Vermont Yankee isn’t particularly big as nuclear power plants go - 650 megawatt maximum output, or a little more than half the size of Seabrook - but it still produces about half the electricity that Vermont uses. That has made its continuing travails with collapsing water towers and suspect piping big news in that state, above and beyond safety concerns. So this story today, from the Burlington Free-Press, is both big and surprising:

The Atomic Safety and Licensing Board, a panel that acts as the judicial arm for the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, said in a 154-page decision that Entergy needs to do more tests now, not later, on metal nozzles used to supply water and maintain the temperature in the reactor core. …  The board said it would not issue a license renewal for Vermont’s only nuclear power plant until the panel is satisfied that the metal fatigue issue regarding the nozzles has been adequately addressed.

It’s surprising because nuclear plants might be considered “too big to be allowed to fail,” to use a phrase from the current financial-industry disaster, and many have assumed that regulators would do what the plant wants to keep it operating through the next decade or two. The company said it could do these studies after its license was renewed.

The Free-Press says this issue was pushed by the New England Coalition, a “nuclear watchdog group” in Brattleboro. From the story: “We are the first citizen organization in the country to have one of our contentions sustained by the hearing board,” said Raymond Shadis, a coalition consultant.

Shades of the Clamshell Alliance!

Tags: nuclear power