A Report is Released about Economics. Released Christmas Eve.

The Report As Dumped

I didn't plan to blog today.  My "Christmas Post" went up yesterday. Families get together on Christmas Day.  That is what happens.

However, yesterday, during the magical time of Christmas Eve....we had a major News Dump about the huge financial effects of closing Vermont Yankee. "News Dump" is the technical term for releasing news at a time when it may be hard for reporters to cover it, and where it may just (hopefully) sink into oblivion at a time when few people are paying attention to the news.  At least, sinking-out-of-sight is the purpose of a news dump.

Vermont Digger (praise them!) was Johnny-on-the Spot cover the story. Thank you, Digger!  Thank you, John Herrick!

Here's the Digger link: UMass-Dartmouth Report Details Impact of Vermont Yankee Closing.  Within that link, there's a link to the report itself. From the Herrick article:

"Regional economic development planning officials say the closure will cost more than 1,100 related jobs and $480 million in economic activity in the region."

The press release about the report called the results "stark."  A good word choice.

Pat Bradley at WAMC

Although Pat Bradley's radio commentary on Vermont Yankee's closing was broadcast on Christmas Eve, it wasn't a news dump. Radio goes on all the time. A radio show is not the timed release of a major document. It's just another radio show.  Also, businesses and institutions practice News Dumping, while reporters simply practice reporting.

And here's the link to that show.  I am one of the interviewees. Vermont Yankee to Shut Down Permanently On Monday.  And here's part of my quote on that show:

Ethan Allen Institute Energy Education Project Director Meredith Angwin has supported continued operation of the plant.  “The plant is in beautiful shape. It has high ratings from the NRC. It has great labor relations. It is a really wonderful plant with a lot of wonderful people, many of whom are being hurt one way or another.”

Vermont Yankee Wins in Appeals Court

We have great news about Vermont Yankee: the appeals court ruled in their favor!

The fight has shifted to the Vermont Public Service Board. Your input to the Vermont Public Service Board is still needed and valuable.

The Appeals Court Ruling

On Wednesday, the federal appeals court in New York ruled in favor of Vermont Yankee.  They basically upheld Judge Murtha's decision that the Vermont legislature had attempted to shut down Vermont Yankee on illegal grounds.  The legislature was trying to regulate on the basis of nuclear safety, which is regulated by the NRC.

You can read a good summary of the case by Dave Gram of AP. To quote the first sentence of his article: "Vermont's attempts to close its lone nuclear power plant were deceptive and misleading, a federal appeals court ruled..." Andrew Stein at Vermont Digger also has a good article.  In addition, here's a link to the actual appeals court ruling.

My summary of the state's case against Vermont Yankee was written shortly after the appeals court hearing in January.  The state claimed that they wanted to shut down Vermont Yankee due to economics, not safety.

Economics? Really?  In appeals court, Vermont claimed it had a reason to shut down a plant for too low a price, and for sharing revenue with the Vermont utilities.  In other words, the legislature claimed to want to shut the plant down because it is an economic asset.

The appeals court judges noted the legislature's real reasons for trying to shut it down. They were trying to regulate nuclear safety.

Yes, they were regulating safety

The appeals court ruling includes a long history of court cases about Vermont Yankee. Here's an example.

Go to page 10 of the appeals court document to see a quote from a Vermont law passed in 2005 (Act 74). In this law, the state legislature requires Entergy to "configure the spent fuel pool so that high-decay heat assemblies are surrounded by low-decay heat assemblies."  (Sarcasm alert)  Gee, Entergy would NEVER have thought of doing that, without this legislation!  (End sarcasm alert.)

On to the Public Service Board

Governor Shumlin is not happy with the ruling, and he issued a press release including the following statement: While I disagree with the result the Second Circuit reached..., the process does not end today. Importantly, the Vermont Public Service Board's role in reviewing Entergy's request for a state Certificate of Public Good ...will continue.

