VERNON — The Vermont Yankee nuclear power plant booted back up April 4 after a routine refueling and maintenance outage.
The plant operates on 18-month cycles with about a one-month pause for maintenance and refueling in between. Plant officials say Vermont Yankee operated for 493 days this past cycle.
Vermont Yankee replaced roughly one-third of the plant's fuel assemblies, or about 368 assemblies (there are 100 fuel rods in each assembly), an electrical transformer and a large recirculation pump. Approximately 1,000 additional workers assisted the Vermont Yankee staff with the refueling and maintenance work.
Rob Williams, spokesman for the plant, declined to say how much money Entergy Corp., the Louisiana-based owner of the plant, invested in the fuel, which was purchased through General Electric.
“We certainly made the investments necessary in this outage and in previous outages to ensure that it operates reliably and is in position to operate the facility to the end of its life in 2032,” Williams said.
During the 26-day outage, several incidents gave Department of Public Service Commissioner Chris Recchia cause for concern. Recchia questioned why a panel that blew out due to over-pressurization and faulty manhole seals led to the flooding of a switchgear room.
These incidents prompted Recchia to write to William Dean, regional administrator for the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC). In this letter, Recchia inquired into how the NRC evaluated the plant when it relicensed Vermont Yankee in 2012 to operate for another 20 years after its initial federal license expired.
Weeks after Recchia's letter, Gregory Jaczko, former chair of the NRC, said that all of the U.S.'s 104 nuclear reactors present a safety hazard and should be replaced.
As The New York Times reported last week, Jaczko said at the Carnegie International Nuclear Policy Conference that many plants that received 20-year licenses to operate beyond their original 40-year licenses would likely be inoperable by the time their licenses expired.
He also spoke out against the notion that aging nuclear plants should be eligible for a second license extension to operate for a total of 80 years.