BRATTLEBORO — Let me tell you about the company I work for, and the problems we are solving.
The world and national news is full of oil spills, natural gas plant explosions, global warming and air pollution. Every day, I and my company make low-carbon, emissions-free electricity, which is a partial solution to all four of those pressing problems.
Here in Vermont, the news is full of stagnant unemployment and a state government that doesn't have enough money to protect its many vulnerable people. Every day, I and my company - and the low-cost electricity we make - help Vermont businesses keep their overhead low and their lights and computers on.
About 600 of us get a good paycheck while doing so, and hundreds more contractors earn their living supporting us. This provides more than $12 million annually in much-needed revenue that state government can direct at the pressing needs in our schools, roads and at-risk communities.
Here in Windham County, I and my fellow employees contribute about $400,000 annually in money, goods, and services to local organizations. The local fire companies alone would face severe staffing challenges if my company went out of business.
My company, as you have probably guessed by now, is Vermont Yankee.
As you also know if you have been reading the news, we have had problems here, too. They happen in any manufacturing facility – and here at Vermont Yankee, we tell the press and government about the problems, and then work hard to solve them. The tritium leak was a good example. Many Vermont Yankee employees worked around the clock, 24/7 this winter to fix the problem. When we determined who made mistakes regarding the leak and related communications, disciplinary action was taken.
Far from being “the problem,” we are problem solvers, not only as engineering professionals working at a manufacturing facility, but as members of an enterprise that offers real solutions to pressing local, state, and world problems. Most of us have long ago given up hope that anti-nuke activists and their favorite politicians will ever speak of us in an objective, thoughtful manner.
We are heartened, however, by the perceptible improvement in public opinion. It seems that the public is recognizing both the plant's reliable, 24/7 performance this year - in fact, we operated for 531 days consecutively from planned outage to planned outage - and the obvious lack of clean, affordable electricity alternatives.
Vermont Yankee, too, is good for the global climate, good for the environment, and good to its employees and neighbors. I and my fellow workers hope enough Vermont policymakers will recognize this, and that the next few months will see a power contract and a move towards relicensing.