In other words, the Public Service Board must still issue a Certificate of Public Good in order for Vermont Yankee to keep operating.  Shumlin clearly hopes they will not issue the certificate.

Cheryl Hanna

Pat Bradley of WAMC interviewed several people about this ruling, including me.  (I encourage you to listen to this four-minute segment.)

• I wondered whether the board will look at the economics of Vermont Yankee, or whether it will listen to the anti-Vermont Yankee charge being led by the Shumlin appointees at the state Department of Public Service. 
• Cheryl Hanna of Vermont Law School said the appeal court decision was no surprise. (Hanna had written an article predicting this outcome, right after the hearings in January.) She also said that whoever wins at the Public Service Board, the other side will almost undoubtedly appeal the decision to the Vermont courts.

 Still Time to Comment

I believe you can still comment to the Public Service Board, through the end of the month.  Here's a link to the docket:
http://psb.vermont.gov/docketsandprojects/public-comment?docket=7862

And here's a link to a recent post with some background material for comments.

Long, thoughtful comments are always very welcome, but one or two sentences in support of the plant are very helpful.  You can write a great letter, or you can write a short postcard.  Share your own reasons for supporting Vermont Yankee: the plant's community support, economic impact, and positive effects on the environment (compared to fossil fuels).

Law and Facts won this round!  Onwards!

Vermont Yankee is Refueling and I Sort of Told You So

Carla Heath holds sign about Vermont Yankee's future
March 2012 rally for Vermont Yankee, at the plant gates

Vermont Yankee will refuel this spring.  An article Wednesday in the Burlington Free Press was headlined: Vermont Yankee plans refueling with eye on 20 more years.  This article by Terri Hallenbeck includes the following quote from Vermont Yankee spokesman Rob Williams:

“We’re proceeding business as usual and making upgrades where necessary,” Williams said. “As we plan this outage our assumption is we’re operating until 2032."

A more complete list of planned upgrades can be found in the Vermont Business Magazine article by Timothy McQuiston: Vermont Yankee Will Refuel This Spring.  According to that article: Among the operations planned for the outage to keep the plant up-to-date are: replacing and refurbishing some components; general preventative maintenance; replacing a large transformer; overhauling one of the three feed-water pumps; and replacing a recirculation-pump motor.

So why am I saying "I sort of told you so"?  These articles were posted on February 20, and this blog post is February 22.  I am just catching up with the news, right?

Not completely.  The background for this story always includes a recent financial analysis report by UBS.  The report claims that Vermont Yankee is uneconomical and may well be closed by Entergy.  Andrew Stein at Vermont Digger reports on this analysis. An earlier article by Stein provides a link directly to the UBS report.

I was interviewed about the UBS report last week.  I felt its conclusions were umm...overstated. In other words, I am not surprised that Vermont Yankee is refueling instead of closing down.

To some extent, I told you so. I told you last week.

Is Vermont Yankee Uneconomical?

Last week, Pat Bradley of WAMC interviewed three people about the UBS report.  I was one of the interviewees.  Bradley does a great job of summarizing the arguments in about three minutes.

As you might guess, I was the only interviewee who said Vermont Yankee was probably not going to close.  This was not just Meredith-being-optimistic. My reason was that natural gas prices set the price on the grid, and natural gas prices are high in the Northeast. So grid prices are higher here than other places.  Therefore,  merchant nuclear plants in this area can probably make money, especially since gas prices are very likely to rise in the future.

 You can listen to three people (including me) interviewed by Bradley at this link: Financial Firm Predicts Closure of Vermont Yankee.    About a day later,  Matt Wald of the New York Times wrote an article about gas and electricity prices: In New England, a Natural Gas Trap. His article confirmed what I said on the radio about gas and electricity prices in this region.  I also suggest reading Jim Hopf's ANS Nuclear Cafe post on Potential nuclear plant closures and what could be done to stop them.  The early section on natural gas prices is most relevant to Vermont Yankee.

