PUC meeting on decomm April 12

sign from Wikimedia

Vermont PUC hearing on NorthStar sale set for April 12 in Brattleboro

As I described in a previous blog post, Entergy plans to sell Vermont Yankee to NorthStar for decommissioning. Most (but not all) of the intervenors are now supporting this sale. 

The sale must be approved by the Vermont Public Utilities Commission, and the Commission is holding a public hearing on April 12 in Brattleboro. 

Guy Page of Vermont Energy Partnership has a recent op-ed in the Brattleboro Reformer:  Settlement builds foundation for hope at Vermont Yankee.  In this article, he describes how the terms of the settlement will help the Windham County region, and the entire state. My favorite quote from his op-ed:

"For its part, Entergy will contribute an estimated $30 million for site restoration, and also will contribute another $40 million, if needed. 

To its credit, the state did not use the settlement as an ATM machine to fund state programs, as was the practice of some recent administrations."

Supporters, please come!

Guy wrote an email about the meeting to some plant supporters. Here is a partial quote:

The next - and final - Vermont Public Utility Commission (PUC) meeting is scheduled for Thursday, April 12 from 7-9:00 PM at Brattleboro Union High School in the multipurpose room. An informational session will be held prior to the meeting at 6:00 PM.

Please mark your calendars and plan on attending this public hearing. Even though a settlement has been reached, many longtime critics of Vermont Yankee did not participate in the negotiations, and it is likely that they will make their voices heard. The PUC needs to hear from Vernon, Windham County and the rest of Vermont why they support the settlement and why sale of Vermont Yankee to NorthStar is of economic and environmental benefit.

Please attend if you possibly can.

For more information, contact page at vtep.org  
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Page is a frequent guest blogger at this blog.

(Note: the Vermont Public Service Board has been renamed as the Vermont Public Utility Commission.)

Thursday Meeting on Sale of VY to NorthStar

Sign from Wikipedia

The Plan for the Sale

On Thursday, March 22, the Vermont Nuclear Decommissioning Citizens Advisory Panel (NDCAP)  will meet to discuss the sale of Vermont Yankee from Entergy to NorthStar. On March 2, all the parties to the sale (and all but one of the intervenors) signed off on a Memorandum of Understanding.
This Vermont Digger article by Mike Faher covers the memorandum and  is a little easier to read than the legal document.  State, NorthStar strike deal for sale of Vermont Yankee.

Why is the proposed sale a big deal?  I will attempt to answer that question by answering three subsidiary questions and providing some links.

1) What is this deal about?

Choices After Entergy closed Vermont Yankee, the next step was decommissioning.  Entergy looked at the available funding for decomm, and it proposed that the plant be put in SAFSTOR while the funding grew and the radioactivity of the plant diminished. (SAFSTOR can last for up to 60 years.)  Nobody really liked this idea, but it was financially practical and legal.  Entergy didn't like the plan because Entergy has expertise in running plants, but not in decommissioning them.  The state didn't like it because the plant would be just sitting there, for decades.

Decomm Companies Many other nuclear plant owners have faced this issue, and most have hired a decomm company to do the actual decomm.  This is a little complicated, due to nuclear regulations.  For example, when Exelon planned to decommission the Zion units, it hired the specialist firm EnergySolutions to do the actual work.  However, "hired" is not quite the way it happens.  Exelon transferred the Zion license to EnergySolutions, and EnergySolutions will transfer the license back to Exelon when the decomm is complete. The accumulated decomm funds were transferred with the license.  In effect, EnergySolutions owns Zion temporarily, and is directly responsible to the regulatory agencies during decomm.

The proposed Entergy/ NorthStar deal took this type of deal a step further:  Entergy will sell Vermont Yankee to NorthStar, permanently.

A Sale The sale plan led to a lot of excitement among the local nuclear opponents. A first-of-a-kind transfer (direct sale, not temporary ownership), and happening in Vermont? Oh my! The list of intervenors grew and grew. I felt sorry for both of the companies (Entergy and NorthStar) that had stepped into the morass of Vermont anti-nuclear organizations. These organizations saw this transfer as their last chance to show the world how deeply anti-nuclear they are.  I think they also saw it as their last chance to wring concessions of various types from the companies involved.

