The Debate at UVM: Arnie Gundersen and Myself

NEI Nuclear Notes has a recent post about Gundersen: In Attack on AP-1000, Anti-Nuke Gundersen Hits a New Low. I commented on that post with a note about debate in January between me and Gundersen, This was the Janus Forum debate at University of Vermont (UVM): Vermont Yankee, Shut It Down or Keep It Running? Because of the NEI blog post, some people have asked me if I have a link to that debate.

I posted an audio link to the debate on my blog back in January: Janus Forum Debate. However, I have never posted the video of that debate.

Why didn't I post the video? Well, it took a while for UVM to send me the video, and it took a while for me to ask Cavan Stone, physics grad student and Energy Education Project part-time intern, to mount the video on YouTube. Also, there are so many things to blog about, it's hard to keep up.

I am pleased that the Energy Education Project has a YouTube channel, thanks to Cavan Stone. Sign up as a subscriber!

Practical Matters

The video is almost two hours long, which is daunting. If you want to skip around, here's the debate structure:

• Introductions
• I speak for 20 minutes
• Gundersen speaks for 20 minutes.
• Gundersen answers my presentation, for 10 minutes.
• I answer Gundersen's presentation, for 10 minutes.

We are now somewhere past the one-hour mark. The rest of the time is questions from the audience.

Janus Forum Debate

An Expected Debate and Unexpected Debater

On Thursday of last week, I debated Arnie Gundersen about the future of Vermont Yankee. The debate took place at the Janus Forum at University of Vermont. Here's a link to the Vermont Public Radio segment about the debate, and another link to the audio version of the debate itself, also courtesy of VPR.

History

Monday Afternoon

I didn't expect to debate Arnie Gundersen. I expected Howard Shaffer to debate Arnie. That was the plan.

On Monday of last week, a couple of us got together in Burlington to hear Howard Shaffer run through his initial presentation for the Janus Forum debate on Thursday. We met in Burlington because Howard and I were due to be on a TV show on WCAX that evening. Also, Burlington was more convenient for some of the people.

We critiqued Howard's viewgraphs and then we asked him hostile questions. I learned a lot as we critiqued Howard. I was also very glad that Howard was going to be in the hot seat Thursday, not me.

I was wrong.

Thursday Morning

I was scheduled to give a talk at a Rotary in Burlington Thursday morning. While I was at the Rotary, my cell phone rang. Howard's wife told me that Howard was on his way to the emergency room in an ambulance, and they weren't sure what was wrong but he was in a lot of pain. Howard had asked her to call me and say that he couldn't do the debate in the afternoon, but he was sure I could take over and do a fine job.

(This is not a place for keeping my readers in suspense. Howard had emergency surgery for a life-threatening condition, and the surgery was successful. He is recovering at home at this point.)

When I heard this, I did what any self-respecting wife would do. I called my husband. George reminded and reassured me that Howard was being taken care of by great people at Dartmouth Hitchcock Medical Center. Everything that could be done would be done for him. George also said that I couldn't help Howard, but I had my own decision to make. Was I going to take Howard's part in the debate?

Okay. A couple of deep breaths here.

I decided to take part in the debate. I had my laptop with the Rotary presentation on it, and the laptop also had an early draft of Howard's slides on it (from the Monday meeting). I could spend an hour or so merging the presentations before I had to show up at the University of Vermont (UVM). Otherwise, the debate would be cancelled, and UVM people had spent a lot of time on preparation and publicity. Heck, I had done a lot of preparation, if you count half-a-day on Monday reviewing slides with Howard. So I decided to take part in the debate.

Thank You All Around

There's a lot to discuss about the debate, and I will do some of this in the days ahead. Meanwhile, I want to thank the people at the Janus Forum. They managed to hand out programs including my name and background--with only a few hours notice. I have images of those programs on this post. (As usual, double-clicking on the images will bring you to a bigger image.) I also want to thank the moderator, Emerson Lynn, for doing a fine job, and Arnie Gundersen for his well-organized presentation.

Some Links About the Debate

Once again, a link to the audio of the debate.

On Monday, Howard and I appeared on WCAX TV to talk about the debate. You can also see the video on my most recent post.

On Wednesday, Arnie Gundersen appeared on WCAX to talk about the debate.

Rod Adams of Atomic Insights blog noted that Arnie Gundersen was introduced as a person with "almost four decades of experience in the nuclear industry." (I noticed this also, and was puzzled because I knew Arnie had taught school for quite a few years. "How old is Arnie?" I wondered.) Rod did some investigation into Gundersen's resume, and discovered resume-inflation. Rod describes Gundersen's background in his blog post: Arnie Gundersen has inflated his resume, yet frequently claims that Entergy cannot be trusted.

More about the debate itself, in future posts.