Vermont Yankee will be closed in 2012

Vermont Yankee is a nuclear reactor, built several decades ago in near Brattleboro, in southern VT, on the Connecticut River, between VT and NH. It came online in 1972,and has provided electric power to VT and other parts of New England for years.

For the last couple of years VY has been in the news because it applied to have its license renewed for 20 years. This reopened the arguments over the benefits and dangers of nuclear power, but the arguments had some new urgency because this is an old plant; the expected life of nuclear plants is apparently 40 years, and 2012 is the Big 4-Oh. So there’s been considerable debate on the merits of extending the license of an aging plant which is not scheduled for upgrade or improvement.

But Entergy, the Louisiana company who owns VY, has done a fine job of shooting itself in the foot. In the last few years there has been a cooling tower collapse and evidence of inadequate inspections and shoddy maintenance. Then Entergy decided to spin off all its aging plants into another company whose financial foundation is no better than junk bond status. Given the recent history of financially failing companies, this was not a move that bolstered public confidence in the plant’s future.

The icing on the cake, however, was the January discovery of a tritium leak into the groundwater wells, a leak that steadily increased and still has not been found. Entergy and VY management claimed under oath that there were no underground pipes that could possibly leak, and then other sources proved that a) they were wrong and b) they knew that they were wrong. No one knows the extent to which tritium is in the Connecticut River. To Vermonters, this development meant that the company lied to the legislature and by extension to the public.  Whether Entergy could be trusted in its public dealings became the topic of debate.

In VT the legislature decides whether a nuclear power license application should be forwarded to the Public Service Board, and today the Vermont Senate voted NO.

The consequences are many, and most are not good. One, upwards of 600 people in VT, NH and MA will lose their jobs. They will undoubtedly move to other parts of the country where their skills are needed, thus depriving the local economies of high-wage jobs and economic benefit. Two, thanks to the economy, the plant decommissioning fund is far from what is necessary to shut the plant down properly, store the materials, etc. Decommissioning will be a burden that VT taxpayers will shoulder for years and years to come. Three, the cost of power in Vermont will surely rise. Power costs would’ve risen anyway, but VY was a source of many megawatts of power that will not be easily replaced at the same cost.

The big downside to nuclear power is the possibility of a plant accident. The operational shortcomings at VY never reached a crisis stage, and I think far too many at the NRC and at Entergy thought that not reaching a crisis meant everything was OK. I’m not rabidly anti-nuclear but I can’t stomach the notion of keeping this plant operating under the ownership of and management by a company that clearly does not care first and foremost about public safety and the public good. Entergy's financial dealings, the increasing VY safety issues, and (as one Senator said) Entergy's “duplicity and prevarication” prove it. 

Entergy’s management philosophy is itself a clear and present danger to the public. Can Vermont (or any state) allow an aging and possibly unreliable plant to be operated by a company that cannot be trusted?  The consequences of lost jobs and increased costs following plant closure pale by comparison.

If Winter comes, can Spring be far behind?

Many Vermonters have been complaining since the start of 2010 about lack of snow, and some of us have even been envying the poor folks in Maryland, Virgina, the nation's capital, and similar places who aren't usually visited by snowstorms.

We have so resigned ourselves to no winter that we have actually been talking about Spring , not just thinking about it.

Still, we were hoping for a taste of winter one of these days.


What we did not expect was winter all at once.

Nor did we expect heavy wet snow the likes of which has not been seen in several years.

The snow started Monday night, and I awoke Tuesday morning to this       

That's 8 inches or more on those lower branches.












There were snow hats on the garden stalks.  



















And the road looked like this:










If you make that picture bigger, that is 12" of snow on the mailbox.


Starting about 7 am, I dug out the car.

I went to work after my neighbor came with his plow. I returned home in the afternoon and dug through yet another foot of still-heavier snow to get to my doors.

Daytime temperatures went above freezing and the snow is sliding off the roof with great WHUMPS and THUMPS. The snow that's fallen in front of the woodpile is a good four feet high.

The snow is so wet that when I look in the snowplow pile by the road, I can see blue inside the cracks in the pile, from all the water in the snow.

This snowstorm is old already.

it's like New Jersey, for heaven's sake

Here are a couple of pictures of Killington (the peaks close together) and Pico. I don't ski, but when I come home from work, this is one of the sights that can make my day. I've often tried to get Killington pictures on bright days and there is always haze that interferes. But on this cold, battleship gray day, I got the camera to believe. (And then Dell Image Maker and Picasa helped, more on the first photo than on the second.)

