Yankee’s uprate will benefit Vermonters

June 21, 2003

By ROB WILLIAMS

Vermont Yankee is the largest producer of electricity in Vermont , providing reliable base load generation 24 hours a day, 365 days a year except when the plant shuts down for refueling approximately 25 days every 18 months. More than half of Vermont Yankee’s electricity is purchased by Vermont ’s two largest utilities, Central Vermont Public Service Corporation and Green Mountain Power, and it accounts for one-third of all the electricity used in the state. The remaining 45 percent of Vermont Yankee’s output is purchased by other New England utilities.

The sale of this electricity brings back tens of millions of dollars each year into the Vermont economy in the form of wages, taxes, and goods and services purchased locally.

Vermont Yankee does not burn fossil fuel to generate electricity. As a result, in the 30 years since it began operation, Vermont Yankee has prevented more than 100,000,000 tons of air pollutants like sulfur dioxide, nitrogen oxide, carbon monoxide, carbon dioxide and other gases that cause global warming and acid rain from being released into our environment.

When the Entergy Corporation purchased Vermont Yankee in July of 2002, the Vermont utilities entered into a 10-year power purchase agreement that provides capped prices for the plant’s electricity until 2012. The contract also provides a “low market adjuster” that will guarantee lower prices if the cost of power in New England drops significantly in future years.

In the 10 months since the sale was finalized last year, the power purchase agreement has provided electricity to Vermont Yankee’s customers at a total cost $16,000,000 below the market clearing price in New England . The power purchase agreement is widely regarded as one of the best power contracts for electricity consumers in the country.

This fact has significant implications for Vermont ’s future energy independence. One of the key factors in creating a strong state economy and attracting good jobs to Vermont is the presence of reliable, predictable and competitively priced electricity. Without Vermont Yankee, the state would be almost totally dependent on generation sources outside the state or, in the case of Hydro Quebec, even outside the country, to meet future electricity demand. That would be especially detrimental in an energy environment that is subject to unprecedented high prices for natural gas. As the world learned in the 1970’s, relying on unstable sources of energy is the wrong way to go.

Vermont Yankee is currently before the Vermont Public Service Board with a proposal to increase its net output from 510 megawatts to about 620 megawatts by making modifications and replacements to existing components. That increase is enough electricity to power about 100,000 homes. The PSB Docket is part of a comprehensive state and federal regulatory review process in place for uprating Vermont Yankee. The federal Nuclear Regulatory Commission will undertake a year-long safety review of the uprate proposal and the Vermont Public Service Board will address a wide range of state issues including economic and environmental impacts of the uprate.

Most nuclear plants in the country have been uprated to some extent and a total of eight have been uprated 17 percent or higher including three that have been uprated 20 percent. With all of the industry experience in uprating plants, there is no question that uprates can be done successfully. Vermont Yankee’s outstanding 30-year performance in safety, reliability and total generation make it one of the leaders among commercial U.S. nuclear generators, and a perfectly appropriate candidate for uprate.

In his recent op-ed (“Assessment of Yankee,” published in the June 15 edition of the Sunday Rutland Herald and The Times Argus), Karl Novak of the anti-nuclear New England Coalition called for an outside assessment of the uprate. It is an obvious obstructionist tactic. Both the Public Service Board and the Department of Public Service have stated in previous proceedings that such an assessment is of little use to state regulators. Vermont Yankee’s design and material condition has been subject to many thousands of hours of inspection. A major recent effort in the area of design was a three-year, 20 million dollar effort called design basis documentation that reviewed all design changes to every safety system in the plant to ensure all design assumptions and calculations remained valid.

The NRC is very experienced at reviewing plants for an uprate. Their vetting process for the uprate, will be a stem-to-stern review and will take about a year. As a further assurance, their work will be reviewed by the NRC’s Advisory Committee on Reactor Safeguards, an independent board that advises the NRC. In short, I think reasonable people would agree that there is a sufficient technical review process in place.

Entergy, as the new owner of Vermont Yankee, will pay 100 percent of the uprate cost. None of those costs will be passed on to Vermont rate payers. Entergy has proposed this uprate based on a fundamental business decision that the quality of the plant and its staff makes the additional investment very much worthwhile.

The 110 additional megawatts of clean, locally produced electricity is just what this region will need to power itself into the 21st century.