Beyond Nuclear on "Vermont Yankee: Post-Mortem," on Ch. 17/Town Meeting T.V. in Burlinton, VT

On Jan. 9th, Beyond Nuclear's Kevin Kamps joined Fairewinds Energy Education's Chief Engineer, Arnie Gundersen, on the program "Nuclear Free Future" hosted by Margaret Harrington Tamulonis on Channel 17/Town Hall Meeting Television in Burlington, Vermont. The program was shown repeatedly throughout the month across Vermont.

The title for the installment is "Vermont Yankee: Post-Mortem," referring to the permanent shutdown of Entergy Nuclear's controversial Vermont Yankee atomic reactor at 12:12pm on Dec. 29, 2014.

Fairewinds Energy Education has posted the full video, as well as the audio-only, and the full transcript.

Channel 17/Town Hall TV has also posted the program.

The Vermont Yankee shutdown means the plant carcass must be safely decommissioned as quickly as possible. With full spent fuel pools, we hope Vermont Yankee rests in peace, not in pieces like Fukushima Daiichi. In this video, CCTV Nuclear Free Future Host Margaret Harrington discusses the economic, environmental, health and safety implications that the recent closing of Vermont Yankee nuclear power plant will have on New England with Beyond Nuclear’s Kevin Kamps and  Arnie Gundersen, chief engineer of Fairewinds Energy Education. - See more at: http://www.fairewinds.org/vermont-yankee-shutdown/#sthash.mHAU2bNH.dpuf

The discussion is wide ranging, with a focus on the upcoming challenges of decommissioning at Vermont Yankee, including clean-up of the radioactively contaminated site, as well as management of the forever deadly high-level radioactive waste stored there.

Vermont Yankee's shutdown: Activism had everything to do with it!

The permanent closure of the Vermont Yankee nuclear power plant in Vernon, VT in late December 2014 is being celebrated throughout New England by the thousands of activists who have taken part in the resistance to nuclear power over the past four decades. The most recent party was a January 3, 2015 gathering at a local church in Greenfield, Massachusetts where about 150 anti-nuke veterans turned out despite a steady wintery mix of sleet, snow and ice. Congratulations were sincerely exchanged all around with live music, a stream of projected photos and the conspiring on how to intensify campaigns to close the remaining reactors in New England and beyond.

The Vermont Yankee closure notches up one more shutdown New England nuke along with Yankee Rowe in western Massachusetts, Haddam Neck and Millstone 1 in Connecticut and Maine Yankee. There are now four operating nuclear power plants in the region (Pilgrim, Millstone 2 & 3, Seabrook) where activism is ramping up.

Entergy Nuclear has spun its decision to permanently shut down its Vermont Yankee atomic reactor as having everything to do with "economics," and absolutely nothing to do with grassroots activism. Nothing could be further from the truth.

One of the first lessons taught at the legendary Midwest Academy for social justice organizing in Chicago is that oppressive institutions will never give credit to their activist adversaries for achieving grassroots victories. The "powers that be" would never want to encourage social justice, peace, and environmental movements in the realization that real power rests with the people.

Bob Bady of the Safe and Green Campaign -- who was in attendance at the Vermont Yankee shutdown celebration -- made this point elegantly in the Vermont Digger, just a week after Entergy announced its intention to permanently close Vermont Yankee. (As Bady concluded his op-ed, "The power of the people is beautiful.")

So too did Dr. Richard A. Watts' book Public Meltdown: The Story of the Vermont Yankee Nuclear Power Plant.

In fact, decades of non-violent direct action -- including the mass day of action on 3/22/12 (see photos and Beyond Nuclear's web post) -- forced State of Vermont elected officials to take responsible positions, such as demanding that Entergy perform safety maintenance at the age-degraded reactor. Vermont's electric utilities were pressured to refrain from purhasing one watt of electricity from Entergy, forcing the nuclear utility to have to compete against such sources as wind power, solar photovoltaics (see photo, above), and efficiency on the wholesale market, which it could not do.

