of Congress, in which the commissioners stated that they "must remain impartial during the pendency of a case, whether it is before a licensing board or an appeal to the commission."
The New England Coalition has petitioned the Atomic Safety and Licensing Board, the quasi-judicial arm of the NRC that reviews safety concerns, to require Vermont Yankee to perform a procedure called large transient testing before the uprate is implemented.
Shadis compared it to revving a car and then slamming on the brakes to make sure they work. "The purpose of large transient testing is to see how the plant will respond under uprate conditions," Shadis said. Allowing the uprate to proceed without that test will expose people living around the plant to six months of danger, he maintained.
The coalition’s contentions "will be effectively bypassed and mooted" if the uprate proceeds, he argued in the letter.
If the NRC approves the uprate today, as is widely expected, VY operators are prepared to implement the power increase immediately. Entergy, the corporation that owns the plant, has made roughly $60 million in uprate-related modifications. Vermont Yankee has passed an NRC inspection and the draft safety evaluation found there were "no significant hazards" connected with a power increase.
http://www.vermontguardian.com/local/032006/NRCMeeting.shtml
NRC urges angry citizenry to participate in VY licensing
By Kathryn Casa | Vermont Guardian
posted March 2, 2006
BRATTLEBORO — The marquee at the Latchis cinema Wednesday night read "Match Point," "New World," "NRC" — but inside, it was pure political theater.
The Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) was back in town, this time to talk to the public about a 20-year license renewal for Vermont Yankee when the nuclear reactor’s current 40-year license expires in 2012.
Senior Project Manager Johnny Eads said the NRC was in town to regain the public trust that has eroded during a three-year regulatory odyssey in which area residents said federal officials turned a deaf ear to their opposition of a 20 percent power uprate at the Vernon reactor. The uprate is widely expected to be approved by the NRC today when the agency issues its final evaluation of the uprate proposal.
On Wednesday, Eads said the issues were separate, and he refused to talk about the power increase. Instead, he described the upcoming 30-month long licensing procedure that will include an environmental assessment and plant inspection, but will exclude consideration of nuclear waste storage, emergency planning, and existing problems at the aging reactor.
Eads urged the public to become involved in the process. "We depend on your participation to establish a full and complete record," he said, standing against a movie screen backdrop displaying his toll-free number.
Area residents scoffed at the notion that they would be heard, charging that their concerns about Vermont Yankee have consistently been ignored.
"It makes me think of what Gandhi said when he was asked about Western civilization. He said it would be a good idea," said Jeff Unsicker, a Brattleboro professor and member of Nuclear Free Vermont. "I think it would be a good idea if the NRC would allow full and adequate citizen participation."
Unsicker called for independent studies, conducted by a nonprofit organization or a university, of the plant, health and the environment, the emergency response plan, and the economic impacts of nuclear power.
"What will happen to the state of Vermont should there be any kind of nuclear accident, either from terrorism, or operational error, or mechanical failure?" Unsicker asked. Because Vermont is dependent upon a green, organic image, "the first small emission will have a devastating impact not only on our local communities but on our entire state."
He also called for Entergy, the multibillion-dollar corporation that owns Vermont Yankee, to finance groups that want to intervene in the NRC regulatory process. "This process you describe is incredibly complex. … It takes lawyers, scientists. And the groups concerned about this do not have those resources."
Nearly 300 people turned out to boo, hiss, shout down and otherwise inform federal regulators that they are not trusted, and Vermont Yankee is not wanted. Not one person spoke in favor of the plant’s continued operation during the three-hour meeting, with many spoke passionately against it.
"The process sir, it smacks of expediency all up and down the line; the plant is there, there’s a large financial investment in it, and it seems like that’s what’s being served by the NRC," said Andy Davis, a Brattleboro music teacher.
"License extension, uprate, waste storage — these three things are totally connected, and to have people come here again and again and you tell us ‘I can’t respond to that; I can only talk about license extension,’ is treating me like a tiny child."
Eads outlined five major forums in which the public can participate: residents can request a formal hearing on the license extension, and they can participate in meetings to outline the scope of the NRC’s environmental assessment, respond to the draft environmental study and to the NRC’s safety review, as well as a separate review by the Advisory Committee on Reactor Safeguards (ACRS), a panel of experts that advises the commissioners.
Eads added that the public can also appeal to the NRC at any time through a so-called 2.206 petition.
But according to nuclear whistleblower Paul Blanche, "less than one percent of 2.206 petitions are ever accepted by the NRC."
Blanche said both the ACRS and NRC staff refused to address serious safety concerns that he raised at an ACRS meeting in Brattleboro in October.
"When the ACRS issued the final recommendation for Vermont Yankee, they totally ignored my transcribed concerns; I wrote back to the chairman of ACRS and last week I got a response: Thank you very much … but your concerns are the responsibility of the staff. The staff says they’re the responsibility of the ACRS. It’s a merry-go-round. … The whole thing is a farce."
Blanche echoed concerns raised by members of the area’s three largest anti-nuclear groups that the NRC appeals process takes resources and money that they do not have.
"The Atomic Safety and Licensing Board process … takes tens if not hundreds of thousands of dollars. These people in Vermont don’t have that money to participate. For you to get up there and say there is public participation in the process is a joke," he told Eads and a cadre of NRC support staff. "There is none."
The NRC had more than a dozen staff members present, including health physicist Trish Milligan, who spoke in response to health-related concerns. Milligan cited a litany of federal and international studies that she said had failed to find evidence that radiation from nuclear reactors causes cancer or other ill effects.
One study of the Chernobyl meltdown in the Ukraine "identified no additional cancers except for thyroid cancers in children — and if there had been proper interdiction of food supplies there likely would have been little to no additional thyroid cancers in that population," Milligan said, evoking hoots and shouts from the audience.
Radiation emissions at Vermont Yankee are expected to increase by 26 to 30 percent as a result of the uprate. The issue has been a concern to state officials after state readings measured radiation levels in excess of Vermont’s 20 millirem annual dose limit in 2004, 2000 and 1998.
The state is currently negotiating with Vermont Yankee and a private consultant on how it measures radiation. A draft report has been issued and is expected to be finalized next week, William Irwin, the Health Department’s chief radiological officer, told the Vermont Guardian.
There as been virtually no public input on that process thus far. In a second letter in as many months, Windham Regional Commission Executive Director Jim Matteau this week again admonished state officials for failing to communicate with residents living around the plant about the radiation issue, and offered to set up local meetings.
"Some observers anticipate that the [Vermont Department of Health and Vermont Department of Public Service], working with Entergy and a consultant, will propose a new rule or announce an improved methodology that would enable significantly increased radiation without exceeding revised technical limits," Matteau wrote to the heads of those departments.
"Acknowledging this to be speculation, I suggest that it seems a likely scenario and one that should be expected to be accompanied by significantly increased controversy and public frustration if it is not preceded and accompanied by effective public engagement. Therefore, I urge you to hold public meetings in this area to inform the public and answer questions about this issue; update the public as information continues to develop; and ensure that the public is well-informed if and when a change is proposed," he wrote.
As of March 1, Matteau said he had received no response to the Feb. 27 letter.
State health officials have also failed to respond to repeated requests from the Vermont Guardian for a copy of the draft radiation measurement report.
http://www.vermontguardian.com/local/032006/NRCvsNEC.shtml
Feds lay out VY's relicensing process, reject joint review bid
By Kathryn Casa | Vermont Guardian
posted March 1, 2006
BRATTLEBORO — Nuclear waste storage, emergency planning and existing problems at Vermont Yankee will be excluded from the review of a 20-year license extension for the nuclear reactor, and any design flaws will be grandfathered in, Nuclear Regulatory Commission officials said Tuesday.
Member of the Vermont Yankee licensing team also said the NRC had rejected Entergy's request to conduct a joint review of Vermont Yankee and a sister reactor, Pilgrim, in Plymouth, MA. Senior project manager Johnny Eads said the NRC made that decision Tuesday in response to requests from the Plymouth selectboard and other local and state officials in Massachusetts. Vermont officials made no such requests.
Meeting for more than two hours Tuesday evening with board members and advisors from the New England Coalition, which plans to challenge Entergy's bid to extend the VY license, the team members defended the NRC review process as adequate to protect the public, and warned NEC that communication could be curtailed if the group becomes a formal intervenor in the procedure.
Outside parties will have until approximately mid-May to attempt to formally qualify as an intervenor — a status no organization has yet achieved in any of the 51 license extensions pending or approved by the agency, Eads said.
Over the past several weeks, the NRC team has been meeting with local officials throughout the 10 radial mile emergency planning zone around the Vernon reactor, and will hold the first public meeting on the license extension tonight at the Latchis Theater in Brattleboro. In addition to the New England Coalition, they also met Tuesday with board members from Nuclear Free Vermont in 2012, which focuses on emergency planning, and planned to meet Wednesday morning with the Citizens Awareness Network, with keeps tabs on radiological safety and nuclear waste.
