Life Without Vermont Yankee

Hitting the wires earlier today was an AP story out of Vermont that took a look at the debate about renewing the operating license of Vermont Yankee. It was hard not to get a little angry while reading it as the reporter, David Gram, allowed the opponents of the plant to repeat a an old saw about nuclear energy that keeps getting repeated over and over again ...

[James] Moore [Vermont Public Interest Research Group] said that comparison doesn't account for something often left out of the conversation when nuclear power is described as not generating greenhouse gases: Mining and processing the uranium fuel for nuclear plants is energy-intensive, and it depends on carbon-generating fossil fuels.

And even when you include those factors into the equation, the total lifecycle emissions of nuclear energy are still roughly comparable to renewables. And here's another beauty:

"For the average Vermonter, little to nothing would change," said James Moore, energy advocate with the Vermont Public Interest Research Group. "It shuts down on a regular basis, both planned and unplanned outages, and our lights don't go out."

Really? Turns out the folks in New England who are actually watching the grid don't agree.

UPDATE: We Support Lee has more.

Comments

Space Fission said…

At Idaho Samizdat a campaign has started to stop fishy environmental logic and new media coverqge that fails to question it. The blog advocates that people send a can of salmon to Vermont Public Interest Group and the Associated Press in Boston to make the point. As a helpful after thought their surface mail addresses have been posted.

http://djysrv.blogspot.com/2007/11/canned-media-coverage-of-nuclear-energy.html

November 5, 2007 at 2:51 PM

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