Yesterday the Vermont state senate voted overwhelmingly to block renewal of the Vermont Yankee nuclear power plant’s license after 2012. The NYT reports:
In an unusual state foray into nuclear regulation, the Vermont Senate voted 26 to 4 Wednesday to block operation of the Vermont Yankee nuclear plant after 2012, citing radioactive leaks, misstatements in testimony by plant officials and other problems.Unless the chamber reverses itself, it will be the first time in more than 20 years that the public or its representatives has decided to close a reactor.
The vote came just more than a week after President Obama declared a new era of rebirth for the nation’s nuclear industry, announcing federal loan guarantees of $8.3 billion to assure the construction of a twin-reactor plant near Augusta, Ga. . . .
In a small, ornate chamber packed with plant opponents, the Vermont senators voiced frustration over recent leaks of radioactive tritium at the 38-year-old plant as well as the collapse of a cooling tower in 2007 and inaccurate testimony by the plant’s owner, the Louisiana-based nuclear operator Entergy.
Plant officials had testified under oath to two state panels that there were no buried pipes at Vermont Yankee that could leak tritium, although there were. No tritium has turned up in drinking water, but even plant supporters expressed dismay at the leak and the misstatements.
According to the story, the facility will be forced to close unless both houses of the Vermont legislature pass a certificate of public good before the current license expires in 2012.
AndyM says:
I’m not sure I’d characterize this as a setback for Nuclear Power so much as a setback for idiot corporations that think they can get away with lying to the government.
I’m sure some of the “no” votes were from anti-nuke folks, but a lot more were probably from legislators who were miffed at corporate officials repeatedly and intentionally lying under oath. If your plant has been leaking, don’t say leaks are not possible… I think that’s true in pretty much any industry — lying to the regulators and being publicly caught at it makes you very unpopular with those regulators.
February 25, 2010, 2:32 pmtroll_dc2 says:
If the Vermont legislature forces the facility to close, does the federal government have the authority to override that decision on federal-energy-policy grounds?
February 25, 2010, 2:32 pmSteve says:
I’m concerned that this turn of events could be polarizing, with the “no-nuke” crowd pointing at this plant’s apparent failures as indictments of nuclear energy in general and nuclear energy advocates being unduly supportive of their “bad apple.”
February 25, 2010, 2:35 pmorca says:
Send in the Marines to keep a leaky nuclear plant operating against the wishes of the people of Vermont?
Now that would good publicity for the nuclear power industry.
February 25, 2010, 2:36 pmSlow says:
People are already a bit frightened by nuclear power. Whether their fear is justified is debatable, but having the corporations running the reactors lying about stuff is not going to help anyone.
February 25, 2010, 2:46 pmJonathan H. Adler says:
AndyM — I don’t think it’s an either/or. If the mismanagement and mishandling of this facility results in its closure, it could have a broader effect on the industry, both because it could result in greater oversight and regulation of nuclear facilities, greater delays in the opening of new facilities, and increased reluctance to invest in such facilities.
JHA
February 25, 2010, 2:48 pmArthur Kirkland says:
A worthwhile step might be a law enforcement operation designed to treat those who lie for profit about vital safety issues in the way those who sell marijuana are treated — an effort to bankrupt and imprison them.
Part of the reason rational people act stridently about issues such as this is a reasonable, experience-based fear that lies driven by a “heads we win, tails you lose” perception will compromise even a properly arranged regulatory system.
A fine antidote to such system-crippling corruption might be the awareness that a number of high-level executives are spending 20-year stretches at standard prisons consequent to their public-endangering misconduct.
I also would support making the financial penalties for irregular emissions adequate to ensure best efforts among the owners and managers of nuclear facilities.
With those two elements of a regulatory policy in place, it should be easier to proceed with expansion of nuclear energy generation.
February 25, 2010, 2:51 pmGuest12345 says:
The scary thing is that now that the reactor will be shuttered, the level of maintenance will drop dramatically and the amount of leaks, spill and other concerns will increase.
February 25, 2010, 2:54 pmgeokstr says:
Anybody have a cite or link to the severity of these leaks?
Hopefully, they were not as bad as the horrendous tragedy from the catalclysmic “meltdown” at Three Mile Island, where plant employees and those downwind of the site suffered tremendously from the huge doses of radiation they were exposed to for months afterwards, which was later estimated to be almost a fraction of the natural radiation from granite that commuters get from walking through Grand Central Station.
Selfless environmentalists continue to bring to light such horrific disasters as this, and Alar, and Saccharine, and cyanide laden grapes from Chile, and the myriad other horrors of modern living. I estimate that they prevented at least .347 deaths that otherwise might have occured, at a mere cost of only several billions of dollars per crisis.