But the NRC officials warned coalition members that if they were successful in becoming an intervenor — a status that would give coalition broader access to documents and the right to argue its case in NRC hearings and proceedings — communication would change.
"In general, once intervenor proceedings have been entered, the lawyers become involved," said senior project manager Richard Emch. "We have to be careful about what we say."
"I don't think people understand that the minute they question the NRC in a way that holds it accountable, the NRC becomes their adversary," replied Ray Shadis, NEC's technical advisor.
To quality as an intervenor, a group must prove that at least one member would be effected by the license extension, and that it has the expertise, or can hire experts, to debate the specifics of one or more narrowly defined contentions.
The coalition is the only citizens group to achieve intervenor status before the NRC on a power uprate. That case, in which Vermont Yankee is seeking to increase power output by 20 percent, remains open before the commission. A decision is expected by the end of this week. However, hearings on safety-related appeals by the coalition and the state of Vermont may extend into the summer or late fall.
During a license renewal review, Eads said the NRC looks at the aging of the plant's equipment, primarily passive components such as concrete, piping, cables and embedded steel that are not examined in the NRC's normal review. He said the NRC will independently verify a "significant amount" of the data and material submitted by Entergy, the corporation that owns Vermont Yankee.
NRC officials will also perform a plant-specific environmental impact study, in which they assess the reactor impacts on endangered species and the environment, as well as the possible effects of an accident, Emch said. That document is appended as a supplement to a generic EIS devised by the agency a decade ago. During the process, the public will be invited to help define the scope of that assessment, he noted.
A license extension takes 22 to 30 months to process and includes approximately 20,000 man hours, Eads said. He characterized it as more in-depth than the uprate review process. In that review, the NRC rebuffed the state's demand for an independent safety assessment of the aging reactor. The NRC maintains that the inspection it performed meets state requirements. The Vermont Public Service Board still has not ruled on whether the requirements have been met.
By Kathryn Casa | Vermont Guardian
Posted October 21, 2005
Federal regulators released their the long-awaited draft report on a proposed power uprate at the Vermont Yankee, but only to the nuclear power station’s owners, not the public claiming the information it contains is proprietary.
The Nuclear Regulatory Commission’s safety evaluation was also sent Friday to the Advisory Commission on Reactor Safeguards, a quasi-independent panel within the Nuclear Regulatory Commission that is scheduled to convene at the Quality Inn in Brattleboro Nov. 15-16 to hear arguments filed by the state of Vermont and the New England Coalition.
Both parties are formally designated as intervenors in the case before the NRC, in which Vermont Yankee officials are seeking approval to increase power output at the plant by 20 percent.
In a letter sent Friday to NRC staff, New England Coalition technical advisor Ray Shadis said the limited time his organization will have to review the report “strikes us as unfair.” He said intervenors will have little time to review the highly technical information before they must respond to it on Nov. 15.
The intervenors had also not been informed about the specifics of the meeting, including how much time and in what format they would be allowed to respond, Shadis complained.
The full committee of the ACRS will also meet in closed session at the end of the month, or in early December, at NRC headquarters in Rockville, MD, to discuss the questions, which must either be answered or dismissed before the uprate application can be decided.
The Vermont meetings will be open to the public. Although the agenda was not complete on Friday, according to a preliminary schedule, both morning sessions will be set aside for technical presentations by the NRC staff and Entergy to address the question of containment overpressure, steam dryer cracking and the results of the NRC inspection of the plant.
The afternoon sessions are expected to be set aside for interested parties and members of the public to voice their views.
People who wish to speak may contact ACRS staff member Ralph Carusa in advance at (301) 415-8065. There will also be a sign-up sheet at the meeting. Speakers will be heard in the order that they sign up. Caruso said no signs will be allowed at the meeting.
http://www.reformer.com/Stories/0,1413,102~8860~3096527,00.html
Brattleboro Reformer
VY meets standards NRC: Acceptance doesn't guarantee approval of uprate
By K. CECCAROSSI
Reformer Staff
Tuesday, October 18, 2005 - BRATTLEBORO -- Vermont Yankee owners have revised their plan to boost the nuclear power plant's output to 120 percent, meeting conditions set by the federal agency that must approve the power increase.
Last week, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission told Entergy Nuclear they must agree to added precautions before they could win approval for a so-called "uprate" at the Vernon reactor.
Entergy had until Monday to agree to the conditions.
Entergy's uprate request has been under review by the NRC for more than two years and owners have already invested millions of dollars in upgrades to accommodate the change.
Meanwhile, state officials and nuclear watchdog groups have challenged the proposal, saying it neglects important safety measures. The NRC's conditions address some of those concerns.
Rob Williams, spokesman for Vermont Yankee, said on Tuesday that owners had no problem with the NRC's requirements and were "pleased that now the process can move forward."
Entergy's consent to the conditions doesn't guarantee approval by the NRC. In a letter the agency sent to the company last week, NRC staff said "your acceptance [of the conditions] does not constitute completion of the staff's review."
The NRC will issue a draft report, or safety evaluation, on the uprate by Friday. A staff recommendation will then go to an agency panel called the Advisory Committee on Reactor Safety for review. The NRC also plans to come to Vermont in November to collect public comment on the proposal. A final ruling is expected in late winter.
The crux of the NRC's latest conditions is that Entergy gradually increase power to 120 percent and, along the way, keep closer review of any possible hazards the added pressure creates.
The main condition deals with the plant's steam dryer, a piece of equipment that has cracked in other nuclear power plants that have been "uprated." The steam dryer is at the top of the reactor and is designed to remove moisture from the steam made in the reactor.
The NRC has asked Entergy for a series of steam dryer stress gauge readings, and for plant officials to keep the agency apprised of the issue.
"It's good, but it's less than the best," said Raymond Shadis, technical adviser for nuclear watchdog group the New England Coalition, referring to the NRC's conditions.
"Instead of requiring proper analysis, the NRC is willing to let this plant experiment on the banks of the Connecticut River."
The New England Coalition, along with the state Department of Public Service, is challenging the uprate before the Atomic Safety and Licensing Board, an independent branch of the NRC.
That challenge, dealing with safety issues not addressed by the NRC's latest conditions, is still pending. However, the uprate could be approved by the NRC while hearings before the Atomic Safety and Licensing Board are still under way. If that happens, the plant could begin running at increased power even as the safety of the uprate is being challenged.
The state's Public Service Board must also sign off on the uprate. Although the quasi-judicial panel already approved the proposal, it's not final. The board has yet to decide whether the safety assessment conducted by the NRC is satisfactory of an independent safety assessment is necessary.
K. Ceccarossi can be reached at kceccarossi@reformer.com.
Article published Oct 18, 2005
Vt. Yankee's owner agrees to conditions
Preliminary OK for power boost may come this week
BRATTLEBORO Entergy Nuclear agreed late Monday to the new license conditions set by federal regulators last week setting the stage for the company to get a preliminary federal permit later this week that would allow it to boost power by 20 percent.
In a letter to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, Jay K. Thayer, Entergy site vice president, said the company accepted the operating conditions which include increased monitoring of key, stress-prone components.
The conditions also call for installation of new gauges and monitoring devices, and a requirement that the increase in power production be gradual and closely monitored for problems.
"We see no problem in complying," Entergy spokesman Robert Williams said Monday.
He said the company had agreed to a "slight" change in the reactor's operating characteristics.
"We're pleased the process can now move forward," Williams said.
Thayer's two-page letter noted that Entergy and NRC staffers talked on the telephone both Friday and Monday and made revisions for "clarity."
NRC spokesman Neil Sheehan said the NRC staff is expected to issue its safety evaluation report on the proposed power increase by Friday.
"This is what the technical staff has been struggling with for over two years now," he said.
The draft safety evaluation report is expected to be released four weeks before an independent panel of nuclear experts, the Advisory Committee on Reactor Safeguards, comes to Vermont for two days of hearings in November about the proposed power boost.
Sheehan said the committee will take testimony from the company, the state and the general public at hearings set for Brattleboro's Quality Inn on Nov. 15 and 16.
Sheehan said it was not a foregone conclusion that Entergy would receive overall federal approval merely because it agreed to the operating conditions.
Raymond Shadis, senior technical advisor for the nuclear watchdog group New England Coalition, said it was hardly surprising that Entergy had accepted the conditions.
"Entergy proposed most of these, including the penalty on fuel," he said, referring to the condition that Entergy not operate at full power with its new enriched uranium fuel manufactured by General Electric.
Shadis said the multiple conditions placed on the power boost's impact on the plant's steam dryer was proof that neither the company nor NRC's engineers were sure what that impact would be.
"Instead of these experiments taking place in national laboratories, it will be taking place on the Connecticut River," Shadis said.
Steam dryers, which are not a key safety component, remove the moisture from steam before it goes into the plant's generators. The steam dryers have failed in two other nuclear reactors, similar in design to Vermont Yankee, that have undergone similar power increases.
Sheehan said the regulatory process was far from over. The quasi-judicial Atomic Safety and Licensing Board, which is hearing concerns raised by both the state of Vermont and Shadis' group, has said that the two groups' concerns have been deemed valid. But no hearing has been held yet.
