It appears that some who are opposed to Vermont Yankee are in agreement that they do not want spent nuclear fuel stored alongside the Connecticut River, or anywhere else in Vermont. The nuclear industry doesn't want Vermont Yankee's spent fuel stored there either, nor does it want any other nuclear plant to store their own spent fuel on site.
Vermont Yankee's spent nuclear fuel is safely stored in the spent fuel pool or in dry-cask storage. Although this is safe, it is a temporary solution.
The best method for storing spent nuclear fuel is for the federal government to transport all of it to a safe, centralized storage facility. In fact, the federal government passed legislation in the 1980s that ordered the U.S. Department of Energy to build a disposal facility and begin removing spent fuel from Vermont Yankee in 1998. It never happened.
Under the same law, electric ratepayers in the U.S. have been paying 0.1 cent per kilowatt of electricity from nuclear plants - more than $30 billion to date - into a fund designed to pay for a national nuclear waste storage facility.
I have been a resident of Massachusetts for nearly 53 years and have recently started a temporary position working as an administrative assistant at Entergy Nuclear Vermont Yankee. I am writing not because of my own livelihood, but for all employees at VY and the lives they touch. They...