Signatures The big deal is that on March 2, all but one of the intervenors signed a Memorandum of Understanding on the terms for the transfer. Basically, Entergy and NorthStar added more bonds and more insurance and more money to the pot, and everyone signed off.  It was not just a win for the intervenors though: the decomm is allowed to use rubbilization, which means using clean debris from building demolition to fill basements.  This had been a huge issue. My blog post from last year contains facts and links, Rubble at Vermont Yankee: Framing the Discussion

Well, everyone signed off on the MOU except Conservation Law Foundation, who felt there wasn't enough money or enough guarantees. CLF predicts that the decomm will run out of money and leave Vermonters on the hook, etc.  My own prediction is that CLF will do everything in their power, including lawsuits, to try to make their prediction come true.  

2) What are  the next steps?

There are quite a few. Vermont State agencies, NorthStar and intervenors have agreed on the MOU, but the state Public Utilities Commission and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission must still rule on it.  Once again, Faher at Vermont Digger has a good article on this: Vermont Yankee sale case will extend into summer.  Within that article, note that Guy Page urges plant supporters to come to the Vermont Public Utilities Commission hearing on April 12.  (Guy Page  of Vermont Energy Partnership is a frequent guest blogger at this blog.)

Guy Page's suggestion about the April meeting leads to an easy segueway into the next question:

3) Should I go to the Thursday NDCAP meeting?

Probably.  NDCAP is an advisory committee, and its meetings are often very informative.  This one will include presentations from Entergy, NorthStar and state officials. The meeting is going to be held at a bigger venue (Brattleboro High School) than usual,  because they expect quite a crowd.  In Brattleboro, "quite a crowd" can be unpleasant, as legions of nuclear opponents come in (sometimes by buses) from Massachusetts and all over Vermont and New Hampshire.  On the other hand, the NDCAP meetings are usually fairly orderly.

As I said in my book, meetings are more civilized when the groups are more even. So I do suggest that you go.

On the other hand, I am not sure I will go. I may have a family visit that interferes.  I may be there, or I may not be there.  That makes it harder for me to write: "Absolutely, go!"

If I possibly can, I will be there.

Facts and Opinion on Entergy Sale of Vermont Yankee: Update

Dry casks at Maine Yankee

Who What Where When Why etc

In a press release  Tuesday, Entergy announced its intent to sell Vermont Yankee to NorthStar.  NorthStar would then be responsible for decommissioning Vermont Yankee.  The NorthStar website shows that their main businesses include demolition, hazardous material abatement, and clean-up services of various types.  NorthStar will partner with three companies for the Vermont Yankee work: Areva, Burn&McDonell, and Waste Control Specialists.

Significantly, Waste Control Specialists already operates the Texas Compact Facility that accepts Vermont Yankee low-level wastes, and has applied to  be an Interim Storage facility for high-level wastes.  This is mere speculation, but Waste Control might well accept Vermont Yankee high-level wastes, if Waste Control becomes an Interim Storage facility.  In the meantime, Waste Control does accept Vermont Yankee low-level wastes. Waste Control participation in the decommissioning process will probably make the process go more smoothly.

Fast decommissioning

The NorthStar team of decommissioning experts expect to fully decommission the site (with the possible exception of continued dry cask storage) by 2030, while Entergy's timeline stretched to 2068 and beyond.

A more rapidly-completed decommissioning is what the state of Vermont wants, and this transfer should provide that rapidity. The transfer of the plant from Entergy to NorthStar has to be approved by both the NRC and the Vermont Public Service Board.   The sale is expected to be complete by the end of 2018, according to a Mike Faher article in Vermont Digger.