The state's Department of Public Service is concerned about the impact of the increased power on emergency pressure conditions in the reactor core.
Contact Susan Smallheer at susan.smallheer@rutlandherald.com.
A national nuclear technical advisory group has sided with the state of Vermont rather than federal regulators on a proposed safety change that could affect Vermont Yankee nuclear power plant's proposed power increase.
The Advisory Committee on Reactor Safeguards said in a letter this week that a rule change proposed by Nuclear Regulatory Commission staff needed to be revised with stricter controls before it was adopted.
At issue is whether the cooling pumps in a reactor core can perform adequately during the extreme conditions of heat and pressure than can form during an emergency, and whether a change in the way the pressure is calculated would reduce built-in safety margins.
The advisory group recommended that nuclear plant operators only be granted extra leeway "selectively" in their calculations of pressure during an emergency.
At most, the committee recommended leeway of up to two hours. By comparison, engineers for Entergy Nuclear — Vermont Yankee's owner — have asked federal regulators for permission to operate for 48 hours under the high-pressure condition as part of the plan to boost power by 20 percent.
The state first raised the safety issue almost two years ago, saying it had concerns that the change in operation could erode the plant's "margin of safety."
"We believe that additional restrictive guidance should be placed on the granting of overpressure credit," wrote Graham B. Wallis, chairman of the group, which is made up of nuclear experts from across the country. "This should be minimized to the extend possible."
He added, "The time intervals for which such credit is needed should be limited to a few hours."
Wallis noted that current federal regulations state that "no such credit should be used." But NRC spokesman Neil Sheehan said 26 reactors around the country have been granted such approval.
Sheehan said NRC staff would respond to the ACRS letter and meet with the Advisory Committee on Reactor Safeguards early next month. And Sheehan stressed that the recommendation was not specifically about Vermont Yankee's proposed power boost, which will eventually come under ACRS scrutiny as well.
Robert Williams, spokesman for Entergy, downplayed the significance of the letter, noting that the ACRS is only advisory.
"It's something that we're reviewing," he added. "ACRS has not looked at our application yet."
William Sherman, the state's nuclear engineer with the Department of Public Service, had first raised the issue back in December 2003, and three months later was joined by an expert witness for the anti-nuclear group, New England Coalition.
Both Sherman, and Paul Blanch, a nuclear industry whistleblower from Hartford, Conn., said that the NRC staff weren't following their own regulations when he allowed nuclear reactors to operate under a high-pressure condition for any period.
Sherman said Thursday the state had questions whether the practice would reduce the plant's safety margin during an emergency.
"We are very pleased with the ACRS letter," he said. "We have been raising questions … and it appears ACRS is supportive of those questions."
Blanch, who was one of several industry whistleblowers who reported safety problems at the Millstone reactors in Connecticut, testified on behalf of the New England Coalition on this issue before the state Public Service Board and federal officials.
"I think it's going to put a huge hurdle in front of Vermont Yankee," Blanch said.
Public Service Commissioner David O'Brien called the recommendation a "very significant" step toward getting the state the information it has sought for almost two years.
"We want to be satisfied the plant's safety margin is not compromised," O'Brien said.
O'Brien said he had talked with Entergy officials Thursday about the letter. "Hopefully they will come up with some solution," he said.
Contact Susan Smallheer at susan.smallheer@rutlandherald.com.
Board travels south for hearing on dry cask storage
September 19, 2005
BRATTLEBORO, Vt. --The state Public Service Board is inviting comments from the public on Vermont Yankee's plan to store high-level radioactive waste on the grounds of the plant in Vernon.
The board has scheduled a site visit for Tuesday at the plant to view the area where Entergy Nuclear, Vermont Yankee's owner, hopes to install concrete and steel dry casks for storing the waste.
On Tuesday at 7 p.m., the board has scheduled a public hearing on the proposal at Brattleboro Union High School.
Vermont Yankee officials say they are running out of room to store the highly radioactive waste in the plant's spent fuel storage pool, and that the plant will be forced to shut down in 2007 or 2008 if it is not allowed to expand its storage to the dry casks.
The need for additional storage arises because federal plans for a permanent waste disposal site at Yucca Mountain in Nevada have been tied up in litigation.
Vermont Yankee has said its plan is to take the oldest and least radioactive waste from the storage pool and move it to the dry casks, making more room for newer waste in the pool.
The dry casks have been billed as a temporary solution until a permanent waste site is opened. The spent fuel storage pool also was described as being for temporary storage of the waste when the plant opened 33 years ago.
The Public Service Board is a three-member, quasi-judicial board that reviews all matters energy and ratepayer related. The board will decide whether the dry cask storage plan is in the best interest of the state.
The board's chairman, James Volz, will not be involved in the decision. He announced last week he would step aside from the case to avoid any appearance of conflict of interest. Until March, Volz was director of public advocacy in the Department of Public Service, which has strongly backed the dry cask storage plan.
© Copyright 2005 The New York Times Company
http://www.boston.com/news/local/vermont/articles/2005/09/19/board_travels_south_for_hearing_on_dry_cask_storage/
Brattleboro Reformer
Public Service to hold hearing on cask storage
By K. CECCAROSSI
Reformer Staff
Monday, September 19, 2005 - BRATTLEBORO -- Their power is often felt but their presence is rarely seen in this part of the state.
For one day this week that will change when the state's Public Service Board holds a local hearing on a proposal that would put on-site nuclear waste storage at Vermont Yankee.
At 7 p.m. on Tuesday in the Brattleboro Union High School auditorium, the Public Service Board will take comments from the public. They want to know how the people most directly affected by the plant feel about the so-called dry cask storage plan.
The Public Service Board is a three-member, quasi-judicial board that reviews all matters energy and ratepayer related. It's up to them to decide if installing steel and concrete containers to hold high-level nuclear waste at the Vernon plant is in the best interest of the state.
The board will hold hearings on the proposal in the next few months, taking testimony from plant owners Entergy Nuclear, the state's Department of Public Service and nuclear watchdog groups.
As part of that process, they've scheduled Tuesday's meeting. Public Service Board members will also get a tour earlier in the day of the site where Entergy officials would like to setup dry cask storage.
Sue Hudson, clerk of the Public Service Board, said this type of local visit and public hearing is a requirement in any proposal that includes construction of or related to power plants.
Dave McElwee, an engineer at Vermont Yankee, will make a presentation on the dry cask plan at Tuesday's meeting. After that, Public Service Board members may ask him questions before opening the floor to residents, Hudson said.
A representative from the Department of Public Service, which advocates for ratepayers, and Raymond Shadis, advisor for nuclear watchdog New England Coalition, will also be available for questions.
Nuclear waste at the plant is currently stored in a 40-feet deep pool in the reactor building. It will reportedly be filled to capacity by 2007 or 2008, if Vermont Yankee wins federal approval to increase its power output by 20 percent. That approval is still pending.
The dry casks would be used to store the older -- less "hot" -- fuel assemblies stored in the pool, making way for newer ones that will be taken from the reactor's core.
Entergy's application to the state for permission to construct the containers describes them as "temporary" storage. But plans to build a permanent nuclear storage facility for the country have been tied up for years in Congress and critics say the dry casks could remain in Vernon indefinitely.
Earlier this year, the state Legislature debated the dry cask proposal. After much debate, lawmakers passed a bill allowing Vermont Yankee officials to apply to the Public Service Board for permission to install the containers.
http://www.reformer.com/Stories/0,1413,102%257E8862%257E3060734,00.html
Brattleboro Reformer
Chairman Volz steps aside from hearings
By The Associated Press
Monday, September 19, 2005 - MONTPELIER (AP) --
The chairman of the Public Service Board has removed himself from hearings, to start this week, on Entergy Nuclear's plans to store high-level radioactive waste on the grounds of Vermont Yankee.
In a letter made public Friday, Chairman James Volz said he would not participate in the upcoming hearings on Entergy's plan for dry cask stoarge, saying he wanted to avoid any appearance of a conflict of interest because of his prior job.
Volz replaced Michael Dworkin as chairman of the regulatory board in March. A lawyer, he had been the head of public advocacy with the Department of Public Service, which had lobbied in favor of the new radioactive waste facility before the 2005 Legislature.
"I have decided not to sit on this case," Volz wrote in a memorandum dated Thursday.
Volz said that public perception, and the fact that it had been a relatively short period of time between the hearings and his former job, led him to step aside.
The first public hearing on the project is slated for Tuesday evening in Brattleboro, with a site visit for the board at Vermont Yankee earlier in the day.
Technical hearings on the facility are expected in October.
"I reach this decision not because the law requires it nor because I find any basis on which to question my impartiality," Volz wrote.
"I am concerned that my involvement may create a public perception that will significantly distract from a meaningful debate on the merits of the proposal before the board," he wrote to the parties involved in the case.
Volz' said in July he believed he could hear the case but asked parties in the case for their views on the question.