We need a monument to these saints.
February 25, 2010, 2:56 pmVlad Konings says:
geokstr,
You are factually correct.
But it’s extremely poor politics.
The leaks likely posed negligible threat — but lying about them does not help the cause in the least. Nor should we expect it to.
February 25, 2010, 3:01 pmorca says:
What an interesting design feature. Another public relations coup.
February 25, 2010, 3:12 pmkdackson says:
I say let the idiots in Vermont freeze in the dark. They probably want cap and trade as well.
February 25, 2010, 3:14 pmFC says:
It’s the natural counterreaction to the post-WWII ballyhoo of an “Atomic Age.” The anti-nuke people believed that nuclear stuff could do anything, and have accordingly been afraid.
February 25, 2010, 3:16 pmcboldt says:
– The leaks likely posed negligible threat –
February 25, 2010, 3:21 pmWhat leaks? All I read about are buried pipes and the possibility of leaking tritium (a normal component of sea water, FWIW).
cboldt says:
Ooops – bad reading skills – now I see “recent leaks of radioactive tritium.”
February 25, 2010, 3:23 pmcboldt says:
– The leaks likely posed negligible threat –
VT Nuclear Plant Leaking- Industry Faces Concern Nationwide – FoxNews Feb 19, 2010
February 25, 2010, 3:29 pmSteve says:
If you testify under oath that there are no buried pipes that could leak tritium, then you’re in trouble if it turns out there are, in fact, buried pipes that could leak tritium. The fact that they have apparently only leaked small amounts in reality doesn’t change the fact that the pipes are where you said they weren’t.
February 25, 2010, 3:35 pmcboldt says:
– If you testify under oath that there are no buried pipes that could leak tritium, then you’re in trouble if it turns out there are, in fact, buried pipes that could leak tritium. –
February 25, 2010, 3:46 pmAgreed that at best it’s a PR nightmare. It’s conceivable that the folks doing the testifying didn’t know the pipes were capable of leaking tritium – e.g., contain a fluid that might bear a trace of tritium.
At any rate, the reason I provided the FoxNews cite and excerpt was just to quantify the size of the reported leak – not to justify it.
As a business matter, if I’m running Entergy, I’m balancing the profit of operation against the cost of compliance, and pulling the plug if I’m not making enough money. IOW, I agree with the “let them freeze” sentiment – although I’d phrase it as “let them make their own power.”
cboldt says:
cboldt: It’s conceivable that the folks doing the testifying didn’t know the pipes were capable of leaking tritium – e.g., contain a fluid that might bear a trace of tritium.
Turns out, that possibility is not the reality.
NRC confirms 2005 tritium leak at Vermont Yankee plant – The Boston Globe – February 24, 2010
February 25, 2010, 3:57 pmAnym_Avey says:
In any heavily regulated industry, blatantly lying to the regulator means a very angry regulator, and an angry regulator means your life is difficult or impossible thereafter, full stop. The nature of the original dispute, and whether anyone is likely to be meaningfully affected at this moment, do not matter.
So far nobody has picked up on the “collapse of a cooling tower in 2007″. That’s not the kind of attention-to-maintenance one wishes to find at any active industrial facility, least of all a nuclear facility.
February 25, 2010, 4:08 pmrj says:
Vermont Yankee had a problem a few years back with missing or unaccounted for fuel rods:
http://www.wmur.com/news/3031119/detail.html
It’s clearly not a very well-run facility. And to make judgments about how bad the problem is or could develop into just because environmentalists are concerned about it and you don’t like environmentalists is just blinkered and bitter.
February 25, 2010, 4:15 pmSun Tzu's Nephew says:
Brilliant! So, in two years, the people of Vermont will be sitting in the dark, since Vermont Yankee supplies more than 75% of the power the state uses? Or will they happily pay significantly more for purchased power?
And 2.8 million picocuries is a trivial amount of radiation….if you have a traditional stone foundation house in Vermont you get more radiation exposure from the rocks in the basement than drinking a liter of that contaminated water a day for a year.
February 25, 2010, 4:23 pmArrowSmith says:
Let ‘em freeze. That’ll show the idiots.
February 25, 2010, 4:24 pmArrowSmith says:
So throw the baby out with the bath-water. HOw much coal is going to be burned to replace the shut-down reactor? Won’t that do devastating harm to the environment? Or do liberal scum not care?
February 25, 2010, 4:26 pmCharlie B says:
Doesn’t Vermont Yankee supply something like 90% of the electric power in Vermont? If so, somebody is going to burn a lot of coal to keep the lights on in Vermont.