Power companies and decommissioning companies

On WAMC, Pat Bradley interviewed me (and others) about this sale. I said that organizations that

Vermont Yankee
when it was operating

operate nuclear plants don't have expertise in nuclear decommissioning, and vice versa.  Entergy would not be able to do a decomm as fast and as well as a decomm company could do it. I pointed out that the Zion plants had also been transferred to a decommissioning company (in that case, Energy Solutions) for decomm.

Looking again at the Zion plant, the decomm project run by Energy Solutions is ahead of schedule and below budget.  That is the sort of outcome that one can expect from a company that specializes in decomm.  Vermont Yankee can expect a similar performance from NorthStar. I think this is a good move, from Entergy's point of view.

How to Decomm

In an earlier blog post about decommissioning, I noted that industry articles say that two steps are necessary to ensure fast, cost-efficient decommissioning:

• a quick downsizing  of existing workers
• a contract decomm workforce that changes as the tasks change 

Decomm is more like building a house (the carpenters doing the framing don't do the electrical work) than running a power plant.  Decomm needs a flexible workforce, but a power plant needs a steady workforce.

(Yes. This is pretty nasty for the economics and stability of the locality. )

How to supervise these contractors?  As I note in the earlier post, power companies have hired contractors to supervise the decomm contractors, but this usually didn't work very well.  Nowadays, (Zion, LaCrosse), the company that owns the power plant transfers the whole NRC license to the decomm company. That company works with the subcontractors.

Finally, my opinion

This transfer was inevitable.  I don't like it, because the new company has no incentive to retain workers from the old company.  That is, my friends who work for Entergy will probably not continue to have local jobs after the plant is transferred to NorthStar.

Quoting Bill Mohl of Entergy in an article in Vermont Digger: "Mohl said he expects that NorthStar would want to retain some of the plant staff’s expertise, and he said those employees who lose their jobs will have opportunities to find positions at other Entergy facilities."

On the other hand, Entergy itself has little incentive to retain workers locally, since the people who ran the power plant at Vermont Yankee are not the people who would be best suited for the tasks of a decommissioning job.

In other words, what I really don't like is the fact that Vermont Yankee is closed and will be decommissioned.   This transfer is just a logical consequence of that sad fact.
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Contracts: I think that "selling the plant" (Entergy) and "transferring the license"(Zion, etc)  are not quite the same.  License transfer seems to be temporary (until decomm is finished) while "sale" sounds final. At Zion, the license was transferred to Energy Solutions, and Energy Solutions also has control of the decomm fund.  However, the land and spent fuel remained with Exelon.

Since I have don't have first-hand knowledge of the the terms of either situation, I cannot comment on the contractual implications.  It is clear, however, that in either sale or transfer, the decomm company has full responsibility for the decomm, including the decomm fund.

UPDATE: This article by Dave Gram of AP states that the plan to sell VY is first-of-a-kind. As I noted above, other plants have transferred licenses to decomm companies, not been sold to those companies.

Upcoming meetings Updated: There are an  upcoming meeting of the Vermont Nuclear Decommissioning Citizen's Advisory Panel. The meeting is December 1 in Brattleboro.  It is a special meeting to discuss the sale of Vermont Yankee to NorthStar.  More information is at the Vermont  Department of Public Service site, including a link for submitting comments. (Note that the November 17 meeting, announced earlier,  has been cancelled. )

Employee Ownership

Rod Adams

Saving Vermont Yankee

Yesterday, I wrote about Rod Adams work to keep Vermont Yankee running through an employee buy-out.  Saving Vermont Yankee: Rod Adams Moves Forward.  At the end of that post, I wrote

Imagine that  a Vermont Yankee employee asked me: "Well, should I stop looking for a new job? Will VY continue?" I don't think I would  advise her to stop looking for a new job.  There is a reasonable chance Adams efforts will succeed....and a reasonable chance they will fail. 

There are many roadblocks to an employee buyout.  The comment stream on my post includes several of the potential problems. In my estimation, there are basically two major issues:

• Money
• Political opposition

Money

I debated calling this roadblock: "NRC" instead of "money." The group that buys the plant must not only have enough money for the purchase, they must convince the NRC that they have enough money to run the plant, replace anything that needs to be replaced, etc.  They have to be fiscally sound.