In my opinion, the UBS report assumes natural gas prices are going to stay low for a long time.  There are many reasons to think the opposite.  I think:

• natural gas prices will be highest in the Northeast (due to pipeline constraints)
• prices will rise all over the country (as the gas glut diminishes over time).  

This means grid prices will be higher in the Northeast and merchant nuclear plants in this area will be in a good situation in the near future.

I think Entergy probably came to a conclusion similar to mine.

Vermont Yankee is refueling.

The Very Latest Lawsuit: Opponents Will Probably Lose

The Short Version--Radio Interview

On Wednesday, I was interviewed by Pat Bradley of WAMC about the latest lawsuit related to Vermont Yankee. An intervenor filed suit in Vermont Supreme Court to shut down Vermont Yankee. The suit won't get anywhere, in my opinion.

You can listen to the three minute radio clip here.  The clip includes:

• Ray Shadis of New England Coalition saying why they filed suit in Vermont Supreme Court. 
• My interview saying why the suit won't get anywhere.
• Pat Parentau of Vermont Law School saying why the suit won't get anywhere.  

Bradley packs a lot of information into a short segment! It is well worth listening IMO.

Note: Shadis is also the man who debated Howard Shaffer on Thursday, as reported in this blog.
------------

The Long Version -- Including Federal and State Legal Cases and Time Line

Still, it's a short radio segment, so here's the background. Sorry it is so lengthy, but it just is.  Legal cases, you know.  They go on for years.

Spring--Federal Court--Judge Murtha: In January and March of this year, Judge Murtha of the Federal Court in Brattleboro issued two rulings about Vermont Yankee.  I have both of the rulings (and a lot of other briefs) posted on my Energy Education Project page Dockets in Entergy Appeal. The significant one for this new court case is the March ruling, which contains this ruling as the final words:

The Attorney General has represented to the Court, however, that its position is that “Entergy may continue to operate under the terms of its current CPGs while its CPG petition remains pending at the Board” and does not take the position Vermont Yankee must close after March 21, 2012, while its petition for a renewed CPG remains pending before the Public Service Board. (Doc. 202 at 11, 15.) Given this representation, the Court does not see the need to consider at this time Entergy’s request for an injunction pending appeal barring the enforcement of subsection 6522(c)(5).

Therefore, Defendants are enjoined, pending the appeal of the Court’s final judgment and Merits Decision to the Second Circuit, from addressing the storage of spent fuel under the authority of Vermont Statutes Annotated, title 10, subsection 6522(c)(2) and from bringing an enforcement action, or taking other action, to enforce subsection 6522(c)(2) to compel Vermont Yankee to shut down because the “cumulative total amount of spent fuel stored at Vermont Yankee” exceeds “the amount derived from the operation of the facility up to, but not beyond, March 21, 2012.”

In other words:

• The state Attorney General (AG) has stated that the state is not planning to shut down Vermont Yankee while appeals in court are pending.  Since the AG made this statement, the federal court will not rule on the issue.
• The federal court ruled that the state cannot shut down Vermont Yankee based on spent fuel storage--while appeals in court are pending. 

These words are legalese, but they are pretty clear.  Business continues while the court cases go on.  This is the way lawsuits are usually handled, because shutting the plant down would be the same as deciding the court case without a hearing. It wouldn't be due process.

November--Public Service Board--statement:  I also have relevant rulings from the Public Service Board on my Energy Education Project page PSB Docket 7862 filings. This page also contains a link to the PSB docket itself, now up at the PSB site.

Docket 7862 is the new docket under which the PSB will issue its ruling on the Certificate of Public Good for Vermont Yankee. The new PSB docket includes a complete timeline for their process, ending with "Reply briefs due" in late August, 2013.

(Why did the PSB need this new docket? Older dockets on the issue, such as docket 7440, were contaminated with radiological safety testimony.  So the PSB opened a new docket 7862. You can read about the PSB decision for a new docket on a previous blog post.)