February 25, 2010, 4:29 pmrj says:
ArrowSmith: Actually, most of the rest of Vermont’s power comes from contracts with HydroQuebec. I don’t know how easy it is to get more juice from north of the border, but it’s not implausable, given the comparatively small size of Vermont.
Besides, is that really an excuse to let a company lie to you about serious safety risks of a nuclear power plant and still trust them with its continued operation?
I’m for nuclear power and I’m also for building new plants, but bad behavior is bad behavior. Shutting down troubled facilities is a good way to show that the other facilities are safe because it gives people confidence that if their local plant was actually dangerous, they would have shut it down.
February 25, 2010, 4:39 pmArkady says:
Vt. Yankee valve still leaking
By SUSAN SMALLHEER Rutland Herald Staff – Published: February 17, 2009
BRATTLEBORO — A valve leaking more than 3,600 gallons of radioactive water a day at the Vermont Yankee nuclear power station, discovered seven weeks ago, still hasn’t been fixed, an Entergy Nuclear official said Monday.
Several attempts to fix the leaking gasket, contained in a 4-inch pipe in the reactor’s clean-out system, have failed, according to Robert Williams, company spokesman.
Williams said company engineers will attempt to reinstall a sealant this week.
The company announced the discovery of the leak in early January, saying the leak had been discovered two weeks earlier.
According to Neil Sheehan, spokesman for the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, Entergy has tried at least three times to fix the problem, traced to a faulty gasket in a valve in the reactor’s clean-out system.
Sheehan said the leak was now down to one-tenth of a gallon a minute, but he said he didn’t know how long the leak had been reduced. He said the water was “slightly radioactive.”
February 25, 2010, 4:39 pmHouston Lawyer says:
Sounds like not enough radiation was leaked to give me a sun tan. I’m sure the sights on my Sig contain more tritium than that.
Power bills will go up not just in Vermont as a result of this action.
February 25, 2010, 4:43 pmrj says:
Also, ArrowSmith: all that talk of “liberal scum” and “idiots” in Vermont doesn’t bolster your argument. It shows you care about the people of Vermont only to the extent you can make an example of them. The ad homenim attacks also show a lack of creativity and a blind rage that discredits any other point you may make.
February 25, 2010, 4:44 pmSarcastro says:
I’m seeing some good points here from ArrowSmith and Sun Tzu’s Nephew. Since the nuclear power plant provides power, we really should let them lie all they want!
February 25, 2010, 5:01 pmTatil says:
Let’s see, 2.8 million picocuries is equal to 2.8 microcuries, which is on the order of millionth of a curie, not trillionth. Does gas get cheaper if I tell you the price in cents instead of dollars? They are already trying to mislead the public with playing around with the numbers and they have already admitted to “lying”. Now, many of you are taking their word that the danger from the leaks were negligible? Are you always this trusting or is this reserved for particular industries or politicians?
February 25, 2010, 5:15 pmJaimeInTexas (Jam) says:
A few weeks ago I read an article about thorium. Anybody in VC knows anything about it?
Here is the link to the article
February 25, 2010, 5:24 pmArrowSmith says:
I don’t care anymore. I’m going to rage until Jan 2013.
February 25, 2010, 5:25 pmMalvolio says:
Why doesn’t the state of Vermont fine the company the convenient sum of one (1) nuclear reactor and sell the thing to Westinghouse or whoever? Why cut off your nose to spite your face?
February 25, 2010, 5:27 pmArkady says:
According to this document (2006), it supplies about 34%.
February 25, 2010, 5:34 pmrj says:
Malvolio: It’s hard to say given how little we know about what it would take to get everything up to standards. But yeah, that could have been an option.
ArrowSmith: At your current pace, you’ll die of an apoplexy-induced coronary well before 2013.
February 25, 2010, 5:35 pmTatil says:
Why not? “Too big to fail” worked quite well for the banks.
February 25, 2010, 5:37 pmArrowSmith says:
If that happens, so be it. I can’t take living in this socialist nightmare any longer.
February 25, 2010, 5:39 pmArthur Kirkland says:
And, it is to be hoped, beyond.
February 25, 2010, 5:43 pmArrowSmith says:
If Obama is re-elected I am killing myself.
February 25, 2010, 5:46 pmSun Tzu's Nephew says:
Got a replacement? Is it clean power? More people die every year from the radon induced cancers from coal-fired plant operations than have EVER died from commercial nuclear power plants – including Chernobyl. Not to mention that coal mining is dangerous in itself, that coal fly ash is dangerous, etc.
How about those windmills off Martha’s Vineyard? Oh, right.. ugly. I know, lets put 50 sq miles of solar panels in the desert (3000 miles away) to replace the plant…except the sun doesn’t shine 24 hours a day, every day, even in the desert. Never mind the tortoises.
