Ohio Energy Matters: Welcome to a new blog

Ohio 

A New Local Blog, and Why Local Blogs Matter

This post welcomes a new local blog, started by Will Davis.

Ohio Energy Matters
This blog's motto is:
Reporting on Ohio energy matters because Ohio's energy MATTERS

This blog is in the grand tradition of local nuclear blogs...well, I think that there are only five local nuclear blogs in North America.  Still, five can be a grand tradition, right?

The five local blogs that I know about are:
Ohio Energy Matters
Canadian Energy Issues
Atoms For California
Northwest Clean Energy
Yes Vermont Yankee

All politics is local. 

Local blogs can influence local actions by providing local information and linking to ways to use that

information (hearings to attend, newspaper articles that may have comment sections on-line, etc.)  The local blogs are adapted to their areas, and feature different types of information.

• Steve Aplin of Canadian Energy Issues has a running sidebar on his blog of how much clean energy is being produced in Ontario, that hour, by nuclear, gas, wind and other energy sources. 
• Andrew Benson of Atoms for California analyzes the California Energy Commission response to nuclear, among other things, including renewable sprawl.
• Northwest Clean Energy writes about new records set by Columbia Generating Station, challenges nuclear opponents inaccurate scare stories, and describes a utility demand response initiative. (This blog has several bloggers: I am one of them.) 
• Will Davis at Ohio Energy Matters describes local hearings and local news reports.  He also has local news sources in his blog rolls.
• At Yes Vermont Yankee, I have quoted from testimony and court cases concerning the plant. I also have local news on my blog rolls.

The blog posts at these blogs are  not always of national interest.  Yet they are tremendously important.  Local people want to link to legislative reports, hearing records and so forth. They want to refer back to something that happened six months ago, without trying to comb through the archives of a newspaper.  As a matter of fact, newspaper and radio reporters often (not always) read the local blogs when they want "the other side" of the nuclear story, and are pressed for time to find it.

All politics is local.

The Opponents Go National and We Must Go Local

Many nuclear opponents have nationwide reach.  For example, one of the men who was most active in closing Vermont Yankee is now "crisscrossing  (Ohio) labeling the power purchase agreement a “bailout” for the utility and specifically for Davis-Besse." From a   Dan Yurman blog post on activism against nuclear plants.  This man is determined to close down Davis-Besse next.

To defend the nuclear option, I believe we need both national and local blogs. A recent post at Ohio Energy Matters shows exactly the type of impact that a local blogs can have.

Nuclear Energy Institute did a report on the financial contributions of Davis Besse to the Ohio economy.  In his blog post,  Economic Impacts of Davis-Besse, Will Davis summarized the report and linked to the report.  But he went farther.  He compared this report to the report of economic devastation that is happening in Vermont due to shutting down Vermont Yankee.  In other words, he put the Davis-Besse report in context.

In the comment section, someone asked how to comment to agencies in favor of Davis Besse.  By having a local blog, Davis was able to both receive this comment (who you gonna ask?) and to answer it.  

Welcome the new local blog: Ohio Energy Matters!

Will Davis, Blog Author

Will Davis has an outstanding track record as a pro-nuclear energy communicator.  Davis has his own blog, Atomic Power Review, with over 800,000 page views. He writes for the industry newsletter, Fuel Cycle Week. He is one of the organizers and editors of the American Nuclear Society blog ANS Nuclear Café. Davis is also Communications Director for the Nuclear Ship Savannah Association.

So Davis is not just a nuclear communicator, he is a very busy and very sought-after nuclear communicator.  And yet, Davis has started this new, local blog.  Because local blogs are important.

Decommissioning Meeting Wednesday Night in Brattleboro

The Meeting and the NRC

There's a meeting of the Nuclear Decommissioning Citizen Advisory Panel (NDCAP) on Wednesday night in Brattleboro. The meeting will start at 6 p.m. at the Quality Inn and Conference Center, on Vernon Road in Brattleboro. Here's a link to the agenda.
http://publicservice.vermont.gov/sites/psd/files/VY%20NDCAP%20Agenda%201-28-15%20Final.pdf

As you may note, this is an unusual meeting because a representative from NRC will be there. NDCAP itself will continue to have meetings forever, though the Rockies may crumble and Gibraltar may tumble...no, not that long.  Wrong song.

