The Fuel Pools: Opponents Say the Darndest Things!

Attorney General Sorrell

My View of an Opponent Statement

Statement: We're gonna sue you if you use the wrong money to address our safety concerns!

Actual Statement: Attorney General Bill Sorrell said:

If Entergy elects to remove money from the fund, Sorrell said the state will take legal action.

"The fund" is the Vermont Yankee decommissioning fund.   Here's the longer quote with Sorrell's statement. This quote is from John Herrick's report in Vermont Digger-- Special Report: Despite Recent Agreement, State and Entergy Remain at Odds Over Funding for Dismantling Vermont Yankee

Entergy wants to tap the fund to move some of the roughly 3,000 total fuel assemblies at the Vernon plant from its cooling pool and into dry cask storage, a process known as spent fuel management.
Meanwhile, the state wants the fund reserved to tear down the plant.
Ultimately, the state and Entergy “agreed to disagree” on the matter.
Vermont Attorney General Bill Sorrell, who helped to negotiate the agreement, said if Entergy taps the fund, the company could mothball the plant for 60 years, a process referred to as SAFSTOR — the worst-case scenario for Vermont officials.
If Entergy elects to remove money from the fund, Sorrell said the state will take legal action.
“The stakes are very significant,” Sorrell said in an interview. "Vermont is going to want a place — a legal opportunity to be heard on those requests in the future. So stay tuned."

Fuel Pool in France
Fuel assemblies
from many nuclear
plants
Courtesy AREVA

My Comment:

As you can see by the comment stream on the Herrick article, one of the great concerns of nuclear opponents is that spent fuel stored in fuel pools is very dangerous.  Look at Fukushima!  Oh...right, nothing happened to the fuel in the pools at Fukushima.  Well, anyhow...

Opponent comment streams have been steady on the subject that Entergy had better move that fuel quickly to save us all from danger.

But, as you can see, moving the fuel quickly is not the main goal of our state government.  No, if Entergy uses the decommissioning funds to move fuel quickly, the state will sue them.

Let's set aside the fact that decommissioning funds are usually used for fuel management. Let's set aside the fact that such fuel-moving costs may well be reimbursed by the federal government.

Dry Cask Storage
Courtesy NRC

Let's just look at the fact that the state government doesn't see moving fuel as a high priority, compared to keeping the money in the decommissioning fund in order to tear down buildings. The state is threatening to sue if Entergy doesn't use money from somewhere besides the decommissioning fund in order to perform certain decommissioning activities.

It would be moderately amusing to watch the state, once again, try to tell the NRC what to do about nuclear safety or use of decommissioning funds. These recent threats of lawsuits show that the state has not learned any lessons about pre-emption.

Furthermore,  it seems to me that punishing Entergy for running a power plant in this state is very important to Governor Shumlin. It seems more important to him to punish Entergy than to have Entergy take an action (move fuel to dry casks) which many of Shumlin's supporters believe would increase their safety.

So AG Sorrell is going sue if Entergy gets NRC permission to use the decomm fund to move fuel, and then moves it?  On what exact grounds is he going to sue?  Is he going to argue it right up to the Supreme Court?

Wow.  Opponents say the darndest things.