BRATTLEBORO — I find it frustrating that there is always something missing from articles about the Vermont Yankee nuclear power station. We read that the Vermont legislature will vote (this session, or, perhaps more likely, in the 2010 session) about whether to allow VY to operate for another 20 years beyond March of 2012. No particular, consistent, ongoing mention is made of VY's highly radioactive waste.
We read that the Vermont Public Service Board will decide whether to issue VY a Certificate of Public Good. But are they explicitly addressing the highly radioactive waste?
We read about cooling tower collapses, cracks in steam dryers, crane malfunctions, transformer fires, leaks in feedwater pipes into the reactor core, valves leaking “slightly radioactive” water from gaskets in reactor clean-out pipes, metal fatigue in reactor vessel nozzles, reduced pressure in switchyard breaker insulating gas, and other maintenance and reliability troubles. And the highly radioactive waste?
We read about citizens' concerns over electric rates and whether alternative sources of energy can come online quickly enough to replace VY's power. And if the rates aren't considered favorable, we continue to produce more highly radioactive waste?
Vermont Yankee's highly radioactive waste, consisting of “spent” fuel rods removed from the reactor core, will remain deadly for 250,000 years. That's 10,000 human generations. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission, the Environmental Protection Agency, the Department of Energy, and the U.S. Congress all seem to have no quarrel with the 250,000-year assessment. For a chronological perspective on that amount of time, look back 250,000 years. Humans were just evolving from Homo Erectus to Homo Sapiens.
* * *
Over the last 60 years we have not been able to devise a safe method of dealing with highly radioactive waste.
The U.S. Department of Energy's Yucca Mountain Depository located in Nevada is becoming a $100 billion boondoggle that might never open. Among other problems, the DOE now tells us that there are “water-conducting fractures” through Yucca's brittle volcanic ash composition on the order of one billion (hardly conducive to geologic containment of highly radioactive waste).
Drilling into deep ocean bottoms has an appeal, but what about getting the highly radioactive waste out there? What about the inevitable accidents during transport of the waste from 103 nuclear reactors around the country by rail, highway, and ship?
Vernon could be hosting Vermont Yankee's highly radioactive waste forever.
* * *
Fortunately, we can use some tools to help with this impasse. One, the “First Rule of Holes,” instructs that if one finds oneself in a hole, the first thing to do is stop digging. Another tool is the much-underrated Precautionary Principle, which basically says that if a technology poses dire risks to the health and safety of people or the environment, it should not be implemented.
If those tools don't result in the immediate closing of VY, here are some fall-back approaches we as consumers of energy might take:
• Conserve energy and use it more efficiently, thus demonstrating that we don't need VY's electricity. In any event, that electricity accounts for only 2 percent of the capacity of the New England grid.
• Switch, if you can, to Cow Power from Central Vermont Public Service (electricity from methane).
• Declare Vernon, Vt. a Nuclear Free Zone, making it illegal to use nuclear fission to boil water to make steam to turn turbines to produce electricity.
• Pass local ordinances throughout Windham County and the state prohibiting the manufacture, transport, or storage of highly radioactive waste material.
• Exercise constant vigilance over Entergy Nuclear Vermont Yankee's propaganda. Beware especially of full-page color ads trumpeting Clean Air! Zero Greenhouse Gases! and Safety! Safety! Safety!
• And finally, ponder that we live, at least theoretically, in a democracy where governance is “of, by, and for the people,” not “of, by, and for corporations.” How about if we the people - not the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, not Entergy Nuclear of Louisiana, and not the Nuclear Energy Institute - decide for ourselves whether Vermont Yankee is safe, clean, and reliable?
* * *
Once we start thinking for ourselves, it should become clear that Vermont Yankee is not safe. And that nuclear power is not safe.
Another Three Mile Island or Chernobyl is going to happen sooner or later. An industry that produces highly radioactive waste - deadly for 250,000 years - cannot possibly be called safe.
That this simple fact can escape prominence in our news reports and our NRC and Vermont State Nuclear Advisory Panel hearings is unbelievable. That we can blithely disregard the welfare of those who will/may come after us for the next 10,000 generations is unbelievable. That we can be considering a Certificate of Public Good for VY (given its highly radioactive waste) is unbelievable.
That we can seriously champion a resurgence of nuclear power (with yet more radioactive waste that we don't know what to do with) is unbelievable.