Worried about nuclear fuel waste? Lets get off the stick, and start reprocessing the fuel into more fuel. Instead of each reactor being a one-off, lets get the GenIV designs going, that are inherently safe (they don’t require external safety controls or interventions).
Or what suggestions do you have to replace the power that won’t be made? The additional cost for everyone in the Northeast since power will be much more expensive? It won’t bother me, my house is off-grid already and even if it wasn’t, it’d be on a different intertie grid so the abject STUPIDITY of Vermont’s pols doesn’t really affect me.
February 25, 2010, 5:47 pmSarcastro says:
[That is a nice parallel! Though I do have some hope Obama is fixin' to give the banks a nice reaming soon. Hopefully bureaucratic karma will be as much trouble for the banks as Vermont is for these guys.]
February 25, 2010, 5:49 pmNobody At All says:
Thorium deserves more attention. I’ve been reading Sorenson’s blog (referenced in the Wired story) for quite a while; his history of the liquid-fluoride reactor is fascinating.
Other interesting links:
- from the (now defunct) WSJ Environmental Capital blog;
- Financial Times;
- There was a recent Economist article, too, I think.
On the even more tangential subject (relating, only slightly, to government restraints on generation): the Wyoming Senate passed an excise tax…. on a non-excised resource. Brilliant. (Edit: while it is not, in theory, a poor idea to distribute a technology-neutral generation tax to neighbors in compensation of locally-born externalities; this is clearly rent-seeking from incumbent energy industry participants. An excise tax on a renewable resource is a contradiction in terms; one of this magnitude is simply intended to depress new market entrants.)
February 25, 2010, 5:49 pmSarcastro says:
[oh, I'm all for nuclear power, Sun Tzu's Nephew. At least to supplement till viable renewable tech comes about (cause you're right that currently renewable energy possibilities are pretty bad).
But these guys seem pretty scummy and should not be allowed to continue as they are just because they have a monopoly on electrical production.]
February 25, 2010, 6:00 pmSun Tzu's Nephew says:
Then go build your own plant, and compete with them. Thats free enterprise, the American way, and good business sense.
February 25, 2010, 6:02 pmSarcastro says:
Yes, Sun Tzu’s Nephew! Deregulation for the nuclear industry! No more government oversight holding them back. The free market will totally result in safer plants!
And, of course, no accountability for lying to government fatcats – in fact, it should be encouraged – keep those Vermont hippies on their toes, I say! The sort of corporation that has the cojones to lie to investigators has just the sort of spunk that made America so great back when we had 100 hour work weeks and men were men (and sometimes boys)!
February 25, 2010, 6:08 pmArrowSmith says:
Because the government has such a wonderful track record right? Show me evidence of ONE wildly successful government program and I’ll commit suicide on the air!
February 25, 2010, 6:12 pmSarcastro says:
ArrowSmith is right, the government suuucks. I hate the highway system, police departments, the Hoover Dam, the space program, science AND the military!
February 25, 2010, 6:29 pmSteve says:
The highest about 2.8 million picocuries, that’s a trillionth of a curie.
Let’s see, 2.8 million picocuries is equal to 2.8 microcuries, which is on the order of millionth of a curie, not trillionth.
I suspect the speaker was trying to explain what a picocurie is (a trillionth of a curie).
February 25, 2010, 6:31 pmleo marvin says:
Motivating the liberal base may not be as hard as I thought.
February 25, 2010, 6:42 pmMartyA says:
Did anyone really believe that the Kenyan truly favored nucular power?
February 25, 2010, 6:47 pmHis anti-Americans will dispute new plants at every turn.
How’s that drilling for US oil and gas going after a year?
Captain Ned says:
Lifelong Vermonter here, from the pro-nuclear camp.
VT Yankee provides about a third of our power using about a third of its power potential; the remainder of the power is sold into the New England ISO. The ugly part of this is that not only does the VY license expire in 2012, so do the power importation contracts with Hydro-Quebec (source of most of our power). In 2 years the source of 80% (/handwave) of our power needs to be repriced. No one here who can actually think for themselves believes this will have a happy ending.
The true mess over VY revolves around the decommissioning fund. Those VT legislators who were not born in VT (a majority in both houses and all likely attendees of the 1979 No Nukes concerts) retain some residual animus against nuclear fission power, but they’re more interested in the money. What they want in exchange for the license renewal is State control of the decommissioning fund. Since we’re looking at a sizable budget deficit, even an 1L could figure out why they want State control over the fund.
February 25, 2010, 6:47 pmPubliusFL says:
Wow, science itself is a government program? I guess that’s why they call them laws of physics.
