Vermont and Entergy battle for second day in federal court

As reported by the Brattleboro Reformer, Entergy Nuclear of New Orleans argued for a second full day before a federal judge in Brattelboro in favor of a preliminary injunction against the State of Vermont's denial of a Certificate of Public Good for the Vermont Yankee atomic reactor to continue operating past March 21, 2012. Entergy executives testified from the witness stand that without assurance of ongoing permission to operate by July 23rd, less than a month from now, the company might be forced to shutdown Vermont Yankee for good even before next spring. This is because Vermont Yankee is due for a refueling outage this fall, in which a third of the irradiated nuclear fuel in its reactor core would need to be replaced with "fresh" fuel in order to continue operating. As the legal battle unfolded inside, anti-nuclear protestors lined Brattleboro's Main Street, cheering on the State and calling for the reactor's permanent closure.