Pain from Closing Vermont Yankee Lingers was published Friday at Northwest Clean Energy, the blog of Energy Northwest. Seven months after Vermont Yankee closed, I wrote this retrospective on "what has happened since."
This is what has happened after Vermont Yankee closed:
- more pollution
- more pain on the grid (gas-fired plants are being built as rapidly as possible)
- major economic pain for employees and for the area.
I went back to some of my 2010 posts, the ones where Governor Shumlin was predicting a "jobs bonanza" when the plant closed. I wrote about the Seabrook contracts today. I wrote about the economic analyses done in 2010 and 2011, about how many jobs would be lost and how the economy would suffer. I wrote about what is happening now, and how today's situation was completely predictable.
Pain from Closing Vermont Yankee Lingers was a hard post to write. It has extensive references and will be helpful to anyone who wants to get "the story" of Vermont Yankee.
I encourage you to read it and to comment.
Of course it was predictable. It has never, ever gone any other way when a plant has shutdown. Anyone trained in a highly technical field like nuclear will not stick around. When you spend four or six or eight years of your life getting a degree and advanced degrees, you aren't going to be satisfied brewing coffee at Starbucks or stocking shelves at Walmart or walking a turn on the midnight shift as a security guard at the local car dealership. And no amount of "planning", advisory councils, meetings, or legislation will make a difference.
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