February 25, 2010, 6:48 pmSarcastro says:
Gawd, I wish the government would get to the issue of general relativity and quantum field theory being incompatible, but you know how they feel about reconciliation lately.
February 25, 2010, 6:53 pmSun Tzu's Nephew says:
The tower seems to have been quite ancillary to operations. Made of wood, not one of the big hyperbolic updraft towers commonly used at power plants. Also, nobody hurt.
February 25, 2010, 6:56 pmCaptain Ned says:
The cooling tower mess is not the issue over the lies (although who builds a cooling tower out of wood in our climate?). It’s the fact that there were tritium leaks in 2005 at the exact same spot as today’s leaks and Entergy execs told our Legislature that there were no underground pipes that could be leaking tritium.
In the end, Entergy is likely to lose its bid for a license extension. It will have done so through an truly embarrassing series of own-goals, not on the physical & scientific merits.
February 25, 2010, 7:01 pmSun Tzu's Nephew says:
We’ve never had a free market nuclear power industry…remove the Price-Anderson crutch and the market will balance itself.
After all, the government regulators we have today have demonstrated they can’t operate something as simple as TurboTax, why should we trust them with anything serious?
February 25, 2010, 7:02 pmSun Tzu's Nephew says:
President zero loves nucular just as much as he loves coal….
Hell, he’d be mandating burning baby seals for light, if someone would slip him enough Benjamins….It’s the Chicago Way!
February 25, 2010, 7:05 pmcookiemonsta says:
Dude…stop talking about killing yourself. Nobody wants that
February 25, 2010, 7:11 pmSun Tzu's Nephew says:
Well, even a 1L should be able to figure out that the reported (by Wiki) $347 million decom trust fund won’t cover the $875 million decom costs…And I don’t think there has ever been a plant decom on budget.. But if those legislators really want to saddle the state with another half-billion of debt, what the hell? It’s not like it’s REAL money…
February 25, 2010, 7:11 pmcookiemonsta says:
“After all, the government regulators we have today have demonstrated they can’t operate something as simple as TurboTax, why should we trust them with anything serious?”
And it’s probably true that every member of the government at some point has failed to do something as simple as use the turn signal light while driving…thus they can’t do their jobs
February 25, 2010, 7:14 pmVermontboy says:
They brought this one on themselves. Randy Brock is a conservative state senator who is very pro-nuke. He put it this way:
February 25, 2010, 7:23 pm“If the board of directors and management [of Entergy] were infiltrated by anti-nuclear activists, I do not believe they could have done a better job destroying their own case.”
second history says:
VY has been cited numerous times for inadequate security:
They used the same company, Wackenhut Nuclear Services, that had guards that disabled their weapons at one plant, and were found sleeping on the job at several nuclear plants. Talk about a confidence builder.
February 25, 2010, 7:31 pmA Setback for Nuclear Power | Liberal Whoppers says:
[...] the rest here: A Setback for Nuclear Power [...]
February 25, 2010, 7:36 pmPersonFromPorlock says:
It looks like the problem here is the management of the plant, though, not the plant itself. The physical problems are (apparently) minor but the managers have destroyed their own reputations. So might not the solution be to force the sale of the plant to a new management company?
Maine Yankee was shut down in 1996 after a similar combination of pedal marksmanship and physical problems, but there the physical problems were much worse.
February 25, 2010, 8:39 pmSarcastro says:
Hell yes, Sun Tzu’s Nephew! Unsupervised private nuclear power plants should definitely be tried. It’s not like the stakes are high.
Besides, the free market is like krypton to meltdowns!
February 25, 2010, 10:02 pmArthur Kirkland says:
Why assume the death panels won’t get you first?
February 25, 2010, 10:07 pmcboldt says:
– the free market is like krypton to meltdowns –
February 26, 2010, 7:00 amBeing nitpicky, the effect you seek requires the application of KryptonITE.
Krypton is in the family of inert gases, along with helium, neon, argon, radon, and xenon.
Jeff Walden says:
I think ArrowSmith is rolling Sarcastro (a first?), among others.
February 26, 2010, 7:22 ampublic_defender says:
I’m one of those pro-environment liberals on the fence about nuclear power. It has tremendous advantages as long as safety and long-term storage issues can be dealt with. And allowing this plant to stay open without any sanction would be a good way to push the pro-nuclear environmentalists into the anti-nuclear camp.
Any compromise to save this plant should begin with some sort of real punishment for those who misled the public (criminal charges if grounds exist, personal civil liability otherwise). Just losing their jobs is not enough. Just a payout from their errors and omissions policy is not enough. Salvaging this plant requires something that inflicts real pain.
