Vermont Yankee's shutdown: Activism had everything to do with it!

The permanent closure of the Vermont Yankee nuclear power plant in Vernon, VT in late December 2014 is being celebrated throughout New England by the thousands of activists who have taken part in the resistance to nuclear power over the past four decades. The most recent party was a January 3, 2015 gathering at a local church in Greenfield, Massachusetts where about 150 anti-nuke veterans turned out despite a steady wintery mix of sleet, snow and ice. Congratulations were sincerely exchanged all around with live music, a stream of projected photos and the conspiring on how to intensify campaigns to close the remaining reactors in New England and beyond.

The Vermont Yankee closure notches up one more shutdown New England nuke along with Yankee Rowe in western Massachusetts, Haddam Neck and Millstone 1 in Connecticut and Maine Yankee. There are now four operating nuclear power plants in the region (Pilgrim, Millstone 2 & 3, Seabrook) where activism is ramping up.

Entergy Nuclear has spun its decision to permanently shut down its Vermont Yankee atomic reactor as having everything to do with "economics," and absolutely nothing to do with grassroots activism. Nothing could be further from the truth.

One of the first lessons taught at the legendary Midwest Academy for social justice organizing in Chicago is that oppressive institutions will never give credit to their activist adversaries for achieving grassroots victories. The "powers that be" would never want to encourage social justice, peace, and environmental movements in the realization that real power rests with the people.

Bob Bady of the Safe and Green Campaign -- who was in attendance at the Vermont Yankee shutdown celebration -- made this point elegantly in the Vermont Digger, just a week after Entergy announced its intention to permanently close Vermont Yankee. (As Bady concluded his op-ed, "The power of the people is beautiful.")

So too did Dr. Richard A. Watts' book Public Meltdown: The Story of the Vermont Yankee Nuclear Power Plant.

In fact, decades of non-violent direct action -- including the mass day of action on 3/22/12 (see photos and Beyond Nuclear's web post) -- forced State of Vermont elected officials to take responsible positions, such as demanding that Entergy perform safety maintenance at the age-degraded reactor. Vermont's electric utilities were pressured to refrain from purhasing one watt of electricity from Entergy, forcing the nuclear utility to have to compete against such sources as wind power, solar photovoltaics (see photo, above), and efficiency on the wholesale market, which it could not do.

The anti-nuclear and environmental movement, amidst its celebrations at Vermont Yankee's closure, are now steeling themselves for the task to come during decommissioning: remaining ever vigilant regarding the risks that still lurk in Vermont Yankee's high-level radioactive waste storage pool and dry casks, as well as organizing to demand a comprehensive cleanup of the badly contaminated Vermont Yankee site.

But the trend in energy policy is now evermore clear. Even the international bank and global energy investment firm, UBS, is saying "It's time to join the revolution" for decentralized and distributed generation of renewable energy (particularly solar and advanced battery storage) as large scale centralized electricity generation are destined to be “dinosaurs” by 2020.

The western MA celebration closed in a collective round of song to the tune of “Auld Lang Syne,”

"Should all the nuke plants be shut down

        and no more brought on line,

 At least we stopped production of

        the waste that outlasts time,

We halt the hazard imminent

        in all those poison plants,

We do this out of consciousness,

       It’s our future's only chance."