On December 21, 2016

Nuclear decommissioning firm is well qualified

Dear Editor,

Since the details of Entergy’s plan to sell the Vermont Yankee nuclear power plant to an expert decommissioning firm were made public earlier this month, there have been some misinformed media reports and public statements claiming that buyer NorthStar has no experience decommissioning nuclear power plants. This is simply untrue.
Entergy has stated publicly since the closure of Vermont Yankee that it is in the business of generating electricity, not decommissioning. On the other hand, NorthStar’s core business is decommissioning and deconstruction. It has completed more than 300 power plant projects in the last 15 years, including several nuclear reactors at universities and government sites, and nuclear research and laboratory facilities. (For more about the proposed buyer, see the Vermont Energy Partnership’s Nov. 22, 2016, blog post, “Who Is NorthStar?”.)
Furthermore, the entire Vermont Yankee project team of NorthStar and its sub-contracting partners Areva, Burns & McDonnell, and Waste Control Systems have decommissioning experience at these New England decommissioned nuclear power plants: Maine Yankee, Yankee Rowe, Millstone 1, and Connecticut Yankee.
The industry of commercial nuclear power plant decommissioning has been in existence since the 1990s and is now a growing business with the closure of several plants across this country and worldwide. In NorthStar, Entergy has found an experienced, qualified and capable buyer.

Sincerely,
Guy Page, communications director for Vermont Energy Partnership

Do you want to submit feedback to the editor?

Send Us An Email!

Related Posts

Closing schools doesn’t fix Vermont’s education affordibility problems

October 30, 2024
By Margaret MacLean Editor’s note: Margaret MacLean, of Peacham, is a retired Vermont teacher and award-winning principal. She is the founding executive director of the Vermont Rural Education Collaborative, a past employee of the Rural School and Community Trust, and served on the Vermont State Board of Education.  Roxbury parents can meet most of the…

Making Vermont a place working families want to call home

October 30, 2024
By Rebecca Holcombe Editor’s note: Rebecca Holcombe is a Vermont Representative from Windsor-Orange 2 who served as the Vermont Secretary of Education from 2014 to 2018. Vermonters suffer from unsustainable increases in the cost of everything from property taxes to healthcare. Too many people are working hard and stretching Social Security checks but still worry…

Don’t be fooled by false promises

October 30, 2024
Dear Editor,  There is no simple solution to the challenges that Vermonters face. There needs to be a delicate balance between what, on the surface, seems like appealing short-term solutions to the cost of living for all Vermonters versus the vision for long-term planning that creates financial stability and growth into the future.  Do not…

Context matters

October 30, 2024
Dear Editor, In an October 23 letter to the Mountain Times, Steve Berry wrote, “John Kerry stated at a World Economic Forum panel, ‘Our First Amendment stands as a major block (to getting things done).’”  You may wonder why Mr. Berry uses such odd syntax, placing part of the quote in parentheses. Maybe it’s because…