The Brattleboro Reformer
February 3, 2005
CAROLYN LORIE
BRATTLEBORO -- Officials at Entergy Nuclear Vermont Yankee said they plan to apply to the Vermont Public Service Board for approval of dry cask storage by the end of March.
Vermont law requires electricity producing plants to get a "certificate of public good" from the Public Service Board before making any changes to the plant or grounds.
While officials at Vermont Yankee have stated their intent to fulfill that regulatory requirement, what they are less willing to do is seek state legislative approval.
The issue of whether this would be necessary surfaced last spring when there was an attempt to change a 1979 amendment to a 1977 law regarding the temporary storage of radioactive material.
The original amendment granted an exemption to Vermont Yankee Nuclear Power Corporation, the previous owners of the plant, allowing it to bypass legislative approval for the temporary storage of radioactive material, including spent fuel.
Louisiana-based Entergy Nuclear purchased the plant in 2002. In April 2004, officials lobbied to have the amendment changed to grant exemption to the "Vermont Yankee Nuclear Power Corporation, its successor or assigns."
The amendment would have, in affect, given permission to any corporation that owned the plant to bypass legislative approval.
It was tacked onto the House appropriation bill but was taken out after concern was raised by the Senate Finance Committee.
Opponents of the amendment accused Vermont Yankee officials of attempting to slip it in during the eleventh hour of the legislative session.
Plant officials, however, argued that the intent of the original change was meant to be specific to the plant and not specific to the owner. In other words, whoever owns the plant should be granted the exemption.
On April 30, Assistant State's Attorney Michael McShane issued an opinion on the matter.
According to McShane, it was clear that the amendment was meant to cover only the Nuclear Power Nuclear Corporation. What was less clear was whether the exemption could be assigned to another party.
McShane argued that despite the uncertainty, it was likely that a "Vermont court would refuse to enforce such an assignment." In other words, if Entergy took the issue to court, they would most likely lose.
The assistant state's attorney concluded that the Vermont Legislature did retain authority over the issue.
The matter was left unresolved at the close of last year's legislative session and has now resurfaced.
Rob Williams, spokesman for Vermont Yankee, said that company officials are working with state legislators in the hopes of being granted the exemption.
This includes "reminding" them of the important role the plant plays in the state, said Williams, including producing one-third of its power.
The House Committee of Natural Resources and Energy recently took a tour of the intended site for dry cask storage and plant officials have presented testimony to various legislators.
"Clearly the intent [of the law] was to include the Vermont Yankee site," said Williams.
Dry casks are specially made metal containers that nuclear power plants use to store spent fuel -- which is still highly radioactive -- once their fuel pool is filled to capacity.
Vermont Yankee's 40-feet pool contains 2,789 spent uranium fuel assemblies. Every 18 months, the plant shuts down for several weeks and spent fuel is taken out of the reactor and placed in the pool.
According to plant officials, the pool will be full in 2008 or 2007 if power production is boosted by 20 percent. An application for increased power production is currently before the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
Claims that the fuel pool will be full before the nuclear power plant's license expires in 2012 have been criticized by opponents of the proposed uprate.
Arnold Gundersen, a nuclear engineer turned whistleblower, has stated in the past that rearranging the racks in the Vermont Yankee fuel pool would create more space. Enough space, said Gundersen, to accommodate all the spent fuel produced at the plant through 2012, when the plant's license expires.
Under such an arrangement, however, space kept empty for what is known as 'full core off load" would have to be filled.
Full core off load refers to the removal of all the fuel within the core. This would be necessary if a repair had to be made within it, in which case there would have to be space in the pool to put all the fuel. There are approximately 350 assemblies in the core.
Nuclear power plants are not required by law to maintain enough space in the fuel pool to be able to empty their reactors. It is, however, considered good business practice, otherwise problems in the core could force a plant to shutdown.
The Vermont Department of Public Service has requested that Vermont Yankee maintain the space for full core off load to prevent a sudden shutting down of the plant.
Opponents of nuclear power have argued that while dry cask storage is safer than keeping the fuel in the pool, they want conditions placed on any approval given to Entergy.
Raymond Shadis, technical advisor to the anti-nuclear watchdog the New England Coalition, outlined several conditions that his organization considers necessary:
the casks must be protected by leaving only the very tops above ground and burying the rest in concrete structures;
insure that the radiation released from the casks is minimized to the absolute lowest level that current technology can achieve;
only allow enough dry cask storage to accommodate the waste produced up to 2012 under normal operating conditions and not the excess that would be produced by uprate or license extension;
require that a date be set when the casks will be delivered to a federal repository for spent fuel, such as Yucca Mountain.
According to Shadis, allowing plants to store fuel in dry casks reduces the pressure of devising a solution regarding the long-term storage of spent nuclear fuel.
When nuclear power plants were first being designed and built, there was the expectation that the Department of Energy would see to the long-term storage of the waste. Despite the investment of millions of dollars into Yucca Mountain in Nevada, a concrete plan to begin moving the fuel there remains elusive.
Many other plants across the country use dry cask storage, including the now-closed Yankee Rowe plant in Massachusetts.
There are 16 casks on the site. The company spent $15 million to build the site -- including the casks, the fencing around them and the concrete pad they sit on. Twenty-four-hour protection of the site costs $5 million annually.
Vermont Yankee is taking steps to prepare for additional fuel storage options on the plant grounds. All spent nuclear fuel is currently stored in deep pool storage. At the current rate the spent fuel pool will be full by 2008. To continue to provide clean and reliable electricity Vermont Yankee is applying to store fuel in dry casks. Dry cask storage is the preferred technology of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission since its use began 20 years ago. It is currently employed by 24 sites across the United States.
For Vermont Yankee to continue supporting our region Entergy is attempting to adapt a 1979 law exempting the Vermont Yankee Nuclear Power Corporation from the need for legislative approval to build additional storage units for radioactive material. That corporation no longer exists; Entergy Nuclear Northeast now owns the plant and changing the wording will allow the intent of the law to match the letter of the law.
Continued operation of Vermont Yankee is as important now as it has ever been. Last year alone it contributed over nine million dollars in taxes to Vermont’s economy. And during the first two years of the Power Purchase Agreement ratepayers have saved $39 million dollars.