The anti-nuclear and environmental movement, amidst its celebrations at Vermont Yankee's closure, are now steeling themselves for the task to come during decommissioning: remaining ever vigilant regarding the risks that still lurk in Vermont Yankee's high-level radioactive waste storage pool and dry casks, as well as organizing to demand a comprehensive cleanup of the badly contaminated Vermont Yankee site.

But the trend in energy policy is now evermore clear. Even the international bank and global energy investment firm, UBS, is saying "It's time to join the revolution" for decentralized and distributed generation of renewable energy (particularly solar and advanced battery storage) as large scale centralized electricity generation are destined to be “dinosaurs” by 2020.

The western MA celebration closed in a collective round of song to the tune of “Auld Lang Syne,”

"Should all the nuke plants be shut down

        and no more brought on line,

 At least we stopped production of

        the waste that outlasts time,

We halt the hazard imminent

        in all those poison plants,

We do this out of consciousness,

       It’s our future's only chance."

Cook nuclear plant leaks 2,000 gallons of oil into Lake Michigan over two month period

Nuclear power is "clean, carbon-free" energy? Hardly!

As reported by the Detroit Free Press on Jan. 3rd, and The Huffington Post on Jan. 7th, the twin-reactor Donald C. Cook nuclear power plant, owned by American Electric Power/Indiana-Michigan Power Company, leaked an estimated 2,000 gallons of oil into Lake Michigan, over the course of two months, before the leak was discovered and stopped.

Lake Michigan is a headwaters of the Great Lakes, which provide drinking water to 40 million North Americans in 8 U.S. states, 2 Canadian provinces, and a large number of Native American First Nations.

And, as reported by Climate Progress on Jan. 6, Entergy's Palisades -- just 30 miles north of Cook, also on the Lake Michigan shore -- recently leaked 80 gallons of oil on the beach, but claimed it didn't reach the lake.

Climate Progress also reported a scare at Cook just months ago, that 8,700 gallons of oil had leaked into Lake Michigan -- but American Electric Power later claimed a worker misread a guage, disavowing the oil leak had actually occurred.

And Climate Progress mentioned the fears swirling around Enbridge Canadian tar sands crude oil pipelines under Lakes Michigan and Huron at the Straits of Mackinac.

1.4 million gallons of Canadian tar sands crude leaked into the Kalamazoo River, upstream of Lake Michigan, in July 2010. Inside Climate News won the Pulitzer Prize for National Reporting in 2013 for its coverage of the devastating impact of this largest ever inland oil spill in U.S. history.

A recent oil leak into Lake Michigan also occurred at a BP oil refinery in Whiting, IN.

The Detroit Free Press article quoted Michael Keegan of Coalition for a Nuclear-Free Great Lakes:

Michael Keegan, director of the nonprofit Coalition for a Nuclear-Free Great Lakes, is troubled by news of the leak.

"What's concerning is they don't really know the extent of the leak," he said. "Nearly two months later is the first determination they make that they have an oil leak? It speaks to the quality assurance of all of their other systems."

The fact that the oil is not recoverable is also problematic, Keegan said.

"There's a belief some have that the solution to pollution is dilution. It's not," he said.

From 1997 to 2000, both Cook units were shut down for major safety violations revealed by nuclear industry whistleblower Curtis Overall and David Lochbaum, Director, Nuclear Safety Program, Union of Concerned Scientists. A slogan developed in the nuclear power industry, of not wanting to get "Cooked" -- that is, busted by whistleblowers and nuclear safety advocates, forcing NRC to do its job. 

An environmental coalition borrowed the phrase, and flew airplane banners over Cook, with holiday themes. For example, the Valentine's Day banner, complete with radiation symbols and hearts, read "Stop in the Name of Love! Don't Cook the Great Lakes!"