The New England Coalition, a watchdog group often critical of Vermont Yankee, urged Volz to step away from the case, saying that his former job and the Douglas administration's support of the waste plan raised questions whether Volz had an unbiased and independent view of the project.
Aging Nuclear Power Plants May Affect Emissions Pact
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/09/14/national/14nuke.html? By MATTHEW L. WALD
Published: September 14, 2005
WASHINGTON, Sept. 13 - A proposed agreement among nine Northeast states to cap greenhouse gas emissions from power plants casts a new light on arguments in New Jersey and Vermont about whether the licenses of two aging nuclear plants should be extended.
Community groups in both states are opposing the extensions of the licenses beyond their 40-year terms, but environmentalists are generally supportive of the proposed agreement among the governors to reduce these greenhouse gases, which contribute to global climate change. Shutting down the two reactors would mean immediate, substantial increases in the emissions, because it would increase reliance on fossil fuel plants, probably tripling emissions in Vermont and doubling them in New Jersey.
"I think the environmental community is confused right now in terms of where they want to go," said Richard A. Valentinetti, director of Vermont's air quality program, who has been deeply involved in drafting the nine-state agreement. "Obviously there's some real polarization."
Some environmentalists say the goals can be met even without the two nuclear plants, Vermont Yankee and Oyster Creek, and without other nuclear plants whose licenses will expire in the next few years.
"We just have to bust the myth that we need to be using more energy," said Rob Sargent, senior energy policy analyst for the State Public Interest Research Groups, a nonprofit consumer organization. The New Jersey affiliate of his group is a leading voice against Oyster Creek, the nation's oldest commercial nuclear plant. Mr. Sargent said that rising electricity prices would make many new energy-saving technologies practical, but he acknowledged that simply saving money would not be enough to reduce power consumption by the required amount.
Engineers and environmental experts have long predicted that planners would eventually have to choose between greater greenhouse gas emissions and heavier reliance on nuclear power. The debate has been mostly hypothetical, since nobody in the United States has ordered a new nuclear plant since the 1970's, long before global climate change was widely perceived as an issue. It was also hypothetical because there were no limits on carbon dioxide emissions in the United States.
Suddenly, both parts of the question are changing. The governors are proposing a cap on emissions, and renewal of power plant licenses has become imminent.
Oyster Creek opened near Egg Harbor, N.J., in 1969 and its license expires in 2009. A little over half the electricity produced in New Jersey comes from nuclear power, and Oyster Creek alone produces about 9 percent; in 2004 it generated 27.1 million megawatt hours.
In December 2004, the New Jersey Public Interest Research Group came out against a license extension. It said that the plant was designed to last 40 years, and that the decision by Exelon, Oyster Creek's owner, to seek a license extension was "ignoring public safety."
The plant is in a rapidly growing part of the state, the group noted, and it argued that in an emergency evacuation would be impractical.
The Nuclear Regulatory Commission announced on Monday that it had evaluated the application by Exelon for a license extension, and had decided that it merited review.
Vermont Yankee, in Vernon, near the border with Massachusetts and New Hampshire, began commercial operation in November 1972, and its license expires in March 2012. Its capacity is 535 megawatts. In 2004 the reactor produced 3.9 million megawatt hours, which was about 71 percent of the electricity produced in the state. (That production was only about one-third of the electricity consumed in the state, because Vermont is a chronic importer of power.)
Just how much carbon dioxide the two reactors are saving depends on what the replacement power source would be. A megawatt-hour from a coal plant produces about one ton of carbon dioxide. In the long run, power companies could build natural gas plants, which produce only about half a ton per megawatt hour.
The governors' draft agreement gives Vermont a limit of 1.35 million tons of carbon dioxide, approximately equal to its current emissions. But if the Vermont Yankee nuclear plant's output were replaced with coal, Vermont's emissions would increase by nearly four million tons. If natural gas were used, the increase would still be nearly two million tons.
The agreement gives New Jersey a cap of 23 million tons, but if Oyster Creek's output was replaced with coal, the state's output of carbon dioxide would more than double.
Some environmentalists say that greenhouse emissions should be cut by switching to "renewable" fuels, including wind, solar and hydroelectric. Wind-produced power, in fact, is growing rapidly, but over all, electricity from renewable sources in 2004 was about 1 percent lower than in 2003, mostly because of less hydroelectric production. Environmentalists propose reducing carbon dioxide output by building wind turbines. But utility experts say that the amount of wind that a utility grid can tolerate is limited, because wind is intermittent and often unpredictable. In fact, the "capacity factor" of a wind turbine, defined as the amount of power actually produced in a year, compared with the amount that would result from around-the-clock generation, is about 33 percent.
In addition to Vermont and New Jersey, the seven other states in the accord are New York, Connecticut, Delaware, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire and Rhode Island.
V-SNAP plans study of Yankee 'uprate'
http://www.reformer.com/Stories/0,1413,102~8862~3035890,00.html
By K. CECCAROSSI
Reformer Staff
VERNON -- It's not clear exactly what the state's advisory panel on
nuclear power is going to say about a proposed 20 percent boost in
power at Vermont Yankee, but it's a sure thing now the panel will have
something to say about it.
There's been a bitter disagreement for months among members of the
advisory panel about how, if at all, they should weigh in on a proposed
increase in power at the Vernon reactor.
But on Wednesday, they committed to studying the benefits and the
risks of a so-called "uprate" at the plant.
Their motion was met with applause by the 65 or so people who sat in a
stifling hot auditorium at the Vernon Elementary School to watch the
panel's meeting.
The Vermont State Nuclear Advisory Panel, or V-SNAP, is supposed to
give the governor, Legislature and state agencies opinions on all
matters related to nuclear power.
And although Entergy Nuclear, owners of Vermont Yankee, have been
pursuing an uprate at the 33-year-old plant for more than two years,
V-SNAP has yet to take an official opinion on the matter. Likewise,
when the state's Public Service Board conducted a formal review and
public hearings on the proposed power increase, V-SNAP was mum.
Now that the Public Service Board is working out one last question on
whether to approve the uprate, the public has put pressure on V-SNAP to
get involved, and add one more voice of advocacy for the safety and
financial welfare of Vermonters.
Last March, the Public Service Board OK'd the uprate plan, but with an
important condition: the board said Entergy must submit an independent
safety assessment of the plant, and one that met certain criteria.
That August, the federal Nuclear Regulatory Commission led an
inspection of the plant. Plant owners have said the commission's work
was sufficient for the Public Service Board's purposes. But the board
hasn't accepted that inspection yet.
And in December, the last time V-SNAP held a meeting in Vernon,
residents gave the panel a petition with more than 250 signatures
asking its members to demand a more detailed assessment of the plant. A
motion Wednesday from Tim Nulty, a citizen member of V-SNAP, was the
first step responding to that.
"V-SNAP has and continues to consider whether the benefits to Vermont
of a proposed uprate outweigh the costs and risks to state," the motion
states. It passed unanimously.
Although the motion doesn't speak directly to the plant inspection,
Nulty said "that question is the core of the whole issue. ... At some
point I expect this panel to come to a conclusion on it."
Although the motion was the first substantive measure of V-SNAP's role
in the uprate, some members of the panel have been, for months, calling
for action on the issue.
An apparent divide among the panel has stymied that discussion. At
least that was the message sent Wednesday, when members spent 45
minutes of the three-hour meeting bickering first about how to order
their agenda and, later, they wrangled over V-SNAP's statutory
responsibilities.
Sen. Mark MacDonald, D-Orange, representing the state Senate on
V-SNAP, said he had to call Wednesday's meeting to address the uprate
question. He pointedly asked V-SNAP Chairman David O'Brien, who is also commissioner of the state Department of Public Service, when, if ever,
he planned to schedule a meeting.
This year, O'Brien's department, which advocates for state ratepayers
in energy issues, endorsed the existing inspection of the plant, before
the Public Service Board.
And there were some insinuations from V-SNAP members that O'Brien was
deliberately keeping the panel out of the uprate debate for that
reason.
On Wednesday, O'Brien said "I'm not aware that we [V-SNAP] have been
tasked to make a judgment [on the uprate]. ... That's up to the Public
Service Board."
Sen. MacDonald had wanted to spend extra time reviewing V-SNAP's
annual report Wednesday and asked that the agenda item get bumped to
the end of the meeting, so the more important uprate discussion could
take place first. MacDonald said he had several pages of revisions to
the language and content in the panel's annual report.
He sparred with O'Brien, again. O'Brien said the panel should take up
the annual report at another meeting to leave "time to hear from the
public you're so interested in." As they traded sharp words, the
audience jeered.
Hoots from the crowd got louder, later, when O'Brien stopped a
presentation by State Nuclear Engineer Bill Sherman to ask MacDonald to
"stop passing notes" to other V-SNAP members.
MacDonald said he "fully intended to keep writing notes." Other
members came to his defense, starting a panel-wide argument over
conduct. A few epithets rose from the audience, directed at O'Brien.
A power boost at Vermont Yankee is still pending approval from the
federal Nuclear Regulatory Agency.
