Why the Rush to Industrial Wind Isn't Good for Vermont: The Press Conference

At a press conference Thursday two Vermont senators announced proposed legislation for a three-year moratorium on new industrial wind development on Vermont's ridges. Rob Roper of the Ethan Allen Institute made four-minute video at the conference: it has some amazing graphics of wind development.


 

Two recent articles also cover this press conference:

Brattleboro Reformer: The Local Ridges

An article by Mike Faher in the Brattleboro Reformer describes the press conference, and connects it to the town of Windham's fight against industrial wind on its local ridges. (The town of Windham is in Windham County, which is also home to the town of Vernon and Vermont Yankee.)

Eight pro-wind groups made a lengthy statement against this proposed legislation. The groups include the local Sierra Club,  Citizens Awareness Network (their website is nukebusters.org), and  the Vermont Yankee Decommissioning Alliance. The Reformer article says:  In the groups' press release, Kilian characterized wind-power opposition as "the extreme voices of those who refuse to take responsibility for our energy future."

(Snark warning  I just LOVE it when nuclear-opponents-and-wind-promoters insult people that way. Winning people to your side by name-calling.  Go for it, guys! Do some more of this! End snark.)

Vermont Digger: The Governor's Opinion and the Bill Itself

An article by Andrew Stein in Vermont Digger includes a video of the conference, a link to the draft bill itself, and an interesting correction (the correction, IMO, is not the reporter's fault...)

Here's the correction: Gov. Peter Shumlin said on Friday that he is still vehemently opposed to the idea of a moratorium on utility-scale wind development. VTDigger originally reported that Shumlin indicated earlier this week that he was not completely opposed to the idea.  

The Digger article has a lengthy comment stream, including many comments by my friend Willem Post. Post is a world-wide authority on wind power and its problems. He has many excellent posts on wind power  on The Energy Collective website.  Thousands of people follow his posts there. He is also an occasional guest blogger on this blog.

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Rob Roper made the video above. Roper is President of the Ethan Allen Institute, and the Energy Education Project (I am director) is part of the Ethan Allen Institute.

I blogged about this press conference a few days ago: A Wind Moratorium Press Conference in Montpelier. That earlier post includes information about Vermont Electric Cooperative and wind power.

Letters and Inspiration

The Safe and Green Campaign is part of the Sage Alliance, dedicated to shutting down Vermont Yankee.  Recently, Safe and Green did us a favor (sort of).  They have been annoyed at all the letters in favor of Vermont Yankee that have been published in local papers recently, and they want their supporters to answer these letters.  So they put a bunch of pro-Vermont Yankee letters on their website, with links to the letter as it appeared in the local paper.

I looked at the page and thought---wow!  How convenient! All these good letters in one place! I wish I had thought of that.

The Letters Themselves

Here's a link to Sage and Green web page with the letters.  If you prefer, you can look at the list below, the same letters, instead of visiting an opponent website.

• Nuclear Fuel: The Win-at-any-cost philosophy of anti-nuclear activists.  Let's shut down Yucca Mountain and then complain there's no place to store spent fuel!  Jim DeVincentis in the Brattleboro Reformer
• Vermont Yankee helps in the fight against climate change.  Without nuclear power, there's more carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. "Mother Earth will not be shouted down by nuclear opponents"  Harriet Green in the Brattleboro Reformer
• Economic Impact of Vermont Yankee.  Up to 1500 well-paying jobs in the local area, due to Vermont Yankee. Michelle Joy in the Brattleboro Reformer
• The Vermont Yankee Economic Benefit Zone. Opponent signs always call the "Emergency Planning Zone" the "Evacuation Zone."  Wrong name.  Whatever you call that zone, though,  the Vermont Yankee Economic Benefit Zone is much bigger.  Richard January in Vermont Digger
• Trojan Horse about Energy:  It's the Fossil Fuels.  Opponents brought a "Trojan Cow" to the plant's gates, and pulled fake solar panels from within it.  Trojan Horses (or cows) are the symbol of deceit.  In this case, the deceit was that VY would be replaced by renewables if it closed.  It would be replaced by fossil fuel plants. Meredith Angwin in the Brattleboro Reformer.

Not really a favor

Of course, Sage and Green had no desire to make things better or easier for us.  They placed those letters on their website because they wanted to inspire their followers to write counter-letters.  I guess I should be worried.  Letters may flood in.

However, I have seen responses to these letters in the website comment streams, and these responses have not worried me.  For example, my letter was in the Burlington Free Press, and one comment there said that I claimed "there was as much tritium in a banana as leaked from the plant." Even when they make up a fact (tritium in a banana?) they get it wrong.

The actual facts are on our side.  The factual facts, so to speak.

I hope that some of the people reading this blog in Vermont, Massachusetts and New Hampshire will be inspired to write a letter in favor of VY to their local paper. If you plan to write a pro-VY letter and want some fact-checking, please email me at mjangwin at gmail. I will be happy to hear from you and to help. (If you are writing an anti-VY letter,  just go ahead with business as usual and make up your own facts.)

Let's keep those pro-Vermont Yankee letters coming!

Celebrating Vermont Yankee: ANS Nuclear Cafe and the Rally

Today. my guest post at ANS Nuclear Cafe describes the recent rally at Vermont Yankee: Celebrating at Vermont Yankee: A successful rally on St. Patrick's Day. My post describes the rally, and compares it to the the opponent demonstration that was held a few days later. Our rally was different from their demonstration. We didn't have stilt walkers.

