tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3033288879708780106.post2373389524624605951..comments2023-04-07T05:19:44.951-04:00Comments on Yes Vermont Yankee: Potluck with the WalkersMeredith Angwinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02737538041807740424noreply@blogger.comBlogger2125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3033288879708780106.post-67488713500759047032010-01-17T10:48:50.773-05:002010-01-17T10:48:50.773-05:00Larry
Thank you for your thoughtful post and inte...Larry<br /><br />Thank you for your thoughtful post and interesting links. <br /><br />You are correct. I am cynical, jaded, and bitter about the ability to site renewable plants. I was one of two or three women project managers at Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI). I was in the renewable resources division and I thought I had died and gone to heaven. My job was doing research and helping build renewable power plants. I had a real role in this, and commanded real dollars.<br /><br />And we all saw project after project go down in flames. "We're not against renewables! It's just that THIS renewable is in the wrong place." Over and over.<br /><br />I am sure James Moore is one of your leaders. I have heard him say: "If we want renewables, we will have to get used to looking at them." I couldn't agree more. Have you heard him say that? <br /><br />Was anybody listening?<br /><br />You are not a technophobe. However, your background is medical, not utilities. In terms of siting renewables, I have far greater experience than you do. I earned my cynicism honestly.<br /><br />One other thing. It was the holler, not the dollar that stopped nuclear. The holler made plants expensive, but they were still built. When Shoreham was built but denied an operating permit, all reasonable money managers walked away from nuclear. It was the holler that did it.Meredith Angwinhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02737538041807740424noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3033288879708780106.post-3461224212758377652010-01-16T19:28:28.439-05:002010-01-16T19:28:28.439-05:00"This potluck made me sad for all the nuclear..."This potluck made me sad for all the nuclear plants, and all the renewable plants, that 'weren't the right plant.' And all the fossil plants that got built instead."<br /><br />Hm -- this is interesting: you seem to think that opposition by groups like the Vermont potluckers and the Sierra Club has been a primary reason for the stagnation of US nuclear plant construction since the 1970s. That would be ahistorical: the disastrous economics of the ambitious LWR building program of the 1970s led to a definitive crash in orders even before Three Mile Island. It was the dollars, not the hollers, that did in the nukes. <br /><br />Nor is it clear to me, reading your piece, whether you would admit that siting concerns can ever be authentic and reasonable, or if they are always an occasion for sadness -- each incident just one more of the technophobes' "hypocrisies" (the tendentious word appears twice on your page). <br /><br />As for Vermont Yankee, it WAS built, so you surely can't be grieving for that. It was built; but it could no longer be built today, as you know, for its basic design no longer meets the minimal safety standards required of new nuclear plants. For example, the turbine building is oriented so that in the event of an turbine or generator breakup, shrapnel could penetrate the reactor building. Such a layout would not be permitted today.<br /><br />I'm no technophobe: I have a PhD in Engineering Sciences from Dartmouth, 1995 (www.larrygilman.net). And with 100 or so other people I walked 7 ugly, cold miles to the State House in Montpelier on January 13th to ask the Legislature to heed the will of the large plurality of Vermonters who want this plant closed (http://www.wcax.com/Global/story.asp?S=9042182) and not relicense this obsolete plant. <br /><br />I find myself feeling like a citizen, not a hypocrite.Larry Gilmanhttp://www.larrygilman.netnoreply@blogger.com