Vermont Yankee Nuclear Plant To Close In 2014 249
stomv writes "Vermont Yankee nuclear plant is to close in late 2014, about 20 years before its (extended) NRC operating permit expires in 2032. Vermont Yankee is a merchant plant, which means that it sells its energy and capacity on the open New England market. The three reasons cited by Entergy, the owner, for closing are: low natural gas prices, high ongoing capital costs of operating a single unit reactor, and wholesale market flaws which keep energy and capacity prices low and doesn't reward the fuel diversity benefits that nuclear provides."
All about the money (Score:5, Interesting)
Re: All about the money (Score:5, Interesting)
You don't have to dump water into a river or stream if you design your plant to not need that source of water...
Re:It's a shame, but... (Score:5, Interesting)
for centuries, as that's how much supply we have. bet those anti-nuke greenies are very happy. one pound of natural uranium supplies the energy of 16,000 pounds of coal, and our "spent fuel" is actually a gold mine of energy to get six or more times the yield again while at the same time transforming it to short lived wastes. Used in breeder, one pound thorium has the energy of 300 lbs. uranium or 4,800,000 pounds of coal! there's a real solution to driving technology, civilization and quality of life forward. not burning a fire like hominids did a 400,000 years ago.
Vermont gov't opposes nukes (Score:4, Interesting)
It's not like Vermont hasn't been doing its best to stop Yankee from operating. They've tried to deny the nuke plant a license (www.burlingtonfreepress.com/article/20130814/NEWS03/308140006/Vermont-Yankee-focus-shifts-to-Public-Service-Board-after-appeal-court-ruling) and have been battling Entergy for years about operating the plant and has been escalating the costs of operating Vermont Yankee.
The government of Vermont has done its level best to kill the plant and it's succeeded. Good or bad, you decide, but it's a case of representative democracy getting what it wanted.
Re:It's a shame, but... (Score:5, Interesting)
We have 24" of insulation in our roof, 16" in our walls, and our windows are triple-paned with a overall U value of .10 (equivalent of R-10). Our base power comes from hydro. There is actually no controversy I'm aware of about methane digesters—they are good for the environment, and while they probably release the carbon faster than it would be released through normal bacterial decomposition, they are still carbon neutral, because they represent a complete carbon cycle, from photosynthesis through to combustion. We pay the 14% extra in order to avoid buying energy from Entergy.
BTW, site-generated solar means that even though I'm running the AC right now, I'm exporting 2400 watts to the grid. This is being used to run other peoples' air conditioning. But consuming the power I generate on-site means that we don't pay the tranmission penalty, so it's a bigger win than it appears to be.
Re:It's a shame, but... (Score:4, Interesting)
An agricultural region is the perfect place to put a nuclear reactor... dense, centralized power generation, leaving the fertile land for growing food instead of generating power.