In all seriousness, though, if an ordinary working person was watching their event on TV, would that person want to join? Is a man with megaphone saying that Entergy is a "rogue corporation" a convincing soundbite? Is there a pent-up desire for death-mask masks and funny hats?

The ANS post also includes new pictures from our St Patrick's Day rally. The picture above includes VY engineer Larry Cummings at the left, Howard Shaffer in the middle, VY engineer Kenyon Webber to the right.

In the past few days in Brattleboro, nuclear energy supporters spoke up. (This is not just about our rally. Read the ANS post for more of the story.)

Some more links:

Kenyon Webber and Brian O'Callahan, young engineers at Vermont Yankee, interviewed for National Engineer's Week.

My earlier blog post on the rally Vermont Yankee Rally: Green Power for St. Patrick's Day.

My local newspaper, the Valley News, on the opponent's event, including Governor Shumlin's statement in support of their demonstration. Article by John Gregg.

Brattleboro Reformer article on our St. Patrick's Day rally. Article by Josh Stilts.

Commons (of Windham County) article on our St. Patrick's Day Rally. Article by Randall Holhut.

Nuclear Bloggers Carnival and the Rally at Vermont Yankee

The 75th Nuclear Bloggers Carnival is up at Atomic Power Review. Will Davis starts the Carnival with a picture from the nuclear past: what is this? I kinda guessed, but, close is no cigar...

Many of the posts are about nuclear communication, including Suzy Hobbs on a Facebook debate with celebrity Christie Brinkley. Yes, Ms. Brinkley considers herself an expert on the dangers of nuclear energy. Brian Wang wonders how wrong Armory Lovins can be, over the years, and still be considered an expert. (The jury is still out on that one). ANS Nuclear Cafe features stories of mothers in the nuclear industry. Steve Skutnik of the Neutron Economy acknowledges the fear that civilian nuclear development is a cover for more warlike intentions, but that is not how things really happen.

This is a very enjoyable Carnival!

Rally to Support Vermont Yankee, Just Outside the Plant Gates

I have spent the past two days assisting Howard Shaffer in planning the Rally at the Plant. Fifty people came to show their support for Vermont Yankee. We came at shift change. As cars went by, we held signs, waved, and encouraged the people who are working the refueling outage. They get a lot of negative feedback, what with the anti-nuclear puppet shows and all. We wanted to be sure to give them some positive feedback. After all, they supply our power!

I will blog about this more in future days. but for now, I will just link to the Brattleboro Reformer article about the rally, and include one picture I swiped (with permission) from the Vermont Yankee Facebook album. The man sitting on the chair is 92 years old, and came out to support the plant. The rally included children, workers, tavern-owners, and retirees. It was a great family occasion!

More later.

Editorial Against VY Acknowledges that Groups Against VY Are Not Telling the Truth

The Brattleboro Reformer is not known as a friend to Vermont Yankee. Most people at the plant refuse to read the paper, calling it the MisInformer. The Reformer editorial policy can be summarized in three words: Shut It Down!

So imagine my surprise when I read the July 14 editorial entitled: Just the facts, please.

Now, I don't want to oversell this editorial. It does not support VY's continued operation, and ends by urging people to give money to the most effective anti-VY groups.

But, in the meantime, this editorial lists and refutes the usual pack of lies told against VY. Here are the first few paragraphs:

The opponents of Vermont Yankee nuclear power plant’s continued operation are passionate, emotional and rightly concerned about the health of their children, themselves and the environment.

But many of the claims used to support their stance are not hard cold facts but rather exaggerations, misinformation and downright wrong, which do not serve their cause well.

For example, there were cries of distress when the Department of Health revealed that bones from fish caught near the power plant tested positive for strontium-90, proof the plant has been leaking radioactive materials into the environment.

A spokesman for the Vermont Department of Health told the public that the strontium levels were normal and within the background levels that are a result of the meltdown at Chernobyl and weapons testing that went on until 1965. Even the river steward of the Connecticut River Watershed Council, a fierce opponent to the plant’s continued operation, said the levels were normal.

The editorial goes on to refute several of the other calumnies against the plant and against nuclear power (the Tooth Fairy Project, the German children-get-leukemia study). It urges anti-plant activists to

• stop throwing compost at people in meetings
• stop pretending to copulate during public meetings
• stop other antics which please the hard-core zealots, but repulse ordinary citizens

The editorial ends with this ringing suggestion:

So if you are opposed to the plant operating past 2012, put your money where your big mouth is, become better informed and stop the childish outbursts and juvenile foot stomping.

Wow. What happened in Brattleboro?

I think I know.

The Fish Turned

As the editorial noted, the Vermont Department of Health, and a well-informed anti-nuclear group (among others) noted that the fish in the Connecticut River contain only background levels of radioactive strontium. However, as I have noted in earlier posts, that has not prevented groups from marching in the Brattleboro Fourth of July parade as radioactive fish, showing up at meetings as radioactive fish, etc. It did not prevent Shumlin from stating that radioactive strontium was attacking the teeth of children in Vermont.

In a post called Destructive Lies, published in June, I stated that the lies of the anti-nukes were destroying the Vermont Brand. I think that when the (not) radioactive fish walked down the street in Brattleboro in the Fourth of July parade, other people also noticed this. (You can't help but notice a human-sized, three-eyed fish.) Other people saw this and became aware of what the anti-Vermont Yankee lies are doing to Vermont.

People in Brattleboro will no longer accept lies about contamination and dangers caused by VY.

Good News on Indian Point

I want to give a tip of the hat to Rod Adams, for his excellent post on pro-Indian Point citizens coming out to testify in New York. We can all learn from this! We have to be out there and visible.

Especially now that the fish has turned.