Vermont Yankee Power Plant in Extremis

Vermont Yankee "scrammed"-automatically shut down Thursday, Aug 30th in the afternoon. The most dangerous time for a nuke is when it is starting up or shutting down; when something goes wrong, the reactor trips to stop any cascading events. VY had the highest rate of reactor scrams in the country in the 1990's. I believe that Indian Point in NY now holds the record- another Entergy reactor and part of its dubious flag ship. What's interesting is NRC's decision to look at the tower fiasco as part of relicensing. Entergy is of course objecting since the towers are on the "cool" side of the reactor complex and do not involve radioactivity. It is not under NRC's regulations- so says Entergy. These problems are created by Entergy's lack of maintenance of the reactor complex. Why is Entergy doing this? Because it can.

Citizens Awareness Network