Battle lines drawn over Vermont Yankee decommissioning: "A Herculean task ahead"

In an email action alert with the subject line "A Herculean Task Ahead," Leslie Sullivan Sachs of the Safe and Green Campaign in Brattleboro, Vermont has written today:

"Dear Friends of the Safe & Green Campaign,     

Listen to Kevin Kamps of Beyond Nuclear:

"I can point out to people that shutting down Vermont Yankee was a miracle, right? We weren’t, as the people, supposed to have that power. And people did it anyway. They insisted on it and they saw it through and made it happen. And so the same kind of courage and vision will have to be applied now to the decommissioning process. People have to stay in there, attend all the meetings, read all the documents. It’s a Herculean task and if anybody can do it, it’s the folks who have already forced the shutdown of Vermont Yankee." [Nuclear Free Future Yankee Post-Mortem 01.06.15]

It’s time – again - to show up and create a miracle. We need your courage and vision for the next month, while the focus is on Entergy’s decommissioning plan for Vermont Yankee. There are a lot of inspiring stories in this newsletter, most created by our own folks. First, mark your calendar with these events:

•       Jan. 28  NDCAP Meeting

•       Feb. 5   NRC Webinar on Yankee Decommissioning

•       Feb. 9   Forum to prep for NRC Public Hearing (Safe & Green and CAN)

•       Feb. 19 NRC Public Hearing on decommissioning plan

All the above, as well as events planned for March and April, are on the agenda of the Safe and Green Campaign steering committee’s next meeting on February 2^nd. We meet once or twice a month on Mondays at 5:30pm, and it’s always a pot luck supper. Email safeandgreencampaign@gmail.com if you’re interested in more info.

NDCAP January 28: Vermont's Nuclear Decommissioning Citizens Advisory Panel will meet next Wednesday, January 28 at the Quality Inn (Putney Road, Brattleboro) from 6-9pm. (This is a change from the Jan. 22 date set at the December meeting). All NDCAP meetings are open to the public, and there is time after each Agenda item for public comment. We will post an agenda on our website once it is available.

NRC webinar on VT Yankee on February 5 at 3:00pm “to provide key facts about the decommissioning process and how the NRC regulates such activities through on-site inspections and other reviews… view slides prepared by NRC staff and ask questions in writing via a web page set up to host the session. Online registration is required to take part.” Click here to register.

Arnie Gundersen and Deb Katz will speak at a Forum on Entergy’s decommissioning plan on February 9th, from 6-9pm at Marlboro Graduate Center, downtown Brattleboro. The Safe and Green Campaign and the Citizens Awareness Network will co-host. The presentations, with time for Q&A, will help you prepare remarks for the one and only NRC hearing, and to write your comments to the NRC (March 23 deadline). Forums before the NRC public hearing are also planned for Montpelier and Greenfield. Please visit to our Decommissioning Resources page for issues we have identified to date and for info how to comment.

NRC public hearing on decommissioning Vermont Yankee - February 19, 6-9pm at the Quality Inn in Brattleboro).  Details on the hearing and how to submit written comments are on our website here..."

"Big, nuke-heavy utility looking for new ratepayers to fleece"

ORGANIZE!As reported by David Roberts at Grist, Exelon Nuclear proposed takeover of Pepco represents a "Big, nuke-heavy utility looking for new ratepayers to fleece." It is part and parcel of Exelon's desperate bid to keep its dirty, dangerous, uncompetitive, aging nuclear power reactor fleet afloat. But anti-nuclear and environmental groups, the public interest movement, businesses, and consumer and ratepayer advocates are fighting back.

TransCanada's other dirty, dangerous, and expensive energy scheme: Bruce Nuclear and the proposed Great Lakes radioactive waste dump

TransCanada Pipeline's radioactive wastes from its Bruce Nuclear Generating Station are targeted to be buried less than a mile from the Lake Huron shoreline.TransCanada Pipelines, infamous for its Keystone XL tar sands pipeline scheme, is also a nuclear power utility and generator of radioactive wastes.

