Wednesday, April 27, 2011

As time runs out for Vt. Yankee, debate heats up

With less than a year left before its operating license expires, the debate over the future of the Vermont Yankee nuclear power plant is reaching radioactive levels.
On one side are the 39-year-old plant’s owners, Louisiana-based Entergy Corp., and its supporters, mostly business interests and plant workers who say the Vernon, Vt., plant is vital to the state’s economy. On the other are a growing number of Vermonters, including Gov. Peter Shumlin and many in the legislature, who cite a string of problems over the years and say the plant is unsafe and should not be given a 20-year extension to its license.
The Nuclear Regulatory Commission, which has never denied a license to any plant, has given its approval to the renewal. In issuing the approval, the NRC insisted that the plant is safe to operate in spite of a long history of problems. It also ignored its own report on recent problems that exonerated Entergy from any fault, instead blaming problems with the original construction.
However, Vermont is the only state where the people still have a say in the process. The renewal requires the approval of the legislature, which has already voted against it once, though the matter can come up again before next year’s expiration date.
The debate is being carried out against the backdrop of the ongoing nuclear disaster in Japan and the Obama administration’s support of nuclear energy. The discussion is further clouded by broken promises, falsehoods, and misrepresentations by Entergy officials.
Last week, Entergy filed suit in federal district court in Burlington arguing that the Vermont legislature should not be able to override the NRC’s approval of the license renewal. The company also filed an injunction requesting that the plant be allowed to continue past the March 2012 closing date until the suit is settled.
Gov. Peter Shumlin and other state officials have vowed to fight Entergy’s lawsuit.
When Entergy purchased Vermont Yankee in 2002, the company agreed to abide by the state legislature’s jurisdiction over the plant. Entergy CEO J. Wayne Leonard last week took out a full page advertisement in several Vermont newspapers to explain why they are reneging on the agreement.
His reasoning?
“That was not a concern to us back in 2002,” he writes.
As recently as 2009, a company spokesman reiterated Entergy’s support for public involvement in the approval process. Up to that point, while there was some opposition to the plant, most Vermonters  generally seemed to accept it.
Then came the reports of leaks, with conflicting information from both Entergy and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. At one point Entergy and the NRC tried to organize a meeting about the problems – but scheduled it out-of-state (in New Hampshire), did not invite the press, and invited only public officials and others who supported the plant. Once that became public, the plan was quickly scuttled in favor of a more open forum in Brattleboro.
The ongoing nuclear disaster in Japan sharpened the debate even further, since the Japanese reactors are of the same design as Vermont Yankee. Nevertheless, plant officials continue to insist “it can’t happen here.”
Earlier this week, Vermont’s third largest utility company decided not to enter into a new contract with Vermont Yankee. A company representative insisted that a major accident was unlikely. While it’s true that a tsunami in Vermont is unlikely, and a major earthquake is unlikely, there are many other scenarios that could trigger a disaster.
In fact, just a few years ago one wall of a cooling tower collapsed for no other reason than it was poorly built.
And so it goes.

Tuesday, April 19, 2011

Opposition gains ground in battle against Northern Pass

Maybe the developers of the Northern Pass transmission line thought they could slip their plans by without anyone noticing – but no such luck. After the initial round of public hearings and a groundswell of opposition, the project has been delayed while they go back to the drawing boards and come up with something different.
The plan is to build a high-voltage transmission line from the Canadian border near Pittsburg, NH, to Franklin, NH, a distance of some 140 miles. Steel towers from 70 to 150 feet high, one every 1,000 feet, would support the line along 400-foot right-of-way.  It’s all part of a deal between Northeast Utilities and Hydro-Quebec to bring power from Canada to southern New England.
It should be noted that this is strictly a private enterprise. No government agency or entity requested it. But the early publicity was seductive. Lots of cheap new power from a popular alternative source – hydropower, lots of new jobs, etc. It looked like a done deal. New Hampshire’s governor was all for it.
The same consulting firm that drew up the initial plans was then hired by the EPA to write the environmental impact report.
But wait! Doesn’t that sound like a conflict of interest?
And then people found out that all this wonderful power would flow through a big cut into the White Mountain National Forest, and through some prime tourist area. Questions were raised.
Then, Sen. Kelly Ayotte and Rep. Charlie Bass – most of New Hampshire’s congressional delegation = asked the U.S. Dept. of Energy to take a closer look at this.
The result is a small, maybe temporary victory for opponents. The developers have asked for an extension while they go back and re-work some of their plans. Stay tuned.

