http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/aug/29/nuclear-power-dangers-fukushima-vermont
Just say no to nuclear power – from Fukushima to Vermont
Fukushima showed us the intolerable costs of nuclear power. The citizens of
Vermont show us the benefits of shutting it down
-
- Amy Goodman <http://www.theguardian.com/profile/amy-goodman>
- theguardian.com <http://www.theguardian.com/>, Thursday 29 August
2013 15.30 BST
[image: Smoke rises from Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power complex in this
still image from video footage]
A plum of smoke rises moments after a hydrogen explosion at Fukushima
Daiichi nuclear power complex. Photograph: Reuters
Welcome to the nuclear renaissance.
Entergy
Corp<http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/aug/29/www.entergy.com/%E2%80%8E>,
one of the largest nuclear-power producers in the US, issued a surprise press
release <http://www.entergy.com/news_room/newsrelease.aspx?NR_ID=2769> Tuesday,
saying it plans "to close and decommission its Vermont Yankee Nuclear
Power<http://www.theguardian.com/environment/nuclearpower> Station
in Vernon, Vermont. The station is expected to cease power production after
its current fuel cycle and move to safe shutdown in the fourth quarter of
2014." Although the press release came from the corporation, it was years
of people's protests and state legislative action that forced its closure.
At the same time that activists celebrate this key defeat of nuclear power,
officials in Japan <http://www.theguardian.com/world/japan> admitted that
radioactive leaks from theFukushima
Daiichi<http://www.theguardian.com/environment/fukushima> nuclear
catastrophe are far worse than previously acknowledged.
"It took three years, but it was citizen pressure that got the state Senate
to such a position", nuclear-energy consultant Arnie Gundersen told me of
Entergy's announcement. He has coordinated projects at 70 nuclear plants
around the country and now provides independent testimony on nuclear and
radiation issues. He explained how the state of Vermont, in the first such
action in the country, had banned the plant from operating beyond its
original 40-year permit. Entergy was seeking a 20-year extension.
The legislature, in that 26-to-4 vote, said: 'No, we're not going to allow
you to reapply. It's over. You know, a deal's a deal. We had a 40-year
deal.' Well, Entergy went to first the federal court here in Vermont and
won, and then went to an appeals court in New York City and won again on
the issue, as they framed it, that states have no authority to regulate
safety.
Despite prevailing in the courts, Entergy bowed to public pressure.
Back in 2011, Vermont Governor Peter Shumlin, who called Entergy "a company
that we found we can't trust", said on "Democracy
Now!<http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/aug/29/www.democracynow.org/>
":
We're the only state in the country that's taken power into our own hands
and said that, without an affirmative vote from the state legislature, the
public service board cannot issue a certificate of public good to legally
operate a plant for another 20 years. Now, the Senate has spoken ... saying
no, it's not in Vermont's best interest to run an aging, leaking
nuclear-power plant. And we expect that our decision will be respected.
The nuclear-power industry is at a critical crossroads. The much-touted
nuclear renaissance is collapsing, most notably in the aftermath of the
Fukushima <http://www.theguardian.com/environment/fukushima> disaster,
compounded by the global financial crisis. In a recent paper titled
"Renaissance in Reverse", Mark Cooper, senior fellow for economic analysis
at the Vermont Law School, writes, "The problem for old nuclear reactors
has become acute." The costs to operate, and to repair, these plants have
prompted operators to shutter five of the 104 operating power generating
reactors in the US this year alone, leaving 99. Cooper has identified 30
more that he estimates will be shut down, because "the economics of old
reactors are very dicey".
The profound consequences of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear-power accident
are still unfolding, as this week the Japanese Nuclear Regulatory Agency
increased its assessment of the situation there to "level three", or
serious, on the International Nuclear and Radiological Event Scale. The
original accident in March 2011 was rated a "seven" on that scale, the
highest, most severe, threat. The nuclear fuel rods there require constant
cooling by water. The spent cooling water is highly radioactive. The Tokyo
Electric Power
Co<http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/aug/29/www.tepco.co.jp/en/%E2%80%8E>,
which ran Fukushima and which has been responsible for all the cleanup, has
been storing the radioactive water in hastily-constructed water tanks,
which are now leaking. Gundersen said:
The surveys of the area determined that the radiation coming from the
ground was five times more in an hour than a normal person would get in a
year. Radioactive water is leaking out of this plant as fast as it's
leaking in. So, you've got something on the order of 400 tons to maybe even
as much as a thousand tons of water a day leaking off of the mountains
around Fukushima into the basement of this plant. Well, the basement is
highly radioactive because the containment has failed and radioactive
material is leaking out from the nuclear core into the other buildings.
That's being exposed to this clean groundwater and making it
extraordinarily radioactive. ... And the problem is going to get worse.
The Fukushima disaster has been compared to the catastrophe in Chernobyl,
where a nuclear plant exploded in 1986, making the surrounding region
uninhabitable. The radiation is spilling out of Fukushima into an
ever-growing radioactive plume in the Pacific Ocean.
Fukushima shows us the intolerable costs of nuclear power. The citizens of
Vermont show us the benefits of just saying no.
• Denis Moynihan contributed research to this column
© 2013 Amy Goodman; distributed by King Features Syndicate
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