I started this blog on January 1, 2010. January 1 of 2015 was an anniversary, a milestone, and a decision point for me. I have blogged for five years at Yes Vermont Yankee.
But Vermont Yankee stopped generating power on December 29, 2014. Was there any point to continuing this blog?
For me, this was not a trivial question. There are many ways for a person to spend her time, and many worthy causes to support. I am also five years older than I was in 2010, and more aware of how we each have a limited time on earth. The plant has shut down. Should I keep blogging?
It took me a while to answer that question.
My answer is yes. I will keep blogging. I still have things I want to say. The blog has already morphed, to some extent, as I have begun to follow grid issues (including joining the Coordinating Committee for the grid operator's Consumer Liaison Group). The blog will change, but gradually. I will follow Vermont Yankee in this blog, but I will also follow other energy and nuclear issues.
Yes Vermont Yankee started as a local blog, and will remain so. The blog will continue to focus on energy issues in the Northeast. It will continue to be a rallying point for people who support nuclear power and reasonable energy choices.
The New Focus
The tag under the blog title has been: A blog about Vermont energy issues and in support of Vermont Yankee.
The new title is: A blog about Northeast energy issues, and in support of nuclear power.
Guest Posts
With the expanded scope, I also plan to have more guest posts. The blog receives thoughtful comments from many people. As well as comments, I hope to have more guests posts in the future. If you would like to post on this blog, please email me at mjangwin at gmail.
The Last Ship
My children live in New York and New Jersey. Over the holiday, part of the family took an expedition to see a matinee of a Broadway show: Sting in The Last Ship.
Talk about a busman's holiday! This was a musical about the closing of a shipyard in England. Meanwhile, back in Vermont...Vermont Yankee was closing. Frankly, this is a depressing subject for a musical, but the music was great, and Sting was great. I am very glad we went. The show is closing on January 24, and I encourage you to attend.
The shipyard in The Last Ship does not get miraculously saved. It closes. The Last Ship sails.
But the musical has a sort-of happy ending as the various characters come to term with their pasts, their loves, and their futures. I wish the same for all my friends at Vermont Yankee.
May we all have peace and joy and love and health and prosperity, even though the last Vermont Yankee electron has sailed.
I am very glad to hear it. You've always been a sensible, even-tempered and pleasant online voice in a world that often becomes bad-tempered, disingenuous, and snarky.
ReplyDeleteSometimes you don't win even when you're right, unfortunately; but it doesn't mean you shouldn't keep trying. I look forward to your future posts!
Hi Meredith,
ReplyDeleteThis is stuck in moderation at the article you directed me to, so I thought I would share it here:
They way you have talked about some really good people in this piece is rude and ugly.
The general tone of this piece is horrible. To have quoted Meredith’s lament about job losses as something to crow about is insensitive in the extreme.
To suggest nuclear is not low-carbon is completely and utterly wrong and you are at odds with the IPCC and about 60 studies of life-cycle greenhouse gas emissions in saying so.
At this juncture of the climate challenge it is utterly absurd to be lobbying, and encouraging others to lobby, to close hundreds and thousands of megawatts at a time of low-carbon generation; all scarce resources of time, effort and funding that are badly needed in the fight against coal, oil and gas. To be all-but-ignoring the transformative nature of the gas developments in the US and pretending all change is about renewables right now is foolish. ANYONE currently involved in energy knows you have the order of those things backwards
Suggesting renewables alone have the climate/energy challenge in hand is denial of the highest order, as speaker after speaker made clear at the recent launch of the World Energy Outlook energy projections to 2050 in Canberra. There is no excuse for this deliberate blindness
This “21st century grid” you refer to will be interesting, but the type of advances Cooper refers to will be making dramatic and important improvements to network operations at the margins, they will not be displacing the value of stable electricity supply from stable suppliers. The proof is the determined effort to use storage to enable renewables to provide supple more like nuclear provides it in the normal course of operations.
This piece is divisive, inaccurate, and biased. It is blinkered in its view, unsophisticated in its analysis, and aggressive in tone. It is deeply unpleasent in the way it has chosen to characterise people who are hard working, people you are free to disagree with in ways that still respect them as sincere individuals. This piece is criminally irresponsible in the vigorous advocacy of closing large amounts of low-carbon supply.
It ought not be beyond any of us to be honest about the strengths and weaknesses of different technologies to build a clean energy future together, as I have done here in the Australian context. Many of my friends in the renewable industry, who are sincerely concerned about climate change, feel the same way.
http://decarbonisesa.com/2014/10/27/nuclear-and-renewables-in-the-name-of-national-interest/
How unfortunate it is that people like you seem to think the success of renewables is somehow tied to working to grind nuclear out of existence. It’s galling.
Thank you to Ben Heard, an important and effective nuclear supporter from Australia!
ReplyDeletePeople reading this blog may not know what this is about. An anti-nuclear group posted a very insulting article on their website, and they quoted me and other people in a rude way. They article was Nuclear industry goes hysterically ballistic over Yankee shutdown
http://safeenergy.org/2015/01/05/nuclear-industry-goes-hysterical/
I wrote an answer, and so did Ben, though I rarely give much of my time to answering anti-nuclear articles on anti-nuclear websites. This was different because of the insulting language, and that many of us were quoted directly.
Meredith, So glad that you will continue to write and address northeast U.S. energy issues. Energy use and energy resources will continue to be the foundation of any meaningful social and environmental change, and your voice needs to be heard.
ReplyDelete