Its review of the plant has been delayed for months, particularly
because of concerns over whether some equipment in the plant could
handle added pressure of an uprate.
This week the agency issued a timetable for completing its work, with
a target of February 2006.
Before that, the Public Service Board has to sign off on an inspection
of the plant, or call for a more thorough one.
In the meantime, V-SNAP members said they plan to hold more frequent
meetings to analyze the uprate proposal and issue an opinion to the
Public Service Board.
K. Ceccarossi can be reached at kceccarossi@reformer.com.
Oversight panel at odds on Yankee exam
http://www.rutlandherald.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20050901/NEWS/
509010371/1003/NEWS02
September 1, 2005
By Susan Smallheer Herald Staff
VERNON — Officials continued to wrangle Wednesday over whether a
special engineering inspection of the Vermont Yankee nuclear power
plant was as independent and thorough as requested by the state Public
Service Board.
In a sometimes-contentious meeting among the members of the Vermont
State Nuclear Advisory Panel on Wednesday night, the group finally
agreed it needs to evaluate the full risks and benefits of Vermont
Yankee's proposed 20 percent power increase.
The public members of the advisory panel called the meeting, rather
than Chairman David O'Brien, who is also the commissioner of the
Department of Public Service.
Panel member Timothy Nulty of Jericho said he felt the panel needs to
evaluate whether the risks associated with the power boost outweigh the
benefits and that the panel shouldn't remain silent on the issue.
Despite two years of discussion and debate, the panel has yet to take a
public stand on the power boost, mostly due to internal disagreement.
O'Brien, appointed by Gov. James Douglas, has repeatedly wrangled with
Sen. Mark MacDonald, D-Orange.
In a highly unusual move, the panel asked Entergy Nuclear engineers to
step down and allow the anti-nuclear group New England Coalition to
discuss last year's special engineering inspection, along with the
executive director of the Windham Regional Commission.
Panel members said they wanted to hear from others besides Entergy,
owner of the reactor.
Both groups have been critical of the engineering inspection, which was
conducted in August 2004 as a condition of state regulators' approval
of the requested power boost.
The Public Service Board has yet to say whether the special inspection
met its requirements, and has asked a subcommittee of the Nuclear
Regulatory Commission to review the special report.
Raymond Shadis, senior technical advisor for the New England Coalition,
and James Matteau, executive director, said the inspection fell short
of the requirements outlined in the PSB's approval to Entergy in March
2004.
"The NRC indicated it did something different," Matteau told the panel.
The inspection did not address reliability, a key PSB requirement.
The Coalition has led a petition drive for a special, in-depth
inspection of Vermont Yankee before it boosts its output.
Ed Anthes, of the group Nuclear Free Vermont by 2012, urged the panel
to return to regular meetings, saying many critical issues need public
review — like emergency evacuation and planning, the special
inspection, and the status of the plant's decommissioning funds.
The proposed assessment would closely resemble the special inspection
conducted at Maine Yankee nuclear power plant, an inspection which
ultimately led to its shutdown in 1997. That assessment uncovered many
problems at the reactor and its owners were unwilling to pay for the
repairs at the plant.
VSNAP heard from about a dozen local residents, who said they wanted
the panel to pay more attention to issues at Vermont Yankee.
Sunny Miller of the Traprock Peace Center in Massachusetts, urged the
panel to support the Tooth Fairy Project, which is studying baby teeth
from children born near Vermont Yankee as a way of gauging the
radioactivity being released by nuclear power plants.
Phil Allard of Deerfield, Mass., said that the state panel was long on
rhetoric and short on answers for the public.
Turning to address the audience, Allard said, "Some nights we freeze,
some nights we cook. We're still waiting for answers," he said. "The
system's not working."
He was applauded.
Contact Susan Smallheer at susan.smallheer@rutlandherald.com.
Vermont Yankee's siren tests will be heard in Massachusetts
http://www.wpri.com/Global/story.asp?S=3792410
BRATTLEBORO, Vt. Things may get a bit noisy in the towns surrounding
the Vermont Yankee nuclear plant in the next month -- including those
in western Massachusetts.
The plant will be testing 21 new poll-mounted sirens it has installed
in eight towns within its emergency evacuation zone.
Tests will take place between nine a-m and five p-m starting on
September sixth. On the 23, the plant expects to sound all 21 sirens at
the same time.
The towns affected include Brattleboro and Vernon in Vermont,
Winchester, Hinsdale and Swanzey in New Hampshire, and the
Massachusetts towns of Northfield, Bernardston and Colrain.
Uprate expected to be the hot topic at V-SNAP meeting
http://www.reformer.com/Stories/0,1413,102~8862~3034044,00.html
By K. CECCAROSSI
Reformer Staff
VERNON -- It's their job to give opinions to the Legislature, the
governor and to state agencies on matters of nuclear power.
And tonight they're getting together here, for the first time since
last December, to discuss their upcoming business.
The Vermont State Nuclear Advisory Panel, better known as V-SNAP,
meets at 6 p.m., in the Vernon Elementary School. The public is
welcome.
Topping the panel's agenda is the plan to boost the power output by 20
percent at Vermont Yankee nuclear power plant. V-SNAP will be weighing
in on the issue as state and federal officials decide over the next few
months whether to approve the proposal.
The uprate was approved by the state's Public Service Board last
March, but with the condition that Entergy, the plant's owners, submit
to an independent assessment of the reactor.
In August 2004, the federal Nuclear Regulatory Commission led an
inspection of the plant, but Public Service Board members haven't yet
accepted that work as the assessment they were looking for. In the
meantime, plant owners have spent upwards of a million dollars in
uprate-related improvements to the reactor.
When V-SNAP last met in Vernon, in December, hundreds of Windham
County residents turned out. Local people gave the panel a petition,
asking V-SNAP to demand a more detailed inspection of Vermont Yankee.
"They promised they would act on it," says Peter Alexander, executive
director of New England Coalition, nuclear watchdog group. "Now is the
time for them to deliver."
Representatives from the coalition will make that charge directly to
V-SNAP tonight.
There seems to be some disagreement among V-SNAP members on how to
advise the state on the inspection question.
But at least a few members of V-SNAP have expressed a strong
committment to doing another inspection at Vermont Yankee.
State Sen. Mark MacDonald, D-Orange, a V-SNAP member, requested
tonight's meeting specifically to address the issue. He said he's
concerned the uprate provides huge economic benefits for Entergy, but
little incentive for Vermonters.
"Ratepayers will pay through the nose if there's a miscalculation in
this," he said.
V-SNAP is made up of Rep. Steve Darrow, D-Putney and MacDonald,
appointed from the House and Senate respectively; citizen members
Russell Kulas and Timothy Nulty, appointed by former governors; Larry
Crist, from the state Department of Health; Thomas Torti, secretary
from the Agency of Natural Resources; and David O'Brien, commissioner
of the Department of Public Service.
Its agenda also calls for discussion of a plan to bring on-site
nuclear waste storage to Vermont Yankee; a summary of the fund that
would cover costs of permanently shutting down Vermont Yankee; Vermont
Yankee's operational report; and discussion of the plant's recent
shutdown, due to a malfunction in the electrical yard. There is also
time set aside for public comment.
Yankee 'uprate' review slowed
http://www.reformer.com/Stories/0,1413,102~8860~3034037,00.html
By DAVID GRAM
Associated Press
MONTPELIER -- The Vermont Yankee nuclear plant's hopes of boosting its
power output after this fall's refueling outage have been dashed, with
federal regulators saying they need more time to review the proposal.
Entergy Nuclear, which owns the 33-year-old reactor in Vernon in
Vermont's southeast corner, had said for more than two years that it
hoped to be able to begin increasing the plant's power output from 540
megawatts to 650 megawatts as the plant started up again after this
fall's scheduled refueling outage.
But a recent letter from Nuclear Regulatory Commission staff members
to a special NRC panel reviewing the proposed power boost indicated the
staff is a long way from satisfied that increasing the aging plant's
output is a good idea.
The NRC staff wrote to the NRC's Atomic Safety and Licensing Board
that its review had been slowed by continuing concerns about the
ability of a plant component known as the steam dryer to withstand
increased pressures that would be caused by running the plant harder.
Some plants around the country that have boosted power have seen
cracks develop in their steam dryers, a plant component that removes
moisture from steam generated in the plant's reactor. Cracks were found
in Vermont Yankee's steam dryer last year -- even before a power boost
-- but plant officials said they were not in areas of the dryer most
likely to see new stresses after the power boost.
The NRC board had been asking the staff for a schedule indicating when
it might complete its review of the power boost proposal. In a July 15
letter distributed Tuesday by a nuclear watchdog group, the staff said
in essence: Not soon.
Entergy sent the NRC the last of several addendums to it initial
application for the power boost on April 5, the staff letter said.
"These supplements collectively contained a substantial amount of
information that has necessitated significant staff review time and has
engendered further staff questions."
The letter said the staff had generated and would soon be sending
Entergy about 200 new requests for additional information.
Entergy's "estimated response date (or dates) to these ... questions
is necessary before the staff can set the schedular milestones
requested by the Licensing Board," the letter said.