The meeting tomorrow night may well be an important meeting, because it is during the period when the NRC is taking comments on the Vermont Yankee Decommissioning Plan, the Post Shutdown Decommissioning Activities Report, aka the PSDAR. And a representative from the NRC will be there, which is always quite a draw for the opponents.  (See my post on one of the NRC-sponsored meetings: The Politics of Intimidation.)

Update Note: I originally wrote that NDCAP would have "monthly" meetings forever.  Howard Shaffer corrected this.  He informed me that NDCAP has had monthly meetings recently, since so much is going on, but the group is only required to have four meetings a year.  So they will have meetings forever, but not monthly meetings.

Sources of Information, and What to Say

Vermont Yankee has an excellent web site on decommissioning, including links to the PSDAR. The Public Service Department also a good site, with links to presentations at NDCAP meetings.  And a big Hat's Off to Howard Shaffer, for his submission to NDCAP. There were two presentations to NDCAP by nuclear opponent groups, and Howard also has a presentation.  (See December 18 meeting notes.)

The bad news is you can spend a week reading pages and pages of information about this meeting. But, if you go to the meeting, you will only get probably two minutes to say anything at all. What might you say?

My advice would be to say that with the plant shut down, and all fuel in the pool, the emergency planning zone (EPZ) no longer needs to be in effect at the time when the NRC says it doesn't need to be in effect.  In other words, the EPZ can be shut down in early 2016.

EPZ Controversy

Well, it isn't a controversy.  All nuclear people (plant, NRC etc) agree that when the fuel has been in the fuel pool for about a year, it becomes too cool to start a fire.  At that point, the emergency planning zone no longer needs to be funded.  However, the opponents are eager to have all nuclear plants spend as much money as possible and keep the emergency planning and so forth in place forever.

Or at least, they think that the EPZ should be in place until Gibraltar tumbles and...wait.  Wrong song!  No, actually, it may be the right song.

The VY Decommissioning page includes an analysis of the public comments received by the Public Service Board about the PSDAR.  You will note that the majority of the comments:

• Request EPZ until all fuel is in dry casks
• Request EPZ until all spent fuel is offsite, maybe in Yucca Mountain
• Request EPZ expansion to fifty miles.

If you go to the meeting, explain perhaps that the fuel pool will not be a danger...just about the time when the NRC says it will not be a danger.  And that the EPZ can go away....just about the time that the NRC says it no longer needs to be funded!  These dates are calculations, not coincidence. 





Will I Be At the Meeting?

Probably not.  I have to admit that I have lost my taste for watching people walk up to the microphone and endlessly repeat that they are terrified about the fuel pool. The plant is not operating. They won, and I don't want to watch them anymore.  Also,  I have lost my taste for being intimidated, and the presence of someone from the NRC may lead the opponents to having more fun (so to speak) than a normal meeting.

However, Howard Shaffer said he may go, and I may go also.  Shaffer is a real trooper, filing testimony to partially balance the testimony of the opponents. I haven't decided about this meeting. Luckily, the blizzard didn't really blizzard here, the way it blizzarded in Massachusetts. So I could go, I guess.

A lot to think about.

The Vermont Yankee Series Expands. The "Attitude Post" and more

The American Nuclear Society  blog has run a three-part series on the reasons for Vermont Yankee closing. Seven bloggers contributed.  Here are links to part one, part two, and part 3.

Now, the series has expanded at another blog.  Dan Yurman described the reasons for the series, and the credentials of the bloggers, at his blog: Neutron Bytes.  His post is called Seven At One Blow (seven bloggers on one topic, in one series).  Pro-nuclear bloggers are knowledgeable and accomplished people, but the bloggers are seldom explicitly acknowledged.  A big THANK YOU to Yurman for his post.

Well Begun is Half Done

The third post in the American Nuclear Society blog could be called the "attitude" post.  How shall we approach the political battle for nuclear energy?  Our attitudes matter.

Well Begun is Half Done. Confused beginnings  and confused goals rarely lead to success.

Vermont State House chamber

Howard Shaffer's post is titled "Failure to Politically Engage. As Shaffer writes: Unfortunately, Entergy Vermont Yankee carried through with the industry’s error of misunderstanding the campaign against the plant as a technical and legal policy debate, as opposed to recognizing it for what it truly was—a bare knuckle political campaign.

Shaffer doesn't leave it at that, though.  He develops a list for winning a campaign. The material on the list might be old-hat to a politician, but these things seems new to the nuclear industry. For example:

Be the first to get negative information about you into the media. You get to define the issue, not your opponents. 

