BRATTLEBORO — I have long wondered why the consideration of morality has not assumed a prominent role in the debate about Vermont Yankee.
After all, does not the fissioning of nuclear fuel lead to the production of high-level radioactive waste material, otherwise known as “spent fuel” or irradiated fuel that will be dangerous for hundreds of thousands of years?
Isn't it unconscionable that some 60 years into the nuclear era, science has still not developed a means to permanently and safely store this material?
And yet nuclear reactors, some 400 of them, operate around the world making more high-level waste every day. It is unbelievable that the global public has tolerated this practice, especially after the experience of the Three Mile Island partial meltdown in 1979, the Chernobyl explosion in 1986, and now the Fukushima triple meltdown in 2011.
Why no world-wide demand to pull the plug on the nuclear industry before more lives are lost? Is it a matter of denial? Indifference? Nature Deficit Disorder? Resignation? Hopelessness?
Is it due to the manipulations of the Nuclear Industrial Regulatory Congressional Complex?
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In Vermont Yankee, we have a 40-year-old, 1960s-vintage reactor (the same General Electric Boiling Water Reactor Mark 1 that suffered meltdowns in Japan) running at 120 percent of its original design specifications.
It bears repeating that in the early 1970s three GE engineers resigned over this design, claiming that there was a 90-percent chance of failure in the event of a core meltdown.
Its pressure-suppression containment was developed as a cost-saving alternative to the larger reinforced-concrete containments of GE's competitors. The industry and the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission have known about this problem for a very long time. They have been content to gamble with our safety for the sake of profits.
And there are 22 other GE BWR Mark 1's operating in the U.S. Vermont Yankee has lots of age-related issues, such as metal embrittlement and fatigue, steam dryer cracks, and condenser leaks.
VY's irradiated fuel pool is in the reactor containment building, 70 feet in the air, under a sheet-metal roof. It holds about four times as many irradiated fuel assemblies as it was originally licensed for. Dry casks would be a safer means of storage, but they cost about one million dollars each, so Entergy isn't likely to spend the money.
Anyway, according to the NRC, which has the exclusive prerogative to adjudicate safety (as Vermont recently learned), VY and its irradiated fuel pool under the sheet metal roof is capable of withstanding any tornado, earthquake, or flood - even the crash of an airliner.
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It is instructive to keep in mind that the NRC's mission is to ensure the health and safety of the public as long as it doesn't interfere with the growth and financial well-being of the industry. Accordingly, the NRC has now approved the 20-year re-license applications of 71 out of 71 (and counting) of the oldest nukes in the country.
It would appear that a last-ditch effort is under way to keep a dying industry afloat. Never mind that John Rowe, the recently retired CEO of Exelon, the nation's largest nuclear power corporation, has expressed his view that there is no feasible economic future for nuclear power in the United States.
In a further twist of the NRC's mandate for safety, a part of its mission is to “provide for the common defense.” Translation: the NRC wants to assure the Pentagon that sufficient plutonium is available from the civilian nuclear industry to keep up a steady stream of nuclear bombs.
The U.S. already possesses some 5,000 active and inactive nuclear warheads. Of these, 1,739 are “strategically deployed.” Arguably, that number of weapons could obliterate the planet many times over. How many bombs could VY's plutonium (captured from the “spent” fuel) produce in a year?
In the event of a serious radiological incident at VY requiring the implementation of tri-state evacuation plans, it must be noted that any attempt to get everybody out of town would certainly be problematic. Depending upon the season and time of day, only a fraction of area citizens would escape unscathed.
By what system of morality do we knowingly sacrifice a percentage of our fellows to their fate? Anyone with a smitten conscience could search on the phrases “health effects of Chernobyl” or “severity Fukushima Daiichi disaster global research.”
Moral outrage, anyone?
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It should be clear that the continued operation of VY is morally untenable. It is time for us to do all we can to support the state of Vermont in its legal challenges to Entergy Corporation so that the plant closes as soon as possible.
The decommissioning process can then begin promptly, providing employment for many VY workers, and securing irradiated fuel in dry casks.
Keep in mind that we Vermonters are capable of meeting our electrical needs through a combination of energy conservation, energy efficiency, solar, wind, hydro, geothermal, and biomass.
These technologies are already on the table. None produce toxic waste deadly for hundreds of thousands of years, none require billions in taxpayer bailouts, none need evacuation plans, none need billion-dollar decommissionings, and none threaten our drinking water or the Connecticut River.
All can be developed in-state or in-area, providing local jobs. Profits from these enterprises will remain in the area to support our communities and our way of life.
You might say it's the moral thing to do.