Vermont Yankee spokesman Robert Williams said the questions and
delayed approval were a testament to the thoroughness of the NRC
review.
Raymond Shadis, technical adviser with the watchdog group New England
Coalition, said the NRC's decision to take more time meant there was
ample time for a "thorough physical inspection" of plant components
before granting permission for a power boost.
When it issued conditional approval for the power boost nearly 18
months ago, the Public Service Board said it wanted to see an
independent engineering assessment of the plant to determine its
fitness to increase its power output.
Shadis' group has maintained that the NRC inspection that resulted was
not thorough enough. The Public Service Board still has not said
whether it believes its condition was met. That question was expected
to be debated Wednesday evening at a meeting of the Vermont State
Nuclear Advisory Panel, set for 6 p.m. at the Vernon Elementary School.
Yankee power decision won't come this year
August 31, 2005
By Susan Smallheer Herald Staff
Federal regulators have told Entergy Nuclear it will not decide before
early next year whether power can be boosted at Vermont Yankee nuclear
power plant.
In a timetable contained in a letter outlining its schedule, the
Nuclear Regulatory Commission estimated it would issue its final
environmental assessment on Feb. 7, with its final safety evaluation
report on Feb. 24.
"The tentative schedule set forth could be delayed if the responses do
not fully address the issues raised in the (request for additional
information,)" wrote Brooke D. Poole, counsel for the NRC staff.
Poole said that the NRC would have "greater confidence" in evaluating
its timetable by mid-September.
The Vermont State Nuclear Advisory Panel will meet tonight at the
Vernon Elementary School to discuss various issues at Vermont Yankee,
including the status of the requested power increase, or uprate, and
the plant's unexpected shutdown last month.
Poole, in a letter sent to the Atomic Safety and Licensing Board dated
Aug. 15, said that in early August the reactor's owner had sent the
30th and 31st supplemental reports to the NRC since the uprate request
came under federal review two years ago.
Poole said the timetable is dependent on several meetings and
discussions of Entergy's plans taking place in November and December.
And she noted that the timetable is also based on the expectation that
there wouldn't be a full environmental impact statement needed for the
project, although that issue still has to be decided.
NRC spokesman Neil Sheehan said volumes of information are being
generated by Entergy.
"An example of the volume of information being exchanged between the
company and us is a 473-page response to NRC requests for additional
information," he said Tuesday.
Robert Williams, Entergy Nuclear spokesman, was noncommittal about the
effects of the delay.
Williams said that the company had hoped for a decision before the
plant shuts down for its regularly scheduled refueling and maintenance
period, which is slated for late September-early October.
The company has already made more than $60 million in renovations to
the plant in anticipation of the NRC approval for the 20 percent power
increase. It make those changes in early 2004.
Williams said that the continuing requests for more information from
the NRC was not an indication of Entergy failing to answer the NRC's
questions.
"We're responding to their requests for information," he said. "It's a
matter of the NRC making sure they have complete information and
complete understanding of our calculations. It's not indicative of the
quality of the information we're providing them."
Instead, he claimed, it was an indication of "how in-depth, and how
thorough the information is."
The Public Service Board has yet to sign off on a special engineering
inspection, which took place a year ago, as one of the conditions of
state approval of the 20 power increase.
Raymond Shadis, senior technical adviser to the anti-nuclear group New
England Coalition, said Entergy has been sending volumes of information
to the NRC. But he said it wasn't always well defined.
"Quite often the name of the game is to bury the opposition in paper,
and in this case the NRC is the opposition," Shadis said. "They've been
sending them endless reams of calculations. They could put a cover on a
telephone book and ship it to them."
The Advisory Committee on Reactor Safeguards, an arm of the NRC, is
reviewing the special engineering report at the request of the PSB to
determine whether its goals were met.
The VSNAP meeting starts at 6 p.m. today at the Vernon Elementary
School cafeteria. The meeting is open to the public.
Contact Susan Smallheer at susan.smallheer@rutlandherald.com.
Dry cask storage case may take a year to settle
http://www.reformer.com/Stories/0,1413,102~8862~2976619,00.html
By CAROLYN LORIE
Reformer Staff
BRATTLEBORO -- The Vermont Public Service Board has scheduled a pre-hearing conference for Aug. 10 in the Vermont Yankee dry cask storage case.
The conference will be held in Montpelier and will set a date for hearings on the case. It marks the beginning of a process that some are predicting will take at least a year to complete.
Plant officials are seeking permission to install large concrete and steel containers, called dry casks, to store used, or spent, nuclear fuel assemblies.
Spent fuel at the plant is currently stored in a 40-feet deep pool in the reactor building that is reportedly filled to near capacity.
As it did in the sale and "uprate" cases, the nuclear watchdog the New England Coalition plans to intervene before the board. According to Ray Shadis, technical advisor to the coalition, the group does not oppose dry cask storage but wants to insure that the project is done in the safest way possible.
"We want dry cask storage in the context of addressing the problem as a whole. Our goal here is to see the best possible and practicable protection," said Shadis.
The Citizens Awareness Network, another anti-nuclear group, will most likely intervene as well.
Deb Katz, the executive director of the Massachusetts chapter, said the organization had to first insure that it could fund the
undertaking, but was "90 percent certain" it would enter the case.
"We are very concerned about what kind of casks are put on the site," said Katz. She said that concerns about security top the list.
In June, the Vermont Legislature approved a bill allowing Vermont Yankee officials to file their application with the board.
The vote followed months of negotiations between the company and the Legislature and drew criticism from some local residents who felt it didn't go far enough to protect the state.
NRC Raises New Questions About Yankee Power Boost
July 20, 2005
By Susan Smallheer Herald Staff
The Nuclear Regulatory Commission has 200 new technical and engineering questions for Entergy Nuclear about its plans to boost power production at the Vermont Yankee nuclear reactor.
The word from NRC headquarters was bad news for Entergy, which had applied for the 20 percent power boost back in 2003, hoping for a quick decision, and just last month had urged federal regulators for a decision by September.
The NRC also let Entergy know that it couldn't give the power company a definite date for when a decision would be reached because the last round of questions had generated even more questions. Entergy wants to have federal approval for the power increase before its regular shutdown for refueling and maintenance, currently scheduled for October.
"No schedule for completion of the review can be issued yet," NRC spokesman Neil Sheehan said after a status hearing on the so-called uprate Tuesday at NRC headquarters in Rockville, Md.
Another status conference was set for early August and the NRC said it could issue at that time a "best estimate" of the date of the decision.
Many, but not all, of the new questions deal with a nuclear industry problem — cracks developing in steam dryers that could threaten the integrity of a plant's reactor.
While Entergy has already completed much of the plant renovations to accommodate a 20 percent increase in power, a key aspect of the plan is adding 20 percent more nuclear fuel to the reactor and rearranging the old fuel to maximize heat production.
Entergy had hoped to do those two things during October's shutdown.
Laurence Smith, spokesman for Entergy, declined comment Tuesday until he had talked with the company's engineers.
Officials from the state of Vermont and Entergy Nuclear were at NRC headquarters to discuss another problem area in Entergy's application — the effects of the ramped-up power on the reactor's core cooling system in an emergency.
William Sherman, a nuclear engineer with the state Department of Public Service, told the Advisory Committee on Reactor Safeguards that new, bigger pumps could answer many of the state's questions.
The state is afraid that during an accident, the cooling pumps wouldn't be able to work effectively because of increases in the cooling-water temperatures.
Sherman also urged federal regulators to push Entergy to do more analysis of the effects of its requested power boost to eliminate many "uncertainties" that still remain about Entergy's two-year-old application.
Sherman said Entergy has already spent $60 million on plant upgrades in anticipation of getting federal approval, but he said he expected the figure was now closer to $80 to $90 million.
The state's nuclear engineer listed at least seven "uncertainties" about the effects on the reactor's emergency core cooling system by the power boost.
Sherman told members of the Advisory Committee on Reactor Safeguards, an arm of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, during a meeting Tuesday at NRC headquarters outside Washington, D.C., that the state's "real concern" was that NRC staff would let Entergy do whatever it wanted to do.
"When you get right down to it," Sherman said at the end of the daylong hearing , "why didn't Entergy put more effective pumps in its pinch-point analysis … the answer was, 'the staff lets us do this.'"
The panel had asked Sherman why Vermont officials didn't just ask Entergy themselves. But under federal law, issues of safety are the federal government's — not the state's — responsibility.
Earlier in the day, Sherman said the state wrote a letter in December 2003, raising concerns about the effects of increased pressure in the reactor core during an accident. He said it took the NRC staff six or seven months to respond to his letter.
Sherman said that while the state supported the uprate at Vermont Yankee, he pointed out that it was a voluntary move and not necessary.
Thus, he said, safety margins should not be compromised or reduced in any degree.
Contact Susan Smallheer at susan.smallheer@rutlandherald.com.