TransCanada is a major partner in Bruce Nuclear, which leases and operates Ontario Power Generation's (OPG) Bruce Nuclear Generating Station in Kincardine, Ontario (photo, left). Bruce is one of the world's single largest nuclear power plants, with a total of nine reactors on one site: one long-shuttered early prototype reactor (Douglass Point), and eight operable commercial CANDUs (Canadian Deuterium-Uranium reactors) at the adjacent Bruce A and Bruce B nuclear power plants.

Bruce Nuclear is located on the Great Lakes shoreline, 50 miles across Lake Huron from Michigan. OPG proposes to bury all of the province's so-called "low" and "intermediate" level radioactive wastes, including those generated by TransCanada Pipeline's, in a "Deep Geologic Repository" (DGR) at Bruce. This, despite the risk to the drinking water for 40 million people in 8 U.S. states, 2 Canadian provinces, and a large number of Native American First Nations. Learn more, and take action!

Coalition presses challenge against Palisades' dangerously embrittled RPV

Entergy's Palisades atomic reactor is located on the Lake Michigan shoreline in Covert, MI. The Great Lakes serve as drinking water for 40 million North Americans in 8 U.S. states, 2 Canadian provinces, and a large number of Native American First Nations.An environmental coalition, including Beyond Nuclear, Don't Waste MI, Michigan Safe Energy Future, and Nuclear Energy Information Service of IL, has pressed its legal challenge against Entergy Nuclear's Palisades atomic reactor (photo, left). The coalition, represented by Toledo-based attorney Terry Lodge, and Vermont-based expert witness Arnie Gundersen (Chief Engineer, Fairewinds Associates, Inc.), filed a Combined Reply on Jan. 20, to Answers filed by Entergy and the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) staff on Jan. 12.

Entergy submitted a License Amendment Request to NRC on July 29, seeking -- yet again -- to weaken safety standards against Pressurized Thermal Shock (PTS). Palisades has the worst embrittled reactor pressure vessel (RPV) in the U.S., an affliction suffered by all U.S. pressurized water reactors, to a greater or lesser extent. The coalition intervened against the regulatory rollback on Dec. 1.

On Dec. 23, Fairewinds Energy Education published a video about PTS risks at Palisades, entitled "Nuclear Crack Down?", featuring Arnie Gundersen.

From 2005 to 2007, a broad Great Lakes environmental coalition resisted the 20-year license extension at Palisades. Its top safety concern was PTS. NRC rubberstamped the extension nonetheless, approving operations till 2031. Palisades has violated NRC PTS safety standards for decades, but each time, NRC simply weakens its regulations to accommodate Palisades, and enable its ongoing, catastrophically risky operations.

Like a hot glass under cold water (albeit a hot glass under a ton of pressure per square inch!), Palisades' neutron-embrittled RPV could fracture if the Emergency Core Cooling System ever pumps cold water onto the hot metal. This would lead to a Loss of Coolant Accident, and likely core meltdown. If containment were to be breached, as at Fukushima Daiichi, a catastrophic release of hazardous radioactivity would follow.

"Exelon's Proposed Acquisition of Pepco: Corporate Strategy at Ratepayer Expense"

The Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis has released a new report, Exelon's Proposed Acquisition of Pepco: Corporate Strategy at Ratepayer Expense.

Here’s an overview, and here's a snapshot:

• The deal, if it goes through, would expose customers to rate increases aimed at supporting Exelon’s struggling business model;
• it would undermine the District of Columbia’s renewable-energy initiatives;
• and it would expose ratepayers to long-term risks that are significantly larger than the short-term protections and public benefits claimed by Exelon.

Exelon's "struggling business model"? Dirty, dangerous, expensive, age-degrading, and ever less competitive nuclear power plants, most of which are nearly a thousand miles away from Pepco's service area in D.C. and Maryland!

The full report is posted here.