An End to Nuclear Power in Vermont?

With the biggest nuclear disaster since Chernobyl continuing on in Japan, there is an understandable amount of concern raising over whether or not nuclear power plants are worth the risk of something going wrong. While efforts to shut down Vermont Yankee are nothing new, long-time activists have a renewed vigor to at least have the plant properly checked out. A tsunami is not exactly a threat, but other occurrences such as a flood, terrorist attack, or human error could expose similar flaws in the design of Vermont Yankee as that of Fukushima. It is particularly worrisome due to the age of Vermont Yankee. Since it has been around for more than thirty-seven years now, it has about three times more nuclear waste on the top floor than Fukushima. If something were to go wrong, the consequences could very well be devastating.

This article (scroll down to "An End to Nuclear Power in Vermont?") also tells of the three accidents that have occurred at Vermont Yankee over just the last six years, as well as some of the lies that the owners have been documented as saying. There has been a fire, cooling tower collapse, and a tritium leak all within that time period. On top of that, Entergy claimed that there was no chance of underground pipes attached to the plant containing radioactive material, when in fact there was, and just three months after this claim was made a pipe burst and strontium, caesium, tritium and maganese, and cobalt 60 were all leaked. It seems very obvious that the Vermont Yankee has not been seriously examined and that the owners are just assuming that nothing will go wrong. The Vermont Yankee website makes a point to claim of how "safe, clean and reliable" the plant is, but how trustworthy is that considering all that has happened within just the last few years?

It isn't an exactly similar situation, but I recently read an article on an elementary school in the city of Okawa, Japan that was hit hard by the tsunami. The teachers and students knew exactly what they were supposed to do when the city's alarm went off, but they all just assumed that nothing would actually happen to them. One teacher spoke up and encouraged that they should all head to the top of a hill nearby, but only one child listened to what he had to say and went with him. They are just about the only members of the school who survived the tsunami. It is very much in our societal human nature to feel like bad things only happen to other people and will never happen to us, but unfortunately there is no way of actually knowing what is going to happen, so why take the risk? What has happened and continues to happen in Japan is heart-breaking and was unpredictable, so why allow Vermont Yankee to cross their fingers and just hope that nothing goes wrong?

The Vermont State Senate voted overwhelmingly to deny the company the permission it needs to operate after Entergy's license expires in one year from now. Entergy, however, plans to take on the challenge to renew their licence and have the plant continue to operate in the same manor anyways. It is really quite discouraging how much power big companies have, and that they tend to not be too concerned of the hazards of their productions. Most large companies seem to be focused on making as much money as they can with very little regard for how it's currently affecting consumers and the environment or could do so in the future. If Entergy/the NRC were to win that battle, I would find it extremely disturbing that a company has more power than the state government, but I think (or hope) that just wont happen.

There are definitely some good aspects to Vermont Yankee. It provides a large portion of Vermont's power as well as a large number of jobs. So if Vermont Yankee did get shut down, I'm wondering what exactly the plan would be to provide all of the power that it does? Also, what would they do with the thirty year supply of nuclear waste? That is quite a lot to just store in barrels somewhere, and there are other harmful situations that it could lead to if a disaster occurred near the storage site. Maybe the plant will just be examined for potentially flawed design, but while that is better than completely disregarding what the plant is doing, I don't know if there is a fool-proof way to make a nuclear power plant harmless. Really, a full fledged nuclear disaster leading to deadly radiation flowing through the air basically sounds like one of the most terrifying things that could happen, since we all know that radiation has the power to cause a vast array of horrific side effects. I am not sure what the best way to handle Vermont Yankee is, but I am thankful that it is such a huge controversy and hope that measures will be taken to improve it and remove untrustworthy people from owning it.