Here is one response to Entergy Corporation's April 18 press conference announcing its federal preemption lawsuit against the state of Vermont.
• Entergy took several hundred words to say to Vermont what Maine's governor could have taught them how to say in three.
• Entergy went to lengths to describe the lengths to which the $14 billion corporation had gone to accommodate Vermont, including its application, accompanied by the testimony of ten witnesses, for a certificate of public good (CPG) from the Vermont Public Service Board (VPSB).
What Entergy skipped was that two of those witnesses were found guilty of giving false testimony and that Entergy Nuclear Vermont Yankee was sanctioned a result by the VPSB.
Those giving false testimony included Entergy's lead witness, Jay Thayer, the senior corporate officer entrusted with pushing the CPG extension through the state of Vermont. The false testimony concerned the presence of underground piping that could carry radionuclides.
• Entergy complained that Act 160 (requiring legislative approval) prior to the VPSB issuance of any decision on VY relicensing was not part of the original 2002 memorandum of understanding that accompanied state approval of the plant's sale.
I was present in the legislative meeting room when Entergy dropped all opposition to Act 160, thus giving tacit approval to its affirmative vote out of committee and to passage.
I surmise that at the time, Entergy was confident that the legislature would never vote that VY would be a deal too good to refuse.
• Entergy argued that Act 160 moved the decision from a regulatory decision by the VPSB to a political one (by the legislature/politicians. However, the three-member VPSB is comprised of political appointees (two lawyers and a retail merchant). The Vermont Senate has within its membership comparable regulatory expertise and is appointed by the people. Entergy's regulatory-decision-versus-political-decision distinction fails the straight-face test.
• Entergy claimed that VY had “no” emissions. Simply not true. Tritiated water is an emission. The many radionuclides found in the soil are emissions. Routine stack releases of radioactive isotopes of Xenon, Krypton, Iodine, and the rest are emissions, the discharge of toxic biocides, solvents, cleaning agents, rust-proofers, and other chemicals in discharge waters and cooling tower spray or drift are emissions.
And the greenhouse gases emitting during refinement, enrichment, and manufacturing of the uranium fuel are prodigious; all in highly electric, energy-intensive processes generated for the most part by high-sulfur, coal-burning plants.
The deceptive thing about Vermont Yankee's greenhouse and acid-rain emissions is that they arrive unseen on the wind and somewhat ahead of the trucks bringing in the nuclear fuel.
• Lastly, although it is a small incremental addition, Vermont Yankee's emergency diesel generators are test run annually. Their importance is dramatically illustrated by what happened at the Fukashima Daiichi nuclear power plants in Japan.
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Entergy claims that VY is reliable and points to two “breaker-to-breaker” runs (refueling to refueling without stopping) in the last several years.
This claim would be worth something more if the company could also claim that there were no significant equipment failures, human errors, or violations of state and federal regulation during this period (cooling tower collapse, transformer fire, insulator failure, feed-water piping leaks, condenser in-leakage, main steam isolation valve test failures, pump-seal failures, control-panel failures, stuck turbine stop valves, cooling-tower header leaks, high-pressure coolant injection system failures, torus in-leakage, security breaches, steam-dryer cracking, tritium-to-groundwater leaks, and much more.)
A better definition of a reliable plant is one that can produce electricity without violating regulations and without ignoring equipment failures; such a plant might be more reliable because it shuts down occasionally to properly address such failures, not because it keeps pushing its luck to keep running despite them.
Entergy should drop the suit and cut its losses. Entergy would do well to consider that if VY has been only marginally profitable or not profitable over the last few years because of unanticipated maintenance costs and regulatory delays; the prospects for the proposed extended period of operation are realistically even more grim.
We will do our best to make this picture clear to Entergy. Truly, the operative discussion should focus on the question of just how far apart we are or what course of action would best serve both Entergy shareholders and the state of Vermont.