Shaffer is a co-owner of  this blog, as well as a frequent contributor to ANS Nuclear Cafe. I recommend his ANS Nuclear Cafe post about testifying to a legislative committee about spent fuel storage: Getting Inside the Legislative Process.

Dan Yurman continues the theme with his post "Vermont Yankee Shuts Down for Good."  He concludes that low gas prices and the regulatory environment contributed to Vermont Yankee closing, Entergy, which is a Louisiana business, never got a sense of how to deal with New England greens.  Yurman's conclusion, however, is more about the market: Entergy...(could not) to recover value, nor earn revenue, ... based on the carbon emission reductions it provided to the region.

Prices in New England
2014

In this case, it was the market that was ill-begun.

Dan Yurman is a pre-eminent nuclear blogger.  His current blog is Neutron Bytes: his former blog, Idaho Samizdat, was one of the pioneering pro-nuclear blogs.

So Many Thanks!

First, I want to thank Dan Yurman, who had the idea for this series of blog posts at ANS.  He was also a contributor to the blog, the collector of the posts (we sent them to Yurman), and a major force in publicizing this effort.

Second, I want to thank Will Davis of the blog Atomic Power Review and Linda Zec of the Outreach Department at American Nuclear Society, who took the seven essays across the finish line for publication at ANS Nuclear Café.

Third, I want to thank the people who wrote excellent, informed and thought-provoking comments on Reflections 1 and Reflections 2.  Join the conversation!

On the Roof? Video about Vermont Yankee retirement

WCAX interviewed Howard Shaffer and Arnie Gundersen about Vermont Yankee's retirement.  Gundersen apparently does not know where the fuel pool is: he says that the fuel is stored "on the roof."  Really?  Last I looked, it was under the roof.

Shaffer is reasonable as usual.

Just a quick post to share this. I hope the video comes through.  If not, please follow the link.

http://www.wcax.com/story/27886195/vermont-yankees-long-road-to-retirement

  WCAX.COM Local Vermont News, Weather and Sports-

At American Nuclear Society Blog: Second Part of Analysis on Vermont Yankee Closing

It's the politics?

In yesterday's post at the American Nuclear Cafe blog, Les Corrice and I analyzed Vermont Yankee's closing. We both concluded that  the statement that "it was uneconomic to operate the plant" was kind of a smokescreen. The "economics statement" was a way to avoid admitting the real issue: the plant closed mostly due to political opposition. That was the first post in the series at ANS Nuclear Cafe: you might call it "the politics post."

I also encourage you to read the first comment on the post, clearly written by someone who worked at the plant.  The comment includes more detail on exactly the type of political pressures the plant was facing.  Once you have read the comment, join the conversation.

It's the economics, maybe? Or the lack of advocacy?

Today, ANS posted  the second part of that three-part series on Vermont Yankee's closing.

In this post, three bloggers comment on the closing. Two of the bloggers describe the economics of the plant, and the third describes what real advocacy could mean.

1. Rod Adams worked hard to convince buyers that the plant was worth saving, and he presents cogent economic arguments for keeping the plant running. Adams blogs at Atomic Insights, and most bloggers who read this blog have seen his posts and guest posts.   One of his recent posts is Prevention is Easier and Less Painful than Cure--Keep Vermont Yankee Open.  In today's post at ANS Nuclear Cafe, he gives a concise analysis of how Vermont Yankee could be an economic asset.
2. Edward Kee is an energy economist, and the owner of the Nuclear Economics Consulting Group.  He blogs at Nuclear Economics where he recently posted Nuclear Lessons from Vermont Yankee Closure.  Today, at the American Nuclear Cafe blog, Kee writes that the lack of profitable power contracts was a major cause of Vermont Yankee's closing. He also notes that the grid markets do not financially favor nuclear plants, despite their reliability. 
3. The third blogger, Robert Margolis, feels that the major problem was lack of advocacy.  We needed advocacy for Vermont Yankee, and while we had some, we didn't have enough.  As an example of "enough," Margolis cites Frederick Salvucci, a civil engineer who had personal reasons to advocate for the Big Dig in Boston...and he fought for it, and he won.  The Big Dig was built, however unlikely that might seem in retrospect.  Nuclear advocates are fighting for something better than the Big Dig, but we need some of Salvucci's fire.

I encourage you to read this second Vermont Yankee post at the American Nuclear Society blog, and comment on it.