Thursday, April 7, 2011

Someone doesn't like my blog

Following up on a previous blog about BP resuming oil drilling in the Gulf and Transocean giving millions in bonuses to their executives, I wrote another blog entry this morning discussing the decision to put the bonus money into a victims compensation fund. The main theme was that a little outrage can do some good.

I went on to point out that both Transocean and BP have been dragging their feet in paying out the compensation money to Gulf oil spill victims. When I was done, I expected it to be shared on my Facebook page, but to my surprise I received a notice informing me that it  had "content marked as abusive" and some other nonsense, and so it was blocked.

Anyone reading this on the Ecocryptic blog website only needs to read the next entry down to see how ridiculous this is. I'm asking for a clarification, but haven't heard back from the Facebook people.

It'll be interesting to see if this entry gets bocked as well.

A Little Outrage Helps Transocean See the Light

If anyone doubts the effectiveness of shedding a little daylight on corporate behavior, consider the outburst following the revelation that Transocean paid out millions in bonuses to its top executives for its “exemplary safety record.”
This was the company that was building the Deepwater Horizon oil rig that exploded in the Gulf of Mexico, killing 11 workers and spilling millions of gallons of oil into the gulf. They had either forgotten the whole thing, or considered the workers expendable – just the cost of doing business.
When news of the bonuses surfaced a few days ago, the blogosphere lit up with outrage that finally filtered to the larger news media. The company thought better of their decision, and the executives announced the money would go to the victims’ compensation fund.
That sounds nice, but the story’s not over. Both BP and Transocean have set up victims compensation funds, ostensibly to pay for the damages they caused. BP has launched a slick PR campaign making it seem that everything has gone back to normal, and people are getting the money they deserve for the losses they suffered.
Not so.
Both Transocean and BP have been dragging their feet paying out for the damage they caused, either by being slow in issuing checks, paying out way less than expected, or in many cases simply not paying at all.
 The state governments of Louisiana, Mississsippi, and Alabama are all in the process of filing lawsuits to get them to shake loose some of their billions.
We see the ads, but we don’t see the news. Why not?

Sunday, April 3, 2011

April Fools: US gov’t gives BP go-ahead for more Gulf drilling

At first I thought it was some kind of sick joke, but unfortunately it’s true.
It was just a year ago this month that the Deepwater Horizon oil rig exploded, killing 11 workers and touching off one of the greatest environmental disasters in history. Now comes word that BP will resume deep water oil drilling in the Gulf of Mexico beginning this summer.
Even sadder, this news was reported first by the European news agency Reuters, the Sunday Times of London, and another British newspaper The Guardian. As of this morning, no major American news outlet had yet reported it. Why?
Who do you see paying for the evening news? It comes courtesy of BP buying time for those commercials featuring happy yokels talking about what a great job the company has done cleaning up the mess and handing out money.
A few other stories never made it to the evening news … BP stock went up when it spread the word that it wouldn‘t be paying out as much in damages as it had said it would. That was reported in the Financial Times, another British news outlet, but never made it to the news here. And then there was the small matter of the “missing” laptop that had the claims information for thousands of claimants. Hey, anybody can make a mistake. We all know how easy it is to lose a laptop.
Back to the drilling.
According to the people who are supposed to be regulating offshore drilling, everything is all better now.
Since February 17, the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Regulation and Enforcement has granted eight of these permits. Bureau director Michael Bromwich told The Guardian the permits were issued because of the “industry’s ability to satisfy the enhanced safety requirements.”
That’s comforting. The investigation into the Deepwater Horizon explosion found that BP and the other companies involved pressured workers to take safety shortcuts to speed the project along. The Justice Department, by the way, is “considering” manslaughter charges in the case. No sense rushing things, I suppose.
It gets more bizarre.
The Swiss company Transocean, which was building the rig for BP, announced this week that it was handing out bonuses to its executives for their “exemplary” safety record. The company also reported an $800 million loss in the last quarter of last year. That merited a $375,000 bonus for CEO Steven Newman.
Go figure.