Earth Equity News

In Vermont, Conflict Around an Aging Nuclear Plant. By Kate Galbraith, NYTimes, May 28, 2008. "After part of a cooling tower collapsed last August at Vermont's only nuclear power plant, the company that runs it blamed rotting wooden timbers that it had failed to inspect properly. The uproar that followed rekindled environmental groups' hopes of shutting down the aging plant... The discussion here is bringing into sharp relief a conflict between two objectives long held by environmental advocates: combating nuclear power and stopping global warming... Vermont's 36-year-old plant, which feeds into the regional power grid, represents a third of the state's electrical generation... Some environmental advocates have reluctantly acknowledged that no combination of renewable power and improved efficiency can replace the plant, Vermont Yankee, at least in the near term. Instead, the state would probably have to tap the Northeastern grid -- which derives more than half its energy from fossil fuels -- for extra power... Andrew Perchlik, director of Renewable Energy Vermont, a group that promotes clean power, speaking about the prospect of the plant's closing. He faulted the state government and utilities for not focusing earlier on renewable energy, saying if they had done so, 'we wouldn't be in this predicament.'"