1-93 Tunnel, part of the Big Dig

Bloggers Analyze Vermont Yankee Closure: Series Starting at American Nuclear Society Blog

Today, the American Nuclear Society blog, ANS Nuclear Cafe, started a series of posts that analyze Vermont Yankee's closing.   Today's post is Reflections on Vermont Yankee-1.   Seven authors have written their opinions, and their work will be published in three posts.

To quote the description of these posts: Seven authors – who have no official connection to Vermont Yankee, or to Entergy, have provided their opinions on the shutdown of the plant, its implications for the region, and possible implications for other nuclear plants in other areas of the country.

The authors are all nuclear advocates and/or pro-nuclear bloggers.

Today's post: It's the Politics, Not the Economics

Today's post has two authors.  I'm the first author.  My part is titled: The Price Is Not the Lesson.  I argue that the statement "it's just an economic decision" works as protective cover for plant owners and it works for plant opponents. However, the real reasons for closure include political opposition and heavy, targetted taxation.

The second author is Les Corrice, blogger at Hiroshima Syndrome.  His website hosts two blogs: Fukushima Accident Updates and Fukushima Commentary.  Corrice is also author of two books about the Fukushima accident.

Corrice's section is titled: The Unspoken Reason for Closure. As he writes: "In my opinion, the economic rationale is a smoke screen for an unspoken, over-riding reason.    V-Y has been under a socio-political attack for decades."

No, Corrice and I did not coordinate or collaborate on our posts. It's more a great-minds-think-alike situation!  I encourage you to read the entire post at ANS Nuclear Cafe and to comment on it.

Other posts, with other ideas, written by other bloggers, will be coming soon.

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Yesterday, in the Valley News, I had a guest column on the front page of the "Perspective" section of the Sunday paper.  In a few days, I will reprint the column at this blog.  In the meantime, I hope this link works.  Why Electricity Costs Spiked.  (I don't control the illustrations for my columns, of course.  I am pleased that this column is illustrated with a very nice picture of Vermont Yankee.)

Video of Interviews with Vermont Yankee People

Entergy made a short video of interviews with Vermont Yankee employees. The video was filmed on the last day of plant operations.

Vermont Yankee was a well-maintained plant. It was a plant where people worked together. A sad video. But it is an opportunity to hear the voices of the employees themselves.


Vermont Yankee Employee Thoughts on Closing from Entergy Corp. on Vimeo.

Timeline, Layoffs and an Insult

Fuel Removed and NRC Notified 

On January 12, Vermont Yankee sent a letter to the NRC: it stated that all fuel has been removed from the reactor and placed in the spent fuel pool.  It further stated that the reactor is no longer producing power. The letter was reported by WCAX.

There's a time-line to decommissioning here, and the letter is part of it.  First, Vermont Yankee filed its PSDAR (Post-Shutdown Decommissioning Activities Report) with the NRC on December 23, 2014. (They had told the state of Vermont that they would file by the end of the year.  The plant went off-line forever on December 29, 2014.)  There is a 67 day comment period, during which people can comment on this document: the comment period ends on March 23, 2015.  As I understand it, either on March 23 or sometime thereafter when the NRC accepts the PSDAR, Vermont Yankee will be officially in the status of "decommissioning" rather than holding an operation license.  At that point, Entergy will be able to access the decommissioning funds for decommissioning activities.

Layoffs Coming Next Week 

Fuel Pool at Areva

Meanwhile, next week, many people will be laid off at VY. How many people?  I have seen conflicting numbers in the newspapers, and so I called Martin Cohn at Entergy this morning for an update. (For the most recent complete newspaper article, I recommend Susan Smallheer's article in the Times Argus.)

When I talked to Cohn, he explained that some numbers have not changed: There are 550 people working at the plant right now, and after the layoffs, 316 people will be working there. Those numbers have been announced for a long time.  In other words, 234 people will not have jobs at the plant next week.   However, as Cohn said, other numbers are more of a moving target.  Cohn said that as of ten o'clock this morning: 40 people are retiring and  80 people are transferring to other Entergy plants. Of the remaining 114 people, only 8 people remain jobless, as of his knowledge.

Soft Landings Aren't All Soft

Virginia Magnolia
They don't grow in Vermont

I am happy that so many people are having a fairly soft landing. Still, even soft landings can be hard.  Many Vermont Yankee people are leaving the area, including leaving their friends, their kids' schools, their churches, their doctors, their favorite restaurants, their church choirs, or their poker buddies.