NRC NEWS
U.S. NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION
NRC ISSUES $60,000 FINE FOR INATTENTIVE CONTROl ROOM SUPERVISOR
AT PILGRIM NUCLEAR POWER PLANT AND INITIAL INAPPROPRIATE RESPONSE
The Nuclear Regulatory Commission has proposed a $60,000 civil penalty for Entergy Nuclear Operations, Inc., for violations that occurred at the Pilgrim nuclear power plant on June 29, 2004. The violations involve a control room supervisor who was asleep for approximately 4 minutes while on duty in the control room, and improper response by a shift manager and reactor operator after observing the inattentive supervisor.
After the NRC learned of the event, the agency's Region I Office of
Investigations began an investigation at the plant, which is located in Plymouth, Mass., and operated by Entergy. That investigation determined, among other things, that the supervisor in question fell asleep in a chair and was therefore inattentive to his duties. (Public safety was still assured because another reactor and senior reactor operator were also on duty in the control room at the time.)
Based on the investigation's findings, the NRC has identified four
violations of agency requirements. Specifically, they involve: (1) the
control room supervisor being asleep and therefore neither alert nor attentive to his duties; (2) a reactor operator observing the supervisor asleep but deliberately failing to take immediate actions to awaken him, inform appropriate site personnel and file a report on the event; (3) the shift manager, in careless disregard of requirements, failing to inform appropriate site personnel and file a report on the event; and (4) the control room supervisor not being relieved of duty and subjected to fitness-for-duty testing.
"Although there was no actual safety consequence resulting from this event because there were no plant conditions that warranted immediate action, it is important for licensed operators to be alert and attentive to their control room duties at all times so that they can adequately monitor the reactor, manipulate reactor controls, and react to any plant transients,"
NRC Region I Administrator Samuel J. Collins wrote in a letter to Entergy regarding the enforcement action. "It is also important that when license operators are not alert or attentive to their duties, appropriate action must be taken to immediately correct the situation and inform management."
In addition to the fine proposed for Entergy, the NRC is issuing a Severity Level III violation to the reactor operator involved; a Severity Level II violation to the control room supervisor; and a Letter of Reprimand to the shift manager. The Letter of Reprimand for the shift manager is based on a settlement agreement reached under the NRC's Alternate Dispute Resolution Process. It acknowledges that under the agreement, the shift manager will
conduct outreach to peers at Pilgrim and other licensed operators in the nuclear industry regarding his experience and lessons learned. These commitments have been put in place by a confirmatory order.
Entergy has taken several steps in response to the event, including conducting training on behavioral observation and other topics, as well as senior managers meeting with plant personnel to discuss the event, fitness-for-duty obligations and safety conscious work environment requirements.
The company will have 30 days to respond to the enforcement action.
Yankee seeks rule change to aid uprate bid
http://www.reformer.com/Stories/0,1413,102~8862~2966335,00.html
By CAROLYN LORIÉ
Reformer Staff
BRATTLEBORO -- Representatives from the Vermont Department of Public Service and anti-nuclear group New England Coalition will be at the headquarters of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission on Tuesday, arguing against a proposed rule change.
The guideline that would be changed has to do with "taking credit" for pressure in the containment tank after an accident. If revised, it
could affect Vermont Yankee's bid to increase power by 20 percent.
The NRC now advises plant operators that in order to comply with its regulations, they should not take credit for pressure in the tank
unless absolutely necessary and no alternative exists.
If Vermont Yankee were to produce 20 percent more power, the water in the containment tank would be hotter, allowing steam bubbles to form. The air in the bubbles would interfere with the ability of the emergency pumps to suction the water, eventually rendering them useless.
Without the emergency pumps constantly circulating cool water into the tank, the core would eventually become exposed, resulting in a meltdown.
Engineers at the plant, however, argue that there is enough pressure already in the tank to prevent the steam bubbles from forming. The
pressure is there under normal operating conditions and would not
change in the event of an accident.
But opponents say that this is far from certain and that plant
operators should not count on the level of pressure remaining the same after an accident.
"[Defense in depth, safety margins and redundancy] evaporate if you permit plants to operate with an emergency core cooling system that very well may not work," said Raymond Shadis, technical advisor to the coalition.
Some plants that have increased power -- or "uprated," as it is known in the industry -- have been allowed by the NRC to take credit for containment pressure.
The NRC is currently reviewing Vermont Yankee's application to uprate. A decision had been delayed because of lingering concerns about possible problems with the steam dryers.
Bill Sherman, the state nuclear engineer, said that Vermont Yankee's proposal did not show a need for taking credit for containment pressure, as state in the NRC guidelines. The state's case before the licensing board revolves entirely around this issue.
"We didn't see power uprate as creating a need," said Sherman.
David Lochbaum, a nuclear engineer with the Union of Concerned
Scientists, is working with the Department of Public Service and will be presenting with Sherman at Tuesday's meeting in Rockville, Md.
A representative from Vermont Yankee will attend the meeting, said Larry Smith, spokesman for the plant.
Though the public meeting, which will be with a subcommittee of the Advisory Committee on Reactor Safeguards, will be about the rule change in general, the department and the coalition will focus on Vermont Yankee in the arguments.
"Vermont Yankee is the poster child for containment over pressure. It is the poster child for why one should pay attention," said Shadis.
Carolyn Lorie can be reached at clorie@reformer.com.
Rifle club suit hinges on zoning
Background :Wackenhut has had this arrangement with the Leyden Rifle Club since spring of 2002. The noise primarily affects the Packer Corners community of 30+ households in Guilford, VT.
Neighborhood reps have met with Entergy twice, once in 2002 and again in 2004. Entergy then promised that they would find another location, but a year later told residents that Entergy couldn't find anywhere else.
Residents were given a schedule of about 15 training dates a year, then Entergy added 2-4 dates each month as "make-up" dates. They often train after dark, and almost always, it is reported with semi-automatic and automatic weapons, creating unbearable noise levels even when residents are inside their homes.
According to Guilford residents, the suit in Housing Court was initiated by a neighborhood group, and not by the Planning board as the following newspaper account suggests.
Comment: Entergy Nuclear Vermont Yankee, if there exists yet another way to pollute they will find it. Test wells in the area show groundwater may be radioactively polluted, a fence line monitor recently indicated state direct radiation standards were exceeded, low-level nuclear waste has been mixed with soil and dumped on site, cooling tower "drift" or side spray contains toxic algaecides and cleaning solutions, they have applied to raise the temperature of the Connecticut River, and they have truly polluted Vermont's legislative and regulatory system. They have introduced elements of fear, uncertainty, and denial into the community psyche through bogus emergency response preparations AND now, because they are too cheap to ship their guards to truly remote practice ranges, they have added, NOISE POLLUTION
Ray
Raymond Shadis
New England Coalition
http://www.masslive.com/hampfrank/republican/index.ssf?/base/news-0/112106822367390.xml&coll=1
Rifle club suit hinges on zoning
Monday, July 11, 2005
By BETSY CALVERT
ecalvert@repub.com
LEYDEN - In an upcoming trial involving abutters of the Leyden Rifle Club and the local Zoning Board of Appeals, debate over zoning laws may overshadow conflicting views on property rights and national security. The state Housing Court has scheduled a trial. The case is rooted in a 2002 decision by the 60-year-old rifle club to allow security forces from the Entergy Vermont Yankee nuclear power plant to train at the remote shooting range. That decision came shortly after the 2001 terrorist attacks in New York and Washington, D.C. Nuclear plants have been cited by national security officials as among the highest risk targets in the country.
The trial is set for Sept. 30 in the Greenfield session of the court, the club's lawyer, Francis McDonald said yesterday. A pretrial hearing is scheduled for Aug. 26.
Scheduled before the trial is a hearing for the rifle club before the Zoning Board of Appeals at 7 p.m. July 21 in the Town Hall.
The board hearing and the Housing Court trial are addressing two different, albeit related issues. The zoning board in this town of 770 residents must address the Rifle Club's appeal against the regional housing inspector's April cease and desist order.
At the request of the local Planning Board, which is at odds with the zoning board, Regional Housing Inspector James Hawkins investigated the use of the range by nuclear plant security forces. He ruled that the extended use of the range by plant security contractor Wackenhut Corp. constitutes a commercial use, which is not permitted.
Rifle Club lawyer Francis McDonald said Wackenhut has not ended its use of the range for training, because it does not agree it is engaged in a commercial relationship with the rifle club.
"They're suggesting that increased use is a change of use," McDonald said, which the rifle club believes is inaccurate legally.
McDonald said he believes abutters, who have complained bitterly about an increase in noise levels, are trying to find a roundabout way to get rid of nuclear plant training at the range. Existing case law does not permit abutters to file suit over noise, he said, if the town has no noise ordinances.
While the zoning board addresses the cease and desist order, the court will address the abutters' contention that the zoning board granted an illegal retroactive variance to the rifle club in March. A number of abutters, including many from Vermont, are saying that the zoning board had no right to grant permits to the rifle club after it had already built structures at the range that violated setback bylaws by being too close to the road.
Included among the abutters in the lawsuit is Planning Board member Peter Tusinski's wife, Cecilia. They have not returned calls for comment.