Getting that kind of money together is hard, and doing it on an ad hoc basis unlikely to be convincing.  Let's say Warren Buffet decided to buy the plant.  Buffet has had money for a long time. He could convince the NRC that he can run it.  A new entity called "Employees Purchase Group" would have a tough battle convincing the NRC that the Purchase Group was fiscally sound.

Political Opposition

If the employees own the plant, instead of "Entergy Louisiana" owning it, much of the political opposition might go away. Or it might not. If the political opposition doesn't go away, the state won't let the plant operate.  If the state was forced to let it operate, the state will do its best to tax it to death.

Maybe or Maybe Not

These are the facts here in Vermont. I think Adams is doing something worthwhile, not something completely quixotic.  Still,  buying the plant is hardly a slam-dunk.  Adams is trying to do something that has never been done before. His path is seriously uphill.

My issue is that I want to be supportive to the effort to keep VY running, but I don't want to be Pollyanna.  I want to make it clear that I think that individuals at the plant should look to their own futures, and not assume that VY will keep operating.

That said, I want to say that I support Rod's efforts to keep it running.

Saving Vermont Yankee: Rod Adams Moves Forward

Saving Vermont Yankee

Rod Adams is exploring ways to keep Vermont Yankee operating.  Vermont Yankee is a solid factory, and it makes a product that remains in high demand. As a matter of fact, the demand is high and the product (electricity) goes through periods of very high demand compared to the supply.  During the polar vortex last winter, the price of electricity on the grid soared to above 30 cents per kWh, while diesel fuel was pressed into service to meet the demand.

"Rod Adams is exploring ways..." Is this a fair description? When Luke Skywalker says: "I'll try," Yoda gives him the advice that has passed into legend:

"Do. Or do not.  There is no try."

Is Adams merely "trying"?  No.  Rod is highly committed to saving Vermont Yankee. This is not "trying."

On the other hand, despite Yoda's saying, some work succeeds in reaching its goals.  Some work does not.  With this work, only time will tell.

Adams's Program

Emotional Commitment: After the announcement that Vermont Yankee would close, I wrote a guest post at ANS Nuclear Cafe about my emotions about the closing: We Are Not Spock.  Rod Adams followed this post with a guest post at my blog in November, 2011  The first words of his guest post were: "Meredith, you are not alone in your sorrow." Rod also wrote a post about the plant at his own blog: Nuclear professionals can, and should get emotional.   This post has over 100 comments.

I am starting here, with Adams's emotions and commitment, instead of starting Adams's planning.  Because....nothing gets done without emotional commitment. Our opponents know this. I am trying to acknowledge this.

Excellent Plant: Adams took a tour of Vermont Yankee in March of this year, and quickly wrote a post about why the plant should be saved: What a Waste--Vermont Yankee is in beautiful condition. The post has over 60 comments. (Note, the comment streams on Rod's posts are usually worth reading.)

Employee Ownership: At this point, Rod's strategy began to take shape: Employee Ownership. On May 1, on his own blog, Adams posted Vermont Yankee, a Clean Kilowatt Cow That Deserves Saving. (Once again, 55 comments.)  Some key sentences in this post are quoted below:


When I left the plant I ended up following a truck on the highway from Cabot Creamery that said “Owned by Dairy Farmers Since 1919.” That started the wheels turning.
Vermont has a deep history of cooperative businesses. ....The state is also one of several states that allows companies to incorporate as ‘B’ corporations with bylaws that enforce social goals that sometimes conflict with maximizing profits.


It is up to us to save Vermont Yankee:  In his most recent post at ANS Nuclear Cafe (yesterday, as a matter of fact) Adams discusses whether Entergy really tried hard to sell the plant....or not.  He concludes that it is up to us activists to save Vermont Yankee. Save Vermont Yankee. If not you, who? If not now, when?