My husband's family moved cross-country when he was eleven, because his father lost his job.  My husband still remembers, quite vividly, the sadness and dislocation, even though the new place was (of course) interesting and new.  The new place was also difficult and odd and painful.  His mother was especially hurt by the move: she had a very active engagement with her local church, and a basement with shelves full of home-canned fruits and vegetables. These fruits and vegetables could not make the move, and they represented something.

My husband was also hurt: the three boys that were his cousins and best friends lived fairly close by until they moved.   As a matter of fact, while my husband's father was fighting WWII and my husband was a pre-schooler, my husband lived with these boys and their parents. When George was eleven years old and his father moved, these cousins disappeared from his young life, for years.  Catching up with these cousins later wasn't exactly the same. (Though now, they all are great friends and visit every year or two.)

I have basically been so sad about Vermont Yankee layoffs that I have found it difficult to blog.

So, I will switch gears from sadness to anger.  That might help.  Alas, my anger is not about the plant itself right now.  It's more personal.
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New Insults to Bloggers, Including Me

Now, I realize this may seem a rather self-centered section of the post.  Skip it if you want.  There are bigger issues, and I discuss them above.

This section is about an insulting blog post from an anti-nuclear group.  Yes, insulting anti-nuclear posts are a dime a dozen.  So why am I writing about this one?  Here's the story.

 On New Year's Eve I wrote a  blog post, For the Happiness In My Life.  In this post, I looked at the good things in my life as a way of dealing with the sadness of Vermont Yankee closing. My post started out with the statement: "To say I have been miserable about Vermont Yankee going off-line is putting it mildly."

A rather nasty anti-nuclear group put up a post on their blog called Nuclear Industry Goes Hysterically Ballistic About Vermont Yankee Shutdown.  No, I'm not going to link to it...you can probably find it on-line if you care to read it.  In that post, the author quoted a bunch of us pro-nuclear bloggers, including me, as examples of "hysterically ballistic."  For me, he quoted the paragraph  starting: "To say I have been miserable about Vermont Yankee..."

Well, that was a good example of "hysterically ballistic," wasn't it? (Sarcasm alert.) And yes, some of us bloggers answered and some of the answers got published and other bloggers got banned from his blog and it was all a tremendous waste of time and energy.

At any rate, when he quoted the pro-nuclear bloggers, he named the bloggers.  Except for two.  One he didn't name was "NEI blog" which kind of makes sense, though the authors generally sign their posts.  They have a lot of authors.  The other blogger he didn't name was me.  I was "a blogger at Yes Vermont Yankee." He named the male bloggers, to put it bluntly.

Was this guy dumb and couldn't figure out who wrote that post?  Or is he the kind of person who doesn't notice that women have names? I don't know.  At any rate, I have added my picture and name to my blog now.  I probably should have done this ages ago. Now everyone can see the person who writes most of the posts. Therefore, I suppose that some good came out of the situation.

And yes, I deliberately did not use his name in this blog. This was not an oversight on my part.  It was deliberate.

Rally for Vermont Yankee, 2011

Martingale Reveals Design for Mass-Produced Nuclear Power Plants

ThorCon Nuclear Island
Entire structure is underground
Thorcon graphic used with permission

Martingale reveals a bold approach to solving the global issues of poverty, pollution, energy security, and climate. The ThorCon liquid-fuel nuclear reactor design is detailed at thorconpower.com.

ThorCon is a complete system of power generation modules, interchange maintenance, and liquid fuel service that produces energy cheaper than coal. Principal engineer Jack Devanney led a four-year skunkworks project that has created a new kind of nuclear power plant, integrating proven technologies with breakthrough approaches to manufacturing and licensing. Production can start by 2020. Today Martingale is publishing its design for cheap, reliable, CO2-free electricity at thorconpower.com.

Former MIT professor Devanney’s background in shipbuilding created respect for low-cost, high-precision, block-unit manufacturing at Korean shipyards. He saw how such prefabricated blocks could enable production of enough nuclear power plants to make a global difference, a hundred a year.

Author Robert Hargraves writes that selling so many power plants requires clear, simple economics, cheaper than coal. Coal is today’s energy choice of developing nations, now planning to build over 1400 gigawatt-size coal power plants to enable their economic development.

Lawrence Livermore Lab veteran nuclear scientist Ralph Moir says that today’s nuclear power industry is wedded to expensive solid-fuel nuclear reactors, even though the simplicity of liquid fuels was demonstrated at Oak Ridge National Laboratory. Moir and Devanney modernized that design for mass production. ThorCon uses uranium and thorium fuel dissolved in molten salt to create a power plant that makes electricity cheaper than coal.

