Skip to main content

Used Fuel, Carbon Emissions and Vermont Yankee

By Eric McErlain
From the Boston Globe:
Activists released a new report Friday indicating Vermont has more radioactive nuclear waste per capita than any state in the nation, which they said underscores the need for approval of a climate change bill that would tax the Vermont Yankee plant.
Which led Ruth Sponsler to respond:
Vermont Yankee's spent nuclear fuel is contained and hidden away where it hurts no one. If there's more "nuclear waste" per capita in Vermont than in other states, that means that Vermont is releasing less fossil fuel waste to the open atmosphere. That means Vermont residents breathe less sulfur dioxide, particulate matter, and nitrous oxides per capita - - - because nuclear energy is substituting for fossil fuel generation.
Here's hoping somebody's editor at the Boston Globe reads Ruth's response. For a previous post on anti-nuke efforts to increase taxes on Vermont Yankee, click here.
Labels:

Comments

David Bradish said…
Vermont's population is about 650,000. Total cumulative spent fuel in Vermont is about 540 metric tons which equals 1.19 millions pounds. Total spent fuel per capita thus is 1.83 pounds. And this is over the entire lifespan of Vermont Yankee.

I haven't read the report so I don't know what numbers they came out with. But these numbers should more than anything tell people that the amount of waste per capita from nuclear is trivial.
May 21, 2007 at 1:28 PM
Anonymous said…
What the article doesn't note, but Governor Douglas correctly has, is that Vermont also has bragging rights to having the cleanest air and smallest carbon footprint of all the US states. I cannot help but think that this is due in no small measure to the presence of Vermont Yankee as a major contributor to electricity supply in the state and region. Interesting how this inconvenient truth somehow slipped by the attention of the Glob.
May 21, 2007 at 2:32 PM
Anonymous said…
The US Census Bureau source you linked to gives a 2006 population estimate for Vermont of 623,908.

It doesn't change your basic point, but I'm wondering how that number rounds up to 650,000? Why not just use the correct figure, especially when you're taking the per capita waste figure out to 2 decimal places?
May 21, 2007 at 3:41 PM
David Bradish said…
Allright. The correct figure is 1.91 pounds per capita. When I'm looking at populations by state the numbers are generally in millions. I then don't quite focus too much on tens of thousands. 650,000 was a nice round figure in my mind. At the same time, population data are estimates and were taken from the middle of the year. Whereas the used fuel data is from the end of the year and is also rounded.

If I were writing a report I would be specific. But since this dialogue is only in a comment string, I don't feel the need to be exactly dead on with estimates.
May 25, 2007 at 9:30 AM
Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Fluor Invests in NuScale

By
You know, it’s kind of sad that no one is willing to invest in nuclear energy anymore. Wait, what? NuScale Power celebrated the news of its company-saving $30 million investment from Fluor Corp. Thursday morning with a press conference in Washington, D.C. Fluor is a design, engineering and construction company involved with some 20 plants in the 70s and 80s, but it has not held interest in a nuclear energy company until now. Fluor, which has deep roots in the nuclear industry, is betting big on small-scale nuclear energy with its NuScale investment. "It's become a serious contender in the last decade or so," John Hopkins, [Fluor’s group president in charge of new ventures], said. And that brings us to NuScale, which had run into some dark days – maybe not as dark as, say, Solyndra, but dire enough : Earlier this year, the Securities Exchange Commission filed an action against NuScale's lead investor, The Michael Kenwood Group. The firm "misap
1 comment
Read more

An Ohio School Board Is Working to Save Nuclear Plants

By
Ohio faces a decision soon about its two nuclear reactors, Davis-Besse and Perry, and on Wednesday, neighbors of one of those plants issued a cry for help. The reactors’ problem is that the price of electricity they sell on the high-voltage grid is depressed, mostly because of a surplus of natural gas. And the reactors do not get any revenue for the other benefits they provide. Some of those benefits are regional – emissions-free electricity, reliability with months of fuel on-site, and diversity in case of problems or price spikes with gas or coal, state and federal payroll taxes, and national economic stimulus as the plants buy fuel, supplies and services. Some of the benefits are highly localized, including employment and property taxes. One locality is already feeling the pinch: Oak Harbor on Lake Erie, home to Davis-Besse. The town has a middle school in a building that is 106 years old, and an elementary school from the 1950s, and on May 2 was scheduled to have a referendu
Post a Comment
Read more

Wednesday Update

By
From NEI’s Japan micro-site: NRC, Industry Concur on Many Post-Fukushima Actions Industry/Regulatory/Political Issues • There is a “great deal of alignment” between the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission and the industry on initial steps to take at America’s nuclear energy facilities in response to the nuclear accident in Japan, Charles Pardee, the chief operating officer of Exelon Generation Co., said at an agency briefing today. The briefing gave stakeholders an opportunity to discuss staff recommendations for near-term actions the agency may take at U.S. facilities. PowerPoint slides from the meeting are on the NRC website. • The International Atomic Energy Agency board has approved a plan that calls for inspectors to evaluate reactor safety at nuclear energy facilities every three years. Governments may opt out of having their country’s facilities inspected. Also approved were plans to maintain a rapid response team of experts ready to assist facility operators recoverin
Post a Comment
Read more