"Nuclear giant taps wind tax credit that it's trying to kill"

Greenwire has published an article by Hannah Northey, E&E reporter, exposing the hypocricy of Exelon for exploiting the very wind power subsidy that it has attacked as giving the wind power industry an unfair competition advantage.

The article reports: "Amy Grace, a North American wind analyst at Bloomberg New Energy Finance, pegged Exelon's wind PTCs [Production Tax Credits] for 2013 at $75 million to $100 million based on the company's 1.3 gigawatts of wind projects."

The American Wind Energy Association expelled Exelon from its membership in 2012 for Exelon's lobbying to kill the wind power production tax credit.

The reactors Exelon has identified as at risk of closing due to being outcompeted by wind power are: Clinton, Byron 1 & 2, and Quad Cities 1 & 2.

Quad Cities are identical in design to Fukushima Daiichi Units 1 to 4 -- GE BWR Mark Is.

The near-term risk of closure comes despite Quad Cities already receiving a 20-year operating license extension rubberstamp from NRC, and Byron 1 & 2 having applied for one as well.

Global nuclear retreat continues while renewables soar

Nuclear power continues its decline worldwide while investements in, and development of, renewables soar. The findings of the newly released 2013 World Nuclear Industry Status Report, prepared by Mycle Schneider, Antony Froggatt et al., show that only three reactors started up worldwide in 2012 while six were shut down. Meanwhile, China, India, Germany and Japan now generate more power from renewables than nuclear. Read the report.

Grist: U.S. Nuclear Power in Decline

Grist has published an article that gives a good overview of the historic, as well as the current, "failure to launch" of the U.S. nuclear power industry. As the article concludes, from a record number of degraded old reactor shutdowns in 2013, to a large number of cancelled new reactor proposals, cancelled power uprates at new reactors, and large-scale cost overruns and schedule delays at the 4 proposed new reactors that have broken ground (at huge financial risk and expense to ratepayers, and perhaps also taxpayers), "U.S. nuclear power’s days are numbered."

Grassroots activism laid the groundwork for Vermont Yankee's announced demise

Bob Bady, a founding member of the Safe and Green Campaign, has penned an op-ed at the Vermont Digger entitled "What Killed the Beast?"

The beast to which he refers is Vermont Yankee, a GE Mark I boiling water reactor, identical in design to the wrecked, leaking Fukushima Daiichi Units 1 to 4 in northeastern Japan.

He writes: "...The ultimate goal of a large corporation such as Entergy is to make money. Its growth or demise is about profit. The backstory is actually what prevented Vermont Yankee from making enough profit to continue to operate for decades to come.

Certainly cheaper natural gas was a signficant factor, as was an old plant that would require significant maintenance in the coming years. Pending costly federally mandated safety improvements, precipitated by the Fukushima disaster, also loomed.

The tipping point, however, the thing that might have really sealed Vermont Yankee's fate, was grassroots activism...".

He concludes that "because the anti nuke environmental community in Vermont, southwestern New Hampshire and western Massachusetts worked hard, long and intelligently to rally public opinion, and educate the Vermont Legislature," state laws signed by Vermont's former, pro-nuclear Republican governor became a "big expensive problem" for Entergy.

Bady adds "Entergy's income was first impacted when, by late 2010 and early 2011, its reputation had become so damaged by its own misdeeds, brought to the spotlight by activists, that Vermont electric utilities played hardball in contract negotiations. As a result, no deal emerged between Vermont Yankee and Vermont utilities, and Entergy was left to sell its product on the "spot" market, where prices had dropped because of cheaper natural gas."

Author Richard Watts asked the same question: how could Vermont Yankee go from being seen as a good neighbor and mainstay of the Green Mountain State's economy by some, to being almost universally disdained, even by former supporters, as a pariah, with top elected officials referring to Entergy publicly as a "rogue corporation"? Watts' book, Public Meltdown: The Story of Vermont Yankee, shows that Entergy's cover ups and lies under oath to state officials -- such as the 2007 cooling tower collapse brought to light by whistleblowers (photo, above left), and Entergy executives' perjury regarding radioactivity leaks into groundwater -- combined with widespread grassroots activism, turned the tide.

Vermont Yankee Decommissioning Alliance to hold Montpelier rally Sept. 3rd

This from VYDA's Debra Stoleroff:

You must have heard the news by now.  Entergy is closing VT Yankee by the end of 2014!!!! Woohoo!  Yes!!!

BUT… we are not yet out of the woods.  It is critical that we continue our work.  We need to ensure that Entergy safely decommissions  Vermont Yankee with a greenfield AND, that they do not hold Vermont taxpayers with a multi-million (billion?) dollar bill.

  

Join VYDA

to celebrate and to voice our continued concerns 

Tuesday, Sept 3rd

4 –5 pm 

In front of the Vermont Statehouse

State St., Montpelier

We will sing, make speeches, hand out postcards and information sheets!

Sample Messages for signs:

Woohoo! Yes! VT Yankee is closing!

  Entergy safely decommissions  Vermont Yankee with a greenfield 

PSB:  Make sure Entergy does not hold Vermont taxpayers with a multi-million (billion?) dollar bill.