Stanford engineering alums Chris Uhlik and Lars Jorgensen contributed to the design of passive safety functions that operate without mechanical or electronic controls, even with no power. The reactor is 30 meters underground. Overheating drains the fuel salt from the reactor. There are four barriers between the fuel salt and the atmosphere. ThorCon is walk-away safe.

Taking another lesson from Oak Ridge, Martingale advocates a return to staged testing of physical prototypes for new nuclear reactor designs. This made the US the world standard for nuclear designs in the 1960s. Martingale supports adoption of the same license-by-test model that has enabled US leadership in aviation and drug discovery.

Martingale is designing ThorCon in the US while targeting its first installations in forward-looking countries that support technology-neutral nuclear regulations and see the benefits of the license-by-test process. ThorCon opens up a practically limitless supply of low-cost, reliable, carbon-free power by 2020.

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My contact for this announcement is Dr. Robert Hargraves, a member of the ThorCon design team. Hargraves has been a strong supporter of Vermont Yankee (I love his blog post Vernon New Hampshire about why Vernon should secede from Vermont.) He has many other posts at this blog, such as The Politics of Fear.  I also strongly encourage you to look at his website: Radiation, the Facts.

While supporting existing nuclear facilities, Hargraves has continued to work on developing the next generation of nuclear plants.  His book, THORIUM, Energy cheaper than coal, is a review of world-wide energy issues....and a proposed solution.

Discussion note.  There's a great discussion of this technology at Rod Adams Atomic Insights blog post about the ThorCon announcement. Here's the link to the post:  ThorCon --Demonstrated Molten Salt Tech Packaged with Modern Construction Techniques.   Adams himself is the inventor of the Adams Engines (tm) which can use nuclear heat sources for a gas turbine.

There are more than sixty comments on Adams' ThorCon blog post: many of the comments are from engineers and material scientists.   Much as I love to have comments on my blog, I think my readers will enjoy a better discussion by commenting on Adams blog.

The Blog Goes On: Five Year Anniversary

History and Questions

I started this blog on January 1, 2010. January 1 of 2015 was an anniversary, a milestone, and a decision point for me.  I have blogged for five years at Yes Vermont Yankee.

But Vermont Yankee stopped generating power on December 29, 2014.  Was there any point to continuing this blog?

For me, this was not a trivial question.  There are many ways for a person to spend her time, and many worthy causes to support.  I am also five years older than I was in 2010, and more aware of how we each have a limited time on earth.  The plant has shut down.  Should I keep blogging?

It took me a while to answer that question.

My answer is yes.  I will keep blogging. I still have things I want to say.  The blog has already morphed, to some extent, as I have begun to follow grid issues (including joining the Coordinating Committee for the grid operator's Consumer Liaison Group).  The blog will change, but gradually. I will follow Vermont Yankee in this blog, but I will also follow other energy and nuclear issues.

Yes Vermont Yankee started as a local blog, and will remain so.  The blog will continue to focus on energy issues in the Northeast. It will continue to be a rallying point for people who support nuclear power and reasonable energy choices.

The New Focus

The tag under the blog title has been: A blog about Vermont energy issues and in support of Vermont Yankee.

The new title is: A blog about Northeast energy issues, and in support of nuclear power.

Guest Posts

With the expanded scope, I also plan to have more guest posts. The blog receives thoughtful comments from many people. As well as comments, I hope to have more guests posts in the future.  If you would like to post on this blog, please email me at mjangwin at gmail.

The Last Ship

My children live in New York and New Jersey. Over the holiday, part of the family took an expedition to see a matinee of a Broadway show: Sting in The Last Ship.

Talk about a busman's holiday!  This was a musical about the closing of a shipyard in England. Meanwhile, back in Vermont...Vermont Yankee was closing.  Frankly, this is a depressing subject for a musical, but the music was great, and Sting was great.  I am very glad we went.  The show is closing on January 24, and I encourage you to attend.

 The shipyard in The Last Ship does not get miraculously saved.  It closes.  The Last Ship sails.

But the musical has a sort-of happy ending as the various characters come to term with their pasts, their loves, and their futures.  I wish the same for all my friends at Vermont Yankee.

May we all have peace and joy and love and health and prosperity, even though the last Vermont Yankee electron has sailed.