It looks like snow a-plenty, but Killington and Pico can make snow a-plenty. The natural stuff is in real short supply, because the snow belt decided to move south this year. Washington DC: two huge snowfalls in four days. New York City: blizzard conditions. Virginia Beach, VA: more snow than they've had in 30 years. Philadelphia: new winter snow records. Dallas, TX: a record for a single snowfall - twelve inches!

Meanwhile, Vermont is enduring a snow drought. Except for the southernmost part of the state, there have only been flurries since the New Year. The snow in our yards is dingy white, and crusted up. The snow we've walked on is now ice. The snow we've driven on is gray and dirty. We tramp mud into the house. I haven't lifted a snow shovel in weeks. Instead of a snow-covered car, I have a car encased in dirt. I will spare you a photo of the world's dirtiest brown car.

And it's cold. When there's no thick insulating blanket of snow, the cold in the ground moves into our boot soles, and into our basements and floorboards. Temperatures in the 20s are not frigid by Vermont standards, but it sure does feel a lot colder than 20 degrees.

Tonight Garrison Keillor was talking about the lack of snowfall in Minnesota. He said "The lack of snow is undermining our moral authority." Indeed it is. Our collective sense of winter self is suffering.

Cold, cloudy and gray. This is like winter in New Jersey. Phooey.

Ernie

I’ve been thinking about my good friend Ernie. I got Ernie – with his Sesame Street Ernie food dish - from the local animal shelter in the late 1990s when he was a large-for-his-age 10-month old cat (the shelter thought he was between 2 and 3 years old). No sooner was he home than a full blown feline upper respiratory infection erupted. Ernie’s eyes ran. He sneezed. He wheezed. He was so congested that he drooled. He could only keep small amounts of food down. For three weeks, including Saturday and Sunday, the vet opened his office at 7:30 am so that Ernie could have his lungs listened to and his eyes looked at, and get an antibiotic shot and a vitamin.

Ernie survived that inauspicious beginning. After many years as an indoor-outdoor cat he was an apartment cat for about three years, and learned to walk with a leash as he led me on 10pm strolls around Bloomfield, NJ several evenings a week. When a job required me to live north of Philadelphia during the week, I took lodgings at a pet-friendly place. Ernie and I drove down on Sunday evening and back home Friday afternoon. He traveled on vacation trips between New Jersey and Vermont without complaint.

 The years have been pretty good to Ernie. He’s had his run-ins with other cats and some unknown creatures, but with no lasting ill effects. He’s gotten himself in places he’d rather not be. 

He’d rather sleep than anything else but he goes outdoors almost every day– although only for a few minutes in this cold weather. In the summer, when I’m in the garden, he’s nearby, sometimes passing through, sometimes supervising, sometimes enjoying the sun on the stone path. Still, by any vet’s estimation, Ernie is an Old Cat.

Most people love their cats and dogs and other animals but when those creatures start to age or become infirm “he’s just a cat”. We know we have a responsibility to provide good care and minimize suffering. But if we get emotional, people say “Yes, it’s sad, but he’s just a cat.” No, he’s not. That cat or dog or bird or horse or gerbil has been part of the family, and when that life ends, there’s a death in the family.

I’ve given attention and care and love to Ernie. I know his needs, his many wants, and his foibles. (The caption for the photo is "I don't want to get out of your chair.") I believe he’s returned my love and care with often entertaining companionship and certainly good company. He's just as much my family as my sons and daughters-in-law. When his life comes to a close I will cry a lot and spend a good deal of time mourning my loss, and I hope no one attempts to deny me that.

Shoulda woulda coulda (aka posts I never made)

About two weeks ago we were threatened with a Fast Thaw, when it rains heavily and a foot or more of snow disappears in about 24 hours. A couple of years ago this put 10" of water in my basement. Plastic containers full of spare china, drop cloths and extension cords, Christmas decorations, the spare coffee maker and the spare microwave floated. Sadly, the container with the spare appliances toppled over. Did you know that 8-foot 2x4s will float in 10" of water? Indeed they will.

So fearing Impending Doom I went to the basement and tested the sump pump. It works, but I think that the float and the safety are installed too high in the concrete receptacle. I decided to be safe, not sorry. I unfolded my pair of metal sawhorses (which anyone who's done work in my house just adores), laid boards on, and put the paint cans and garden stuff up. The plastic containers came upstairs to my bedroom. There was no Fast Thaw and the plastic containers are still in my bedroom. I'm going to see if I can get them up in the attic.