In this post, he hints at his work finding financial backers for the employee buy-out plan.  He is committed to this. He may succeed or he may not, but he is not merely "trying." There is no try.

Next Steps:

Adams is contacting people, and Adams will be out in Vermont again this summer.  If you know of people who can help him (any venture capitalists in the crowd?) please contact me or Rod.  If you don't know Rod's email, write me at mjangwin at gmail and I will put you in contact.

Buying the plant should be inexpensive, I think.  The plant is also quite profitable right now, having recently shared $17 million in excess profits with Green Mountain Power. The requirement to share that money would not survive a change in ownership, by the way, and the new owner should have an even more profitable plant.  However, the new owner will have to prove that it has the resources to maintain the plant, and that is where the backers come in.  The backers would be guarantors, as I see it. I don't think they would have to invest large sums of money immediately.  I hope Adams comments on this, because I could easily have it wrong. I have never tried to buy a power plant. :-)

Beyond Vermont Yankee

Imagine that  a Vermont Yankee employee asked me: "Well, should I stop looking for a new job? Will VY continue?" I don't think I would advise her to stop looking for a new job.  There is a reasonable chance Adams efforts will succeed....and a reasonable chance they will fail.

I'm talking about Vermont Yankee here.

But looking beyond Vermont Yankee, the things that Adams learns in this attempt may well save other power plants in less vitriolic states.  Adams is highly committed to this and we should help him.  This is not a mere "try."

Entergy, Vermont Electric Co-Op, and Some Links

Entergy just announced the completion of a deal to sell Vermont Yankee power to Vermont Electric Co-Op. The deal is for power available after 2012, contingent on Vermont Yankee still running after 2012. The opening cost for the power is 4.9 cents kWh, not much more than the 4.5 cents Entergy is currently receiving in its existing contracts, and far less that the touted 5.8 cents of the HydroQuebec deal with other Vermont utilities. Both the Entergy deal and the HydroQuebec deal quote only the going-in rate, and move with the market in a mysterious way.

Entergy also announced that it did not get an offer on Vermont Yankee. I admit I was wrong. I thought Entergy would get an offer. My reasoning was right in some ways: other utilities see the value of the plant. It is not an old rust-bucket. As the plant spokesman, Larry Smith, stated in the press release: Although we received interest from a number of companies, the conclusion of the sale process, without a sale, was driven primarily by the uncertain political environment in Vermont," Smith said. "The plant's strong operating performance was attractive to potential buyers; the political uncertainty was not." However, my prediction that another company would make a contingent offer turned out to be wrong.

Meanwhile, as I was following the twitter stream, journalist Shay Totten tweeted that the CEO of Vermont Electric Co-operative found the Entergy press release misleading and said that the CEO, Dave Hallquist, plans to "do a lot of interviews tonight."

More information to come on this, no doubt.

Finally, I would like to recommend a few links from the past day or so.

• In today's Atomic Insights blog, Howard Shaffer discusses the evolution of Mark I containment.
• In Nuclear Green, Charles Barton describes the good, the bad, and the ugly about Fukushima and its press coverage.
• As I wrote two days ago, I thought Capacity Factor had the most reasonable assessment of the fall-out situation in Japan, though it was far more pessimistic than the BBC assessment. Unfortunately, I seem to have been right. The village that Capacity Factor projected should be evacuated is indeed being evacuated. The heavy fall-out is in a small area, but this is still not good news.
• I also wrote that I could not figure out the injuries at the plant. A list has now been published. The injuries are mostly due to the earthquake, tsunami, and industrial accidents, with a few due to radiation. None of the radiation injuries sounds serious, but we really don't know.
• In a more upbeat note, about 200 people displaced by the tsunami have found shelter at the Onogawa nuclear plant.

Will Entergy Get an Offer On Vermont Yankee? Three Myths Dispelled

Right after the election, Entergy announced Vermont Yankee was on the market. The local response was completely predictable: "Nobody in their right mind would buy that plant!" I disagree. I think someone will buy it.

I need to point out that I have no insider information on this. I only know what I read in the paper.