Meanwhile, this spring, shortly after the Murtha ruling, Entergy asked the Public Service Board to take some things out their consideration.  Entergy said that these issues were impacted by the court cases.

On November 29, the Public Service Board issued a "strongly worded" statement that it was leaving this material in the record for consideration.  You can link to the complete PSB Statement on the Energy Education Project website. (And here's the Vermont Digger article about the statement.) 

This PSB statement was both strongly-worded and against Entergy.  However, it was also "narrow."  (That's the PSB word.)  The statement was part of the process, not a summary judgment.  On the top of page 3, introducing the rest of the 27-page document, the PSB wrote as follows:

We want to make clear — this Order is narrow. We address only Entergy VY's request for relief under Rule 60(b). Because we do not accept Entergy's arguments concerning foreseeability, which were the basis for its motion, we deny the request and do not reach any conclusions concerning the merits of modifying or extending Entergy VY's obligations under existing Orders and CPGs.
Entergy VY filed its motion in Dockets 6545 and 7082. However, in many respects, Entergy VY's motion implicitly challenges the Board's March 19 Order in Docket 7440. Because this Order of necessity responds to those challenges, the Board is also issuing this Order in Docket 7440.

In other words, the Board even issued this strong statement on the old docket, Docket 7440 (see docket listing on the first page of the statement).  However, the Board had opened a new docket, docket 7862, to decide on the Certificate of Public Good.  Issuing this statement on an old docket certainly seems pretty "narrow" to me.

Actually, let's be honest here. I don't understand why the PSB issued this statement on the old docket, 7440. They will issue the CPG on the new docket, 7862. (Yes. I am not a lawyer.)

However, it is clear to even a non-lawyer that this PSB statement is part of the process, not a direct decision by the Board about the Certificate of Public Good. Such a decision will be issued on the new docket, Docket 7862, according to the PSB timeline published on that docket.

Latest Lawsuit

Newspaper press

The New England Coalition (NEC)  is a party to both PSB dockets.  That is, they are on the docket as intervenors in the cases.

However, NEC recently chose to bring suit in Vermont Supreme Court to ask the Supreme Court to close down Vermont Yankee, based on parts of the PSB statement of November 29. As usual, the Vermont Department of Public Service is thinking of joining NEC in the suit.  Here's the Vermont Digger article on the lawsuit and the Department of Public Service.

In June, the Department of Public Service joined a NEC lawsuit against the Nuclear Regulatory Commission: they sued to require the NRC to rescind Vermont Yankee's license.  NEC and the Department lost that case.  They lost on the grounds that the lawsuit was not timely and in the wrong jurisdiction.

Guess what?  I expect the same outcome with this NEC lawsuit, whether or not the Department joins them.  NEC is expecting the state Supreme Court to hop in to the case-- at the same time that both the Public Service Board and the federal appeals court are considering various aspects of the case.  The New England Coalition expects the Vermont Supreme Court to say: "Step aside, you other courts!  This is MY business!"

Courts rarely work that way.  They don't step into other courts' process, though they do hear appeals, of course.

You would think that by now, the Coalition and the Department of Public Service would have figured out that this case is very unlikely to succeed.  Parentau and I said virtually the same thing on the radio segment.  In other words, thoughtful people on both sides of the controversy have concluded that it is not worth bringing this case to the Vermont Supreme Court at this time.

You would think the intervenor and Department of Public Service would understand how courts work and not waste money on this sort of thing.

Reporters or Courts?

My personal opinion is that that the people bringing the suit aren't dumb.  They don't care if they win, and they don't expect to win.  They want the publicity, and they are getting it.

Even this blog post is de facto part of their publicity.

Sigh.

Taking Time Off

I'm taking a few days off, dear readers!

Happy Hanukkah!

Hanukiah, from Wikipedia