February 26, 2010, 7:37 ampublic_defender says:
One more thought. The pro-nuclear crowd should use this as an opportunity to show that they support real enforcement. If other nuclear plant owners don’t support real sanctions against the leadership of this plant, the cloud over this plant will extend over the rest of the industry.
February 26, 2010, 7:39 amhugh says:
IIRC, many nuclear power plants were purchased by new companies that used former navy personnel and generally improved the operational safety, efficiency, an profitability of the reactors purchased.
One could hope that the refusal by the state to license the reactor to current management may force the company to sell the power plant at a bargain price to one of these new companies.
February 26, 2010, 9:19 amSun Tzu's Nephew says:
Sure, because the involvement of the Federal Government has done such a good job! Stifled development of plants; new, safer designs; hide the costs of doing business…oversight that allows cooling towers to collapse and pipes to leak…
Hell, whats not to like?
February 26, 2010, 9:43 amSarcastro says:
[Sun Tzu's Nephew, you are against any inspection and oversight of nuclear power plants? Or are you against government run power plants?]
February 26, 2010, 9:58 amJaimeInTexas (Jam) says:
Thanks, Nobody At All.
From this link:
3. Fuel cycle. The neutron economy of the LFR allows it to breed thorium to uranium and essentially run forever. Thorium is plentiful and the resources available would fuel planetary energy production for thousands of years. The DOE recently disposed of a stockpile of 3216 metric tonnes of thorium nitrate that if burned in liquid-fluoride reactors would provide all US energy (electricity and transportation) needs for five years. Fission products can be isolated from the salt and disposed in a geological repository, where their activity would drop below background levels in ~300 years. Actinides would be retained in the core and not end up in the geological repository. The generation of trans-uranic nuclides from the thorium-uranium cycle is essentially zero.
4. Operability and reliability. The LFR can be refueled continuously and easily while online, which would improve the competitiveness of utilities by eliminating refueling shutdowns. The composition of the salt is continuously re-homogenized by pumping the salt through the core. There are no “hot channels” or local burnup in a liquid-fluoride core due to this action, and not need for fuel reshuffling. Fuel can be removed easily by draining the core. The strong negative temperature coefficient allows the reactor to “follow the load” without operator intervention, and to reduce power generation extremely rapidly in response to “loss of load” accidents.
February 26, 2010, 11:02 amFriday Highlights | Pseudo-Polymath says:
[...] Nuclear power and things that block it. [...]
February 26, 2010, 11:23 amStones Cry Out - If they keep silent… » Things Heard: e107v5 says:
[...] Nuclear power and things that block it. [...]
February 26, 2010, 11:24 amSun Tzu's Nephew says:
I’m against stupid regulation by government…I’d be willing to bet good money that most of the Vermont Senate has no clue about nuclear energy at all (or for that matter, physics or chemistry or mathematics) and they feel they’re the ones to make decisions about how a plant is run?
There needs to be reasonable control – for example, the requirement for containment structures is a good one, as is the requirement that the utilities set up decommissioning escrow funds, and training operators to a standard. What we’ve had is a bureaucracy that is unaccountable to anyone making rules based on something other than common sense and science, that has made it near-impossible to progress in nuclear energy. How different is a GE BWR-4 reactor (like at VY) from the one in Shippingport? Not very….yet better, safer designs haven’t been approved because of the morons regulating the industry.
Keep in mind that TMI happened because of ambiguous training and indicators (all approved by the NRC/AEC) ….and while that was the worst civilian power reactor accident in the US, nobody was hurt because of it. Government in action.
Had a freer market existed, economies of scale and financial concerns for minimizing insurance risk would have mandated better, standardized designs and training. If nuclear power wouldn’t have been economical under those conditions, then the market would have figured out a way it would be, or it wouldn’t be built.
February 26, 2010, 11:31 amrj says:
Sun Tzu’s Nephew: Bureaucracy didn’t make the company lie.
February 26, 2010, 11:45 amSarcastro says:
[Oh, internet misunderstanding! We are basically in agreement, then! (though I'm not sure about the requirement that Senators be experts in whatever they pass laws upon). Not sure how bad the moronic regulators are, but I'm willing to take your word for it.
Though I have heard that no private insurer will insure nuclear power plants, necessitating additional regulation. Anyone heard bout this wrinkle?]
February 26, 2010, 11:49 amDan Weber says:
If we don’t trust the current management or owners, the state ought to be able to compel a sale to another company. (“We won’t license you, but we will license someone else with a good history.”) Is this practical?