Myth One: Nobody will offer for that old rustbucket.

In the eighties and early 90s, it became clear that a company that owned only one nuclear plant could not run it well. Some nuclear plants in this situation were closed (Rancho Seco, Trojan). Most nuclear plants were purchased by big companies. Today, a company owns more than one nuclear plant, or it owns no nuclear plants at all.

In other words, the only companies that might offer for Vermont Yankee are companies that already own nuclear plants. These companies know how to judge a nuclear plant, and they know that Vermont Yankee is a good one:

• Green rating from NRC
• Recent power runs of more than 500 days each
• Good relationships with the on-site union
• Industry-wide award for innovative inspection equipment
• Caught and repaired its tritium leak much faster than many other plants which had similar leaks.

Anyone who owns a nuclear plant would like Vermont Yankee.

Myth Two: Vermont Yankee doesn't have a license to operate past 2012, so nobody will want it.

A buyer can make a contingent offer. We made a contingent offer on a house at one point. Buying our new house was contingent on selling our old house for a certain sum by a certain date. Such offers are very common in all sorts of contracts. Our house offer was accepted, and the next phase of the purchase was called clearing the contingencies. Then we closed on the house. We owned it.

You can do this with a power plant, too. "We offer you this much, contingent on having license renewal approved."

Can the new utility clear the contingencies? Or will it be an offer with no closure? Nobody can completely predict the outcome of contingent offers, or they wouldn't need to be contingent. But I think the purchasing utility will sweeten the deal for the legislature and clear the contingencies. Perhaps the new utility will supply more money for the Clean Energy Development Fund. Perhaps it will make a one-time tax payment or cut a really good deal for a power purchase agreement.

In any case, there will be a new set of money on the table, and Vermont has a $112 million budget shortfall next year. I think a new utility can finalize the deal. However, nobody really knows about a contingent deal until it is near closing. That's why I headed this post "Will Entergy get an offer" rather than "Will Entergy sell the plant." I feel confident Entergy will get an offer.

Myth Three: The shortfall in the Decommissioning Fund means nobody will buy the plant

The decommissioning fund contains about $350 million, and decommissioning is estimated to cost about $800 million. This isn't actually a killer. If the plant operates for another 20 years, it will be easy to fill the fund completely with money from electricity sales.

Some opponents take the position that the customers buying nuclear electricity should not have to pay for decommissioning. They believe that decommissioning money needs to fall like a golden rain from heaven, or be some sort of charge against Entergy stock in the future. That is a very unrealistic view of finance. Luckily, neither golden rain nor charges against stock will be necessary. Nuclear power plants can provide the cheapest power on the market and still put a few mills per kWh away for decommissioning.

I don't know how the deal will be structured, but I know it is possible.The status of the decommissioning fund will not deter a buyer who plans to operate the plant for another twenty years.

In short, I predict that Entergy will receive an offer on Vermont Yankee.

Currency image and golden eagle dollar image from Wikimedia Commons.

Shumlin Won. Scott Won. Referendum on Vermont Yankee? I Don't Think So.

Election is Over! Thank Heavens!

And I think I can speak for many when I say I thought the campaign would never end. It's been negative. Very negative.

Shumlin Won.

Oh yeah. It's over and Peter Shumlin won the race for governor. Did I mention that?

Peter Shumlin stated, over and over, that he was against Vermont Yankee being relicensed. He won the election. On the other hand, in the early days, when he talked almost exclusively about the Radioactive Peril and how he would Shut It Down, he was losing. As I noted in an earlier post, when he changed his tune to women's reproductive rights, jobs, and single-payer health care, he pulled ahead. I find these New York Times charts of election projections over time fascinating. Dubie was ahead while Shumlin ran against Vermont Yankee. When Shumlin finally noticed and began running on the Democratic agenda, he pulled ahead.

Also, the most recent vote count is Shumlin 115,222 (49%) and Dubie 111,728 (48%) Not exactly a Shumlin landslide. A squeaker. And if Shumlin hadn't gotten off the "Vermont Yankee and only Vermont Yankee" rhetoric sometime in September, he would have lost.

