On Pat MacDonald's TV show about Clean Energy Standards, Grid Payment

I was on Pat MacDonald's show, Vote for Vermont.  The motto of her show is "Listening Beyond the Sound Bite."  I appeared on her show last year, also.  The recent topic was "Life After Vermont Yankee, part 2."   We covered a lot of ground, and had a good time!

Our discussion included:

• The New York Clean Energy Standards and what they mean
• Payments on the grid, and what types of plants get subsidies
• Effects of Vermont Yankee closing 
• Carbon dioxide footprints
• My upcoming book

A hearty thank-you to Pat for inviting me on her show, and for all the preparatory work she does before a show.  I hope you enjoy watching!

My opinions about payments to gas-fired plants

In  my opinion, gas-fired plants get major subsidies, but they call it "capacity payments." Nuclear plants get these also, but capacity payments are a very small portion of the income for nuclear plants.  Capacity payments are a major portion of the income for gas-fired plants.

 If gas-fired plants had to make their money selling kWh, they couldn't sell kWh as cheaply as they do.  If gas plants didn't get capacity payments, but had to make their money selling kWh, nuclear plants would be very competitive, even with currently-low gas prices.

Some back-up for my statements:
My  post on the New York Clean Energy Standards: Clean Air versus Efficiency Charges. Clean Air Wins.
My article in Nuclear Engineering International magazine, about payments on the grid: Pay for Performance and the US grid. 

Update: This video was chosen to be the Friday Matinee at the ANS Nuclear Cafe blog.  I am very pleased!  Life After Vermont Yankee, Part 2--An Interview with Meredith Angwin

Take Action: Comments to the Public Service Board

Vermont Yankee supporters lining up to speak
November 2012 Public Service Board hearing

Take Action:

The Public Service Board is considering the recent agreement between Vermont Yankee and the state. This agreement allows Vermont Yankee to continue to operate until the end of its current fuel cycle, without further lawsuits. I encourage readers to take action by emailing comments to the Public Service Board.   Here's the link for comments;

http://psb.vermont.gov/docketsandprojects/public-comment?docket=7862


The Agreement and the Public Service Board

The Public Service Board is now accepting comments on the agreement (Memorandum of Understanding) which was signed by Entergy and various state agencies in December 2013.  This is agreement  will allow Vermont Yankee to operate until the end of the year, and will also require Vermont Yankee to pay around $40 million dollars to the state and to various funds.  It's a really good deal for the state.  Here's a link to the agreement.

As I noted in my earlier blog post, this agreement will not take effect unless the Public Service Board grants Vermont Yankee a Certificate of Public Good substantially based upon the agreement.

It's a good deal for Entergy, also, because it means that Entergy will be able to finish up this fuel cycle in a reasonable and planned manner. With this agreement, Entergy won't have to fight the state in court in order to finish this fuel cycle.  The Department of Public Service, the Vermont Attorney General, the Agency of Natural Resources have all signed the agreement also.

I encourage you to support this agreement in front of the Public Service Board.

Email the Board or Attend the Hearing 

Email your opinion:

Please write your support of this agreement (or whatever your opinion might be), using this form on the Public Service Board site.

http://psb.vermont.gov/docketsandprojects/public-comment?docket=7862

Attend the hearing:

If you live in Vermont, you might consider going to the one public hearing about this amended docket. It is Tuesday night, January 14, starting at 7 p.m.

The hearing will be held all over Vermont, in the interactive TV studios set up for this purpose.  Here's the announcement.   Hearings will be held in Bennington, Brattleboro, Johnson, Lyndonville, Middlebury, Montpelier, Newport, Randolph Center, Rutland, Springfield, St. Albans, White River Junction, and Williston.  In other words, if you live in Vermont, there's a studio near you.

Also, attending these local studio events is sort of fun. Not completely fun, but sort of fun. You will see your neighbors, whether you agree with them or not.  These studio events draw a different crowd than the almost-professional anti-nuclear group that comes to hearings in Montpelier or Brattleboro. You can also see people in the other TV studios on the video screen, as the camera moves from location to location.

I wish I could come to Tuesday's interactive TV hearing: I have been to several like this.  However, just at the same time, I need to attend an event which is important to my husband.

In any rate, do email your support of the agreement, if you support it.

Suggestions for what to say

These Public Service Board dockets about Vermont Yankee have been going on for a very looong time. "Coming up to speed" on everything is probably not a realistic option.  Here's the Public Service Board site for this docket, if you want to dive in.

In my opinion, you can just read the agreement itself instead of all the other material.  I suggest writing something very short and simple about "being in support of the state agencies that support this agreement," and/ or "being in support of the workers at Vermont Yankee who will be able to plan their futures more effectively with this agreement."

About the workers: in the last two minutes of this video, Entergy Vice President Mike Twomey explains that an overarching goal of the negotiations was to provide twelve months of certainty for the employees of Vermont Yankee. This video was taken at the December 23, 2013 press conference announcing the agreement.




 You can read more about the press conference, and see the entire conference on video, at this post by John Herrick at Vermont Digger.

Show Up for Nuclear in Chattanooga

ANS members at MOX hearing

Tennessee Activism

In two recent blog posts, I wrote about the students and ANS members who Showed Up for Nuclear at the recent NRC meeting about MOX fuel in Chattanooga.  My posts were:

MOX and Hearings in Chattanooga
Meeting Success Story in Chattanooga

However, there was one thing wrong with my posts. I wasn't there. I was following the action from Vermont.

The view from Chattanooga

Steve Skutnik was in Chattanooga, and he was one of the people who organized some of the ANS student attendance.  He has a great blog post about it at Neutron Economy  Mixing it up over MOX--A wrapup from Chattanooga. 

Showing up worked in Tennessee.

Let's start with what didn't happen: the "nuclear zombies" didn't show up.  These zombies are people who come to meetings in Tennessee in costumes doused with fake blood.  They weren't there, and the meeting wasn't filled with street theater.

What did happen: people at the meeting got a chance to talk, and people were polite to each other.  Some productive conversations even  took place afterwards in a local restaurant. The whole thing sounded quite civilized. I have to admit, however, that Steve noted: A particularly interesting facet of the meeting was in how one could readily identify MOX opponents before they even got to their arguments - solely by their tone of voice. In nearly every case, opponents would grow progressively louder as they spoke.

What worked: I think that the reason things went so well is that so many pro-nuclear people showed up.  In many meetings around here, the opponents completely outnumber the supporters, and the opponents are emboldened by their numbers.  Loud voices and street theater often dominate a meeting when nuclear opponents hold a strong majority.

IMHO, when representation is more even, meetings are more polite.

In other words, Just Show Up for nuclear.

The Skutnik Post

I like Skutnik's post for three reasons:

1. It's the story of a successful event, and it is vivid enough so I feel as if I had been there.
2. I learned a lot about MOX in his post.
3. Skutnik calls me and Howard Shaffer the patron saints of nuclear activism. Nobody has ever called me a saint before...