February 26, 2010, 12:10 pmMark Buehner says:
Huh?
link
How could nuke plants operate without insurance? Thats a new one…
February 26, 2010, 12:26 pmSarcastro says:
[Here's the story. I was talking to my substantially more liberal family (!) about Obama's recent nuclear power push. They said that they have a free market solution - that as soon as private insurers are willing to insure nuke plants, they will support them. However, currently only the feds will insure power plants, or at least that such insurance is heavily government subsidized
My source is therefore both biased and not an expert. But I am curious about what the deal is, and too lazy to bother looking it up myself.]
February 26, 2010, 12:48 pmcboldt says:
– They said that they have a free market solution – that as soon as private insurers are willing to insure nuke plants, they will support them. However, currently only the feds will insure power plants, or at least that such insurance is heavily government subsidized –
February 26, 2010, 12:58 pmThe “at least such insurance is heavily government subsidized” is a give as to their ultimate position. What constitutes subsidy of the insurance? How much subsidy results in crossing the line from “not heavy” to “heavy? Another point not stated is the amount of coverage that is necessary to get over the objection to nuclear power.
Separately, I earlier composed but either forgot to post, or “the dog ate my homework,” but the substance you noted above as having a certain effect is not krypton (which is a real element in the same family as helium, neon, argon, radon and xenon), but krypotonITE.
Mark Buehner says:
I don’t understand the argument that nuclear power is too heavily subsidized and therefore we need to massively subsidize wind and solar.
February 26, 2010, 1:33 pmSarcastro says:
[Mark Buehner, we have not solved the problem of energy. Much of the subsidies for renewable energy sources are to encourage its development, whereas the subsidies for nuclear are to maintain the status quo. I think one can support both nuclear now and research in renewable sources for later.
And I know what hurts Superman, I just wanted to add that 'radioactive' feel.]
February 26, 2010, 2:12 pmSun Tzu's Nephew says:
The liability of the nuclear power industry is limited to $10-billion, the US Taxpayers cover anything over that…thanks to that Price-Anderson Act I recommended doing away with.
February 26, 2010, 4:34 pmSun Tzu's Nephew says:
Sure, in a nation with no concept of property rights. Which, after Kelo, I guess includes the US.
February 26, 2010, 4:35 pmDan Weber says:
Does it really make property rights go away if the state refuses to re-license a facility that it honestly finds to not be operating as it should, but would allow someone else to license the same facility?
Surely a situation where new owners comes in to run the plant is preferable to one in which the plant merely stops operation.
I’m not sure how practical this is; hence my question.
February 26, 2010, 4:54 pmleo marvin says:
I find it unsettling that Sarcastro, a superhero in his own right, could confuse Krypton for kryptonite.
February 26, 2010, 6:34 pmrxc says:
As someone who actually used to regulate the nuclear safety of Vermont Yankee, I am amazed at the amount of mis/dis-information that I have read in these comments, from assertions that a BWR-4 is not so different from the Shippingport reactor, to comments promoting molten-salt thorium breeder reactors. Do you go to Wikipedia for cites in law briefs?
You guys should stick to the law. I once considered becoming a lawyer, but after seeing what lawyers did to the Shoreham plant, I swore off a career in law forever – I would never be able to live with myself if I had to do what a successful lawyer seems to need to do.
The people who run VY should suffer for their statements about the leak. I have read that some of the them have already been disciplined, and they should feel some pain. OTOH, they DID detect the leak, which is what all that monitoring is for, and they DID eventually find the source, it seems. And, no one can point to any dead bodies or even minor cases of sunburn – only a hysterical populace stirred up by activists. But that is the way people who work with words make a living, right?
It will be interesting to see how many windmills and solar panels they put up on the tops of the mountains in Vermont to replace VY…
February 26, 2010, 8:11 pmPersonFromPorlock says:
The analogous situation would be someone who permanently loses his driver’s license: it’s not mandated that he sell his car, but it’s predictable.
February 27, 2010, 8:32 amNobody At All says:
To be clear, I agree entirely with you regarding the VT Yankee.
I am not very familiar with molten-salt thorium technology, but based upon the limited information that I have come across, it sounds promising. I would appreciate additional information on the subject. Could you suggest further reading?
February 27, 2010, 3:05 pmNobody At All says:
Edit: by “entirely,” I mean that the owners/operators of the plant should be punished for their misstatements, and that (thankfully) the misinformation did not hide a serious threat of injury. It is undisputed, I think, that a state has undoubted power to deny a CPG to a horribly-managed plant, regardless of the technology used. Denial of a CPG is the state’s largest bargaining chip for better management, and I see no legal or practical reason that it shouldn’t be used here.
For those who advocate safe nuclear power, however, I see no upside in failing to condemn a horribly-managed plant. This should be used an example of prudent regulation preventing serious risk; in contrast to other, well-run plants.