Phil Scott Won

If the people of Vermont hate Vermont Yankee, they should have handed Mr. Phil Scott a resounding defeat. He's a Republican during a year of the Democrats sweeping Vermont. He was running for Lieutenant Governor; the Democratic candidate for Governor won. Most importantly, Scott was one of the four honorable Vermont Senators who voted FOR relicensing Vermont Yankee in February. Remember that 26 to 4 business? Scott was one of the four.

Poor guy. Everything was against Mr. Scott, if you are one of the people who believes that Shumlin's attack on Vermont Yankee was the source of Shumlin's squeak to success.

Phil Scott won by a far bigger margin, about 10 percent. Scott credits his success to his experience in the Senate, and to running a positive race. Clearly, supporting Yankee didn't defeat Scott. A little more about Scott at this article in Vermont Digger. Among other things, he's a serious race-car driver.

(Hint for future candidates: Scott talked about jobs and the economy and being bi-partisan. As the Clinton campaign said, ever so long ago: "It's the economy, stupid.")

Referendum? No.

I don't think this election was a referendum about Vermont Yankee. However, if it was a referendum, the clear supporter of the plant won by a far greater margin than the plant's chief detractor.

MORE TO COME

The plant is up for sale, legislators are commenting on it, and is the Secret Garage Meeting one of the issues?

Last I looked, there was only one of me, and I have to give a talk about reprocessing in France at a class this afternoon. So...for now, a quote from the Entergy Press Release:

Entergy Corporation (NYSE: ETR) announced today a process is under way to explore the potential sale of Vermont Yankee, its 605-megawatt nuclear plant in Vernon, Vt.

The sale process is being conducted on a confidential basis and no additional details will be released at this time. While no decision has been made to sell the plant, the company expects interest from multiple parties. The plant has an outstanding operational record. It completed 532 days of continuous operation in April 2010, the second breaker-to-breaker run in the last five years. The record run for the plant is 547 days, which ended in 2007.

"Our motivation for exploring the sale of the plant is simple - we want to do whatever is in the best interest of our stakeholders, including the approximately 650 men and women who work at the plant," said J. Wayne Leonard, Entergy's chairman and chief executive officer.

The Secret Garage Meeting and the Implausible Denial

This is worth a couple of posts, really, but I have to get ready for class...

There was a meeting in a garage (really) with Democratic Movers and Shakers, including Peter Shumlin. Supposedly, Mr. Shumlin said that..yeah, with some other company owning the plant, and a good power deal for Vermont...he might give the matter some more thought. Someone leaked this to the press.

Shumlin was asked about it, and said he "couldn't remember saying that." (Really? Have we elected a man in early stages of memory loss? Or is there another explanation?)

Later Shumlin compared Vermont Yankee to a junker car that would not run better because it had a different owner. However, Shumlin never stated: "I never said that, in that garage. Whoever said I said anything like that, that person is a liar." Since Shumlin calls a person a liar at the drop of a hat, this means...they weren't lying. Shumlin said it, in that garage. That's my opinion.

Vermont Tiger broke this story at Deal Us In. They covered it further in An Unequivocal Non-Denial.

As I said. More later.

Vermont Yankee On the Market?

Back in the days when I worked for EPRI or had my own consulting business, I read the Energy Daily. It's a well-reputed and very expensive ($2400 a year) daily update on the energy business. Needless to say, I don't subscribe any more.

But I have friends in low places, and they shared an article from today's Energy Daily with me. The Energy Daily claims that Vermont Yankee is on the market, with NRG Energy and Exelon showing some interest. Of course, nobody at any of the companies will comment about this possibility. If Energy Daily can't get a comment, I'm not even going to try.

What do I think about this? I think it could be a good thing for the plant and the state. Selling the plant won't change the opinions of the so-called "citizen's groups" that met with Jaczko, or the Eugenics Grannies. But it would give the Senate the ability to revote. After all, the plant would REALLY have new management with a sale. "They lied" would be off the table ("they" aren't there anymore) and the economics and reliability of Vermont Yankee would be far more visible. As a matter of fact, I suggested the positive aspects of a sale in a post in May called Entergy Communications.

