Don’t expect a giant mushroom cloud to appear over the golden dome in Montpelier tomorrow when the state senate debates a measure allowing for the relicensure of Vermont Yankee beyond its scheduled closing date of 2012.
Check out Seven Days' recent news package examining the Vermont Yankee debate.
It's likely that the senate will vote down the measure, but not before taking up a motion to send the bill back to committees for further review of the economic impact of shutting down the plant in 2012.
In short, though the senate will probably vote against relicensure, I don't suspect this issue will go away anytime soon.
Besides, it's not as if the plant has to shut down tomorrow. In fact, its operators plan to replace roughly 120 fuel assemblies in April. Each assembly lasts as long as four-and-a-half years. Despite the senate
vote, which could call into question VY's future, the refueling will go
ahead as scheduled.
"The refueling outage will not be affected by
the legislative vote," said VY spokesman Larry Smith. "Refuel outage
will not be affected by the tritium leak if we do not find it and stop it
before that. The plan is to find it and fix it before the outage."
By
its own admission, Entergy's drop-dead date for a decision on
relicensure isn’t until April 2011. That’s an eternity in politics, and
Entergy knows this is not a short-term fight. Vermonters' trust will take
months to regain.
It's also a possibility that a negative decision could end up in court.
A
WCAX poll last week proves how far Entergy has to go: Nearly half of 400
Vermonters polled say VY should be closed in 2010, with another quarter
not sure and only a quarter in favor of giving it another 20 years to
operate.
Even if no other measure is taken up in this
legislature, another vote could occur in 2011. That’s when a new
legislature will be seated, along with a new governor and lieutenant
governor.
Hmm ... think this will be a campaign issue?
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