As far as prognostication: there are strong financial reasons to prevent the permanent closure of the VT Yankee. I suspect that important changes will be promised, made, and verified (if by new owners/operators), and – at some point – a new CPG will be issued.
February 27, 2010, 3:36 pmCareless says:
That’s what it supplies to Vermont, but that’s misleading: its total generation capacity is about 3/4 of what Vermont consumes, they just export most of it now.
February 27, 2010, 8:53 pmJaimeInTexas (Jam) says:
rxc: “…to comments promoting molten-salt thorium breeder reactors.”
I asked the question here because I thought that I might get a little info on the subject without having to go through technical stuff I probably would not understand.
Do you really have problem with raising an interesting (to me) and new (to me and turns out to be not so new) technology that is an alternative to Uranium-based reactors?
So what exactly is it about molten-salt thorium breeder reactors that causes your panties to get into a wad?
February 28, 2010, 9:25 ampublic_defender says:
You are right that we lawyers need to watch the limits of our expertise, so I’ll take your word on the technical stuff. But in return for taking the word of the scientists on the scientific matters, there must be real consequences for misinformation. “No pipes” is pretty clear, regardless of whether you have a PhD, JD, or GED.
As Professor Somin points out, people are often rationally ignorant about politics. The same goes for science. Few of us have the time (or, admittedly, the brain power) to sort through the literature to figure out the real risks of nuclear power in general or any given nuclear plant. So we have to decide whom to trust. When someone (or some company) we trusted shows us that our trust was misplaced, it’s really hard to earn it back.
So, rxc, whom should the neighbors of this nuclear plant trust for reliable information on the plant’s safety? And how do the neighbors know they can trust that source?
February 28, 2010, 2:49 pmVader says:
Here’s what I’m getting from the discussion so far:
1. Nuclear power is a good idea and Vermont should be getting some.
2. But not from a utility stupid enough to lie under oath even when the failures being discussed do not pose a credible threat to the public.
February 28, 2010, 7:23 pmrxc says:
Sorry I didn’t respond to this thread sooner, but I have been away for a few days with no internet access.
Regarding trust, it is very difficult for a regulator to establish trust, but especially when it involves scary stuff that people really don’t understand from their daily experience. Even the airplane people have it easier because everyone can understand a giant tube of people falling out of the sky, while the nuclear people deal with stuff that none of our senses can detect. And to top it all off, the first association most people have with the word “Nuclear” is “bomb”.
One of my former bosses used to say that when both sides on an issue were pissed at us, it was likely that we were doing it right, but I don’t quite take that approach. I thing that regulators need to explain what they do, over and over again, and be as open as possible in making decisions. The public needs to be invited to all of the meetings, even including internal ones where the problems are discussed by the engineers, who often take time to understand issues before they can come up with solutions. I used to argue that every time something broke in a plant, they should wake up the local mayor and other officials, and also the media and invite them down to the plant to watch the engineers talk about it and figure out how to fix it. After a while, they will eventually see that the vast majority of the scare stories are just that – stories.
Education of the public on the subject of risk would go a long way to helping explain this, but I don’t think that will ever happen, or be successful, because there is too much money to be made selling papers and pursuing lawsuits.
Regarding the molten-salt thorium breeder, it is technically possible, and the AEC actually built and operated one for a while down in Oak Ridge (sorry I don’t have a reference for you). However, the practical aspects of this technology are mind-boggling, because it involves circulating large amounts of a hot, corrosive, highly-radioactive fluid in a large piping system. The maintenance aspects of this sort of system are just too much to consider. Currently operating reactors are designed to try to keep all of the fission products inside sealed fuel elements, and they even shutdown plants prematurely to remove fuel elements that develop pinhole leaks because “leakers” cause all sorts of maintenance and PR headaches. When you have ALL of the FPs circulating, any fluid leaks are bound to have very bad consequences, at least locally. Fuel reprocessing plants that deal with these sorts of fluids do ALL of their maintenance work remotely, in heavily shielded concrete “cells”, and they are usually even built remotely, so as to ensure that they can take everything apart when equipment gets contaminated. If people are scared about tiny amounts of tritium, they will absolutely not tolerate leaks of fission products. There are a LOT better ways to do nuclear than molten-salt reactors.
Finally, regarding VY management, if they lied under oath, they should suffer the consequences. Whatever those may be, from being fired to being prosecuted. THis is one good reason the nuclear “renaissance” needs to proceed slowly – there are too many people who do not respect this technology who have become cheerleaders, and they will make a mess of it, because they don’t understand it. Unfortunately, engineers are not known for their stellar communication abilities – just ask our wives…
March 4, 2010, 8:59 pm