The psychological effect could be huge. Without some kind of drastic change, it is hard for a group like the Senate to reverse itself. There's a shame factor: "Were we wrong before, maybe? Are we admitting we made a mistake?" Love may mean never having to say you're sorry, but politics seems to insist on never admitting you need to be sorry. The political motto is: "I have never made an error, and I never will. Trust me."

The German Model

Relicensing Vermont Yankee at the 11th hour, with new management in place, would be completely precedented. Germany and Sweden came within inches of shutting down their nuclear power plants, by law. But as the day came closer, these countries became aware of all the natural gas they would be buying from Russia. It was Reality Check time, and their nuclear plants are still running.

It is amusing to shout about the imagined dangers of nuclear power, but when it actually comes time to buy fossil energy off the grid from outside suppliers, people begin to object. Ordinary people who are not anti-nuclear activists prefer the plants that they know, the plants that have been running for ages, the plants that supply jobs and taxes to THEIR own jurisdiction.

Negotiating with the Weak, Negotiating with the Strong

I read, somewhere, sometime, that Entergy put a pretty good rate on the table for selling electricity to Vermont utilities after 2012. I believe the rate was 6.1c kWh, which was the same as the "strike price" in the existing Revenue Sharing Agreement (item 4) of the Memorandum of Understanding. I don't think this rate was firm, though, so I am not going to try to look up the newspaper article in which it appeared.

Entergy has also been battered by poor choices and poor publicity. As everyone who reads this blog knows, the problems were blown out of proportion. The tritium leak was small and fixed in jig time. Every investigation shows Entergy did not lie about the pipes. However, these accusations DID weaken Entergy's negotiating position a great deal. They put Entergy in the position of a beggar, really. "Please please let us keep the plant open, and we will give you whatever you want."

Nuclear plants in general are changing their tune. They don't tend to be beggars anymore. When Germany decided to tax nuclear fuel rods as a simple way to bring revenue to the state, the utilities weren't standing still for it and threatened to shut the plants down. They aren't trying to stay open at any cost, with any taxation structure. This on-going fight in Germany is still, well, on-going.

My point is that negotiating from a strong position ("You wanta buy from the Russians, huh? You wanta buy from the New England Grid at spot prices, huh?") is likely to lead to more money for the group in the strong position. If Vermont Yankee is sold, the new owner will be in a stronger position, and the negotiations may be quite different.

If Vermont Yankee is sold, a major motivation might be to let the Senate off the hook about reversing itself. In which case, Vermont would have only itself to blame for encouraging the change in ownership, and therefore putting itself into a worse negotiating position. Ah well. It won't be the first time politicos mess up.

"I have never made an error, and I never will. Trust me." This statement is not a good way to get through life, or through politics. It is sure to cost someone some money, somewhere down the line. Vermont may have arrived at that place. New ownership at VY, higher priced power for everyone, but the Vermont Senate gets an "out" to reverse itself. Sigh.

Correction: In an earlier version of this post, I wrote: "if Entergy is sold." I meant: "if Vermont Yankee" is sold. Thank you to Rod Adams for the correction.

The Sixteenth Blog Carnival Of Nuclear Energy

The Sixteenth Blog Carnival of Nuclear Energy is up at Idaho Samizdat. Once again, Dan Yurman has done a terrific job of choosing the best of the blogs, and putting things in perspective. There's Advanced Reactor Research at Brave New Climate, a terrific post from economist David Bradish of NEI Nuclear Notes on Nuclear and Job Creation, and CoolHandNuke on TVA refurbishing the Bellefonte reactor. Great stuff! Read and enjoy. Nothing like a Carnival on a late summer evening.

Dollar image from Wikimedia.

Map of nuclear plants in Germany also from Wikimedia.

Ferris Wheel also from Wikimedia.