Vermont Yankee Nuclear Power Plant was credited with 72% of Vermont’s electricity production in 2008, supplying 35% of all electricity consumed by the state. However, the Vermont Senate has voted against allowing the plant to operate beyond it’s current operating license expiration of 2012. Even Vermont’s governor, Peter Shumlin has come out opposing the plant’s operation, despite a 20-year extension handed to Vermont Yankee by the federal Nuclear Regulatory Commission. With such a powerful band of opposition on the state level, you would think these officials have alternatives lined up or even selected, right? Wrong.
Vermont hasn’t given any alternative serious thought as to how they would make up for that lost supply. Should the plant be decommissioned upon the end of it’s current operating license — with or without alternatives lined up — energy prices are expected to rise more than three percent immediately following. IBM, the state’s largest private electricity consumer, has said of the proposed decommissioning, “we have to be smarter than this.” So what are the alternatives?
Essentially we have coal, wind, solar, or natural gas; the “no alternative” would simply mean purchasing it from out of state. There are few, if any, viable opportunities left for either in Vermont.
Coal is one of the stronger alternatives as it is cheap, plentiful, and produces a decent energy yield, which is why coal is the largest means of electricity production in the United States. However, coal is also one of the dirtiest — if not the dirtiest — methods of production. Vermont Yankee is credited with preventing the release of 2.8 million tons of carbon dioxide, 6.7 million tons of sulfur dioxide, and 1.3 million tons of nitrous oxides which otherwise would have been produced by coal in the year 2007 alone.
Wind and solar are very noble ideas, but in reality are not very efficient at this time. Although technology is continually improving in these renewable fields, they’re not likely to be the major producers they’re made out to be any time soon.
The alternative we are left with is natural gas. Although it is a fossil fuel, it generally makes a very clean burn,. Although this is not a stellar option, it would be great to see coal plants replaced by new natural gas plants, but to step down from nuclear to gas is a bad move.
Nuclear power is incredibly clean, supremely efficient, and produces very little waste from its extreme energy yield. In fact, the little waste produced can be safely stored until we perfect methods of turning the energy waste into energy itself.
With these facts, it is outrageous that a plant which has been federally inspected and approved to operate until 2032 is facing such strong opposition in Vermont. At a time where cheap, efficient, and clean domestic energy production is essential, we cannot afford to prematurely decommission Vermont Yankee Nuclear Power Plant.
