Time to go Beyond Nuclear with wind power in New England

Beyond Nuclear representative Paul Gunter went before a federal licensing board of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) to argue that rather than relicense New Hampshire’s Seabrook nuke for another 20 years, it can be replaced by wind power that is under development 10 to 50 miles out into the Gulf of Maine for five gigawatts of renewable baseload electricity by 2030. It is outrageous enough that NextEra Seabrook Nuclear LLC (aka Florida Power & Light) is submitting a license extension application 20-years before the current license even expires also in 2030.

In fact, NextEra is using the opportunity as an end run around the environmentally friendly renewable energy renaissance rapidly dawning offshore in the deep water of the Atlantic Ocean.  

Beyond Nuclear makes the legal case that NextEra’s application violates national environmental policy law by significantly misleading the federal government with a self-serving evaluation and dismissal of the  neighboring wind alternative which in fact will render the continued harmful operation of Seabrook obsolete.

Coincidently on December 1, 2010, the National Wildlife Federation released its own report “Offshore Wind in the Atlantic, Growing Momentum for Jobs, Clean Air and Job Protection” further validating Beyond Nuclear’s challenge to bring a halt to an unreasonable and dangerous extension of the nuclear age

"American Dream" looks over for EDF

Électricité de France, the French utility originally planning to expand nuclear energy in the U.S. through construction of the French EPR reactor, is backing away from the U.S. market. Having already been left stranded by its US partner, Constellation, at the planned Calvert Cliffs, MD new reactor site, EDF's French chairman and chief executive, Henri Proglio, now says EDF will look for business elsewhere. For EDF, the world's biggest nuclear operator, the U.S. represents "a significant stake but not an essential one," he told The Wall Street Journal in an interview in his central Paris office.

Trouble-plagued nuclear industry shuts down two reactors on the same day

The Vermont Yankee nuclear plant, up for sale and scheduled to close in 2012, was shut down Sunday evening after radioactive water escaped from a pipe leading to the reactor. Meanwhile, half an hour earlier, at Unit 2 of the Indian Point nuclear power plant in Buchanan, NY, a transformer exploded causing the shutdown of that reactor. Both plants are owened by Entergy and have been plagued by leaks, mainly of tritium. Vermont Yankee has also endured a fire and the collapse of its cooling towers (pictured). Newly-elected Vermont Governor, Peter Shumlin, a former State Senator, led the charge to get the plant closed on schedule in March 2012, a move the State Senate approved last February.

Vermont Yankee reactor rocked by election day results!

Less than two weeks after Vermont Yankee (VY) sprung yet another radioactive leak from aged, degraded systems, the headlines in the "hometown paper" of the nuclear power plant, the Brattleboro Reformer, hold huge implications for the future -- or lack thereof -- of the highly controversial, nearly 40 year old reactor: "Dubie Concedes to Shumlin," that is, Democrat Peter Shumlin, who led last February's 26 to 4 victory in the Vermont State Senate to block VY's 20 year license extension, defeated pro-nuclear Republican Lieutenant Governor Brian Dubie in Vermont's gubernatorial race on Nov. 2nd; and "VY eminent domain issue gets nod," that is, VY even lost a referendum in its hometown when Brattleboro voters approved a measure urging the state to study the potential to take over and shut down VY. Entergy Nuclear's response to all this bad news about VY's future prospects? "Entergy to put Vermont Yankee on market"!