Rifle Club president Elwin Barton has admitted that he went ahead and had a covered shooting shelter and a pavilion constructed - with Wackenhut's financing - without building permits. Hawkins had told him he would need a variance.
Barton has said concern about national security prompted him to forge ahead without permission in 2002. In 2004, the zoning board granted the variances after the fact, with the requirement that the club get a special permit from the local Planning Board.
Planning Board Chairman Jerry Lund could not be reached for comment, however, McDonald said it was planning board members who organized the Housing Court lawsuit.
Selectmen have sided with the zoning board, according to a memorandum issued by the board.
Democrats Criticize Own leaders on Yankee
July 12, 2005
By DANIEL BARLOW Southern Vermont Bureau, Rutland Herald
BRATTLEBORO The state's two top Democrats received a litany of complaints Monday over their handling of nuclear waste storage and other legislative issues from members of their own party.
During a meeting Monday night with Windham County Democrats, Senate President Pro Tem Peter Welch, D-Windsor, and House Speaker Gaye Symington, D-Jericho, were accused of bending to corporate and Republican interests during negotiations over a bill clearing the way for on-site storage of nuclear waste at Vermont Yankee nuclear power plant in Vernon.
Many Democrats said the House and Senate leadership did not keep Windham County interests in mind when negotiating a bill allowing the nuclear plant to store its waste in Vermont in exchange for $2 million annual payments to the state's renewable energy fund.
Residents said the final bill has essentially ensured Vermont Yankee will get its requested 20 percent power increase, since the annual
payments are contingent on it.
"My question is, what are you going to do to get us out of this mess?" Peter Alexander, director of the anti-nuclear group New England Coalition asked to a strong round of applause.
Symington and Welch, who has announced plans to run for Rep. Bernard Sanders' U.S. House seat next year, said they did the best work they could with a Republican governor in office. Both urged Democrats to vote out Gov. James Douglas in the elections next year.
"We believe we passed something that helped public safety," said
Welch, noting that dry cask storage for spent nuclear waste is safer
than keeping it in the containment pool at the Vernon reactor.
More than 80 people crowded into a conference room at Brattleboro Savings & Loan for the meeting, some of them overflowing into the aisles and sitting on the floor. After more than an hour of statements from Symington, Welch and several Windham County Democrats, the audience began asking questions.
Representatives from 18 groups and organizations, including
Brattleboro Area Peace & Justice Group and Nuclear-Free Vermont by 2012, presented Symington and Welch with a letter accusing them of betrayal by ignoring the wishes of "thousands of Vermont voters."
"We expected leadership from the Democratic Party to ensure that the voice of the people, as presented in testimony and evidence, would be represented in the legislative outcomes," the letter reads. "What we hoped for did not happen."
Lynn Bedell, chairwoman of the Windham County Democrats, tried to limit audience participation to one-minute questions, but was met with protest and boos from the audience.
Many of the questions centered on the Vermont Yankee waste storage issue, although many Democrats also raised concerns with the health care bill that Douglas vetoed and the farm protection bill that did not address genetically modified seeds.
Judy Davidson said she was initially excited about the Democratic
majorities in the House and the Senate, but was quickly disappointed. She said the state party lacked leadership.
"If you don't live close to the plant, you don't have the same
concerns we've had for 32 years," she said, referring to Vermont
Yankee.
Andrew Davis was concerned over the closed-door meetings between top state legislators and Entergy officials that led to the nuclear waste compromise. No Windham County legislator was included in those meetings, he said.
"Are transcripts of those meetings available?" he asked. "Because if they aren't, what's the difference between that and the secret (energy)
meetings at the White House?"
As Symington began explaining that sensitive information was being exchanged during the closed-door negotiations, the crowd began murmuring with dissatisfaction.
"Why wasn't Steve Darrow allowed in?" someone from the audience yelled, referring to Westminster's Democratic representative who opposed the final deal. "He's the man to us."
Welch said there was a lot of pressure from the Douglas administration to wrap up the bill quickly before the session ended and from business leaders who worried the source of one-third of the state's energy could be lost.
"It was very possible that if we didn't pass legislation, legislation
would have been passed on us," he said.
Symington and Welch also found themselves criticized by local
legislators.
Rep. Daryl Pillsbury, I-Brattleboro, said it was "time for the
Democratic Party to stand up and start fighting back." Rep. Steve
Darrow, D-Westminster, said he was shut out of the negotiations between top legislators and Entergy officials.
After Welch incorrectly stated the Vermont Yankee uprate timeline and was corrected by an audience member, Darrow quipped, "Peter, you sound like someone driving through Massachusetts with a map of Montana."
Sen. Roderick Gander, D-Brattleboro, who missed most of the last
session due to cancer but returned to Montpelier to vote against the
nuclear waste bill, said the state must begin looking at a replacement energy source now, before it is pressured to relicense Vermont Yankee in 2012.
But he also agreed that many legislators in Montpelier would probably change their tune if the 32-year-old reactor were located near their home.
"We need to educate the northern half of this state," he said. "If
this plant was sitting on the Winooski River, it would be a totally
different vote in the Legislature."
Although they often found themselves on the defensive, Symington and Welch said they understood residents' concerns and appreciated the comments. Symington said members of the Democratic Party must sometimes agree to disagree.
"It was a productive session," Symington told the crowd. "We had a lot of major legislation pass on issues such as public safety, clean water and corrections."
Welch said he would continue to meet with local Democrats after the meeting's scheduled two hours ended.
"I'll stay as long as anyone wants and answer all your questions as
best I can," he said.
Contact Daniel Barlow at daniel.barlow@rutlandherald.com.
Nuclear Dinosaur
By Peter Asmus
Washington Post
Wednesday, July 6, 2005; A17
The recent call by President Bush to restart a major nuclear power program in this country in response to concerns about our dependence on foreign energy sources and global climate change would have Adam Smith rolling in his grave.
There is no power source less compatible with the GOP's love of free markets and disdain for regulation and subsidy than nuclear fission. Without government intervention, there simply would be no nuclear industry.
Now, it is true that nuclear energy does not contribute to global climate change. And the new pebble bed modular reactor may well leak less, greatly reduce the risks of catastrophic meltdown and use less uranium fuel. But nuclear power is far from being clean or green. Consider the following:
· In the nuclear fuel process, uranium enrichment depends on great amounts of electricity, most of which is provided by dirty fossil fuel plants releasing all of the traditional air pollution emissions not released by the nuclear reactor itself. Two of the nation's most polluting coal plants, in Ohio and Indiana, produce electricity primarily for uranium enrichment.
· The operations of nuclear power plants release dangerous air emissions in the form of radioactive gases, including carbon-14, iodine-131, krypton and xenon.
· Uranium mining mimics techniques used for coal, and similar issues of toxic contamination of local land and water resources arise -- as does the matter of the unique radioactive contamination hazards to mine workers and nearby populations. Abandoned mines contaminated with high-level radioactive waste can pose radioactive risks for as long as 250,000 years after closure.
· Concerns about chronic or routine exposure to radiation are augmented by the supreme risk of catastrophe in the event of power plant accidents. A major failure in the nuclear power plant's cooling systems, such as the rupture of the reactor vessel, can create a nuclear "meltdown." Catastrophic accidents could easily kill 100,000 people.
I first learned about the electricity industry when I covered the battle to close the Rancho Seco nuclear plant in Sacramento in the 1980s. A long list of problems had resulted in local rate increases exceeding 200 percent. There were rumors of drug use, and even sex orgies, under the immense cooling towers. The picture painted by some insiders was of an operations crew made up of a bunch of yahoos who would fit right into an episode of "The Simpsons."
Over the next 15 years, I learned the ins and outs of the electricity business, the world's largest -- and most polluting -- industrial enterprise. The subject is boring and complex, which has led to ignorance about its extremely important activities. Past decisions authorizing a spate of nuclear plants were made with little scrutiny of their economic or environmental impacts. The consequences of those decisions, and the government subsidies that helped promote the fiction that they were cost-effective, helped set the stage for today's crisis in energy supply.
The United States, with its 103 operating nuclear power plants, is already the world's top consumer of electricity generated from nuclear fission. But we have yet to build a federal repository for nuclear waste. Given that U.S. reactors produce about 2,000 tons of high-level waste every year of operation, calling for greater reliance on nuclear power is not only supremely irresponsible but also an insult to the "conservative" wing of the Republican Party. Teddy Roosevelt is also turning over in his grave.
That Republicans call for more nuclear power is truly mind-boggling. There has never been a more subsidized, socialized power technology than nuclear. Virtually all of the countries that derive the greatest amount of electricity from nuclear power -- France, Lithuania, Ukraine, Sweden -- feature central planning and socialistic energy policies.
Real, free-market energy policies suggest smaller, smarter and cleaner power sources. The last thing the United States should embark on in these volatile times tainted by the terrorist threat is the dinosaur technology that is nuclear power.
The writer is author of "Reaping the Wind" and "Reinventing Electric Utilities."