Vermont Yankee is an elderly medium sized nuclear plant which has been powering the Vermont/New Hampshire area for years and years. A while ago the owner gained a federal license good for the next twenty years. How ever they were unable to defeat the greenies in the Vermont legislature and gain a state license. And so the owners are gonna close Vermont Yankee this coming year.
NHPR ran a piece about this today. The reporter was concerned with job losses at Vermont Yankee. Nothing about where the electricity would come from, or what might happen to the outrageous electric rates around here. Nothing about other industries relocating to sites with more reasonable rates. Nothing about the real economic reasons for having a power plant. Like keeping the lights on.
Instead NHPR dwelt on the economic impact of loosing 1200 jobs at the plant. Wow. 1200 workers at a nuclear plant? That's a helova lotta workers just to keep the grass mowed and the plant painted. It's a nuclear plant, it just sits there and electricity comes out. You don't have to stoke the boilers or unload trainloads of coal. The reactors just run. There is some preventive maintanance, checks for leaks, calibration of instruments and the like but you don't need 1200 people to do that. Can you say featherbedding?
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