*****
Today is my sister's birthday, and she loves old movies. I hit the jackpot at my favorite remainder seller with a 3-movie set of oldies, plus "The Philadelphia Story", plus the John Malkovich/Gary Sinese "Of Mice and Men", which no DVD-watcher should be without. For my birthday she'd sent me some CDs and the 1935 "David Copperfield" on DVD.

I was doubtful, because I don't possess her love for old movies, but it's a great movie. (David's aunt, Betsey Trotwood, is a woman ahead of her time!) W. C. Fields as Mr. Micawber is unsurpassed. Lionel Barrymore is a wonderful and touching Mr. Pegotty. Basil Rathbone's Mr. Murdstone is icily cruel. Freddie Bartholomew as young David is positively saccharine, but was a product of his time, and the quintessential "sweet boy". Certainly more bearable than Shirley Temple ever was. The DVD's a keeper.

*****
A little background: if I bring home a bunch of parsley from the store (far more than one person can ever use), putting it in water does no good. It just wilts. Even hanging the bunch up to dry doesn't produce dried parsley as much as it produces wilted parsley.

At Christmas a friend gave me a pot of parsley from her garden and I've been keeping it going with some effort, because water runs through that soil like, well, water. When I went away at Christmas half of it wilted beyond help, so I cut that half back hard, and added a little Miracle Gro.

TWO WEEKS AGO I "harvested" the long stems from the potted parsley that were so long that they were struggling. I put them in a glass of water on my kitchen window sill. They freshened up and have remained freshened up since. And the cut-back part is sprouting new growth vigorously. Just incredible.

*****
In October or November I knit myself a wonderful pair of mittens from alpaca and wool produced on a friend's farm when he was in the alpaca-and-sheep business. They were 2-color mittens, thick and warm, fit well, looked great. I'd perfected my mitten pattern, and I was proud of that knitting. Today I lost them. AAAAUGH! I backtracked my steps, which included driving back to the campus, and checking where I'd parked the car, and asking at the Campus Center lost and found, to no avail. I am upset with myself and SAD. The bed is currently awash in mitten yarn so I can get another pair started. It's still winter!!
Update:  I asked my friend the former alpaca raiser if he had any more yarn.  I told him my sad story.  He reached into a file drawer, pulled out a small bag, and handed me two skeins, one brown and one natural, which he'd never taken home.  "They're yours," he said. "Make those mittens again!" There's nothing like a good friend in a time of trouble.

Blow, blow thou winter wind

And "freeze, freeze, thou bitter sky". As You Like it, Act III, sc ii.. Yes, another weather post. It has been creakingly cold.

I’m not part of the commuting traffic, or finding a seat on the train, or walking with crowds of people in the city, or with other people heading on foot for their own homes. When you live in the country, and people do not populate your life and your surroundings, the weather assumes a larger presence.

First we had a serious thaw: icicles dripped and grew; I took the big bag full of Christmas tree branches off the porch, and spread the boughs on the garden to be covered by the next snow. They'll do some good in March protecting tender shoots when the ground begins to thaw during the day and freeze again at night. There’s still snow on the ground, but you can see bare ground in abundance.

But the weather guys warned about an Arctic front moving in. On Wednesday the trees were filled with frost (and the camera was at home). On Thursday the front moved in for real.

Ye gods, what wind. When I walked out of work, the wind blew my big fur coat hood, that I’d tied securely, off my head. I drove home in near-whiteout conditions. It was a long, slow trip, and almost no one was on the road, thank heaven. The 8pm weather reported winds of 40 mph and wind chills of minus 30. I believe it. When I got out of the car at home I stepped on ice and the wind almost blew me over. In walking 8 feet from car to house I got cold. It was seriously windy all night. Friday morning the car told me that the temperature was -10. Saturday at 7 am it was -5, and this morning it was -3, with a high of (ta daa) 24!!

This weather makes me wonder how country people survived these and worse temperatures in winter many years ago. During the harsh 1777 winter at Valley Forge conditions are reported to have been snowy with high temperatures in the 20s. Normal lows would have been in the teens. The Eye on the Sky weather journal often includes Vermont and NH winter reports from the 1800s, with occasional lows around -50, and that's not in the mountains!

How on earth did people stay warm without oil or propane furnaces? How many people would have died from exposure in Thursday’s wind? They had fireplaces, and if they were lucky they had woodstoves. Keeping the fire going was essential. Clothing, however, was not anywhere near as warm as what we have today. Indoor plumbing and ready hot water were non-existent, and men and women had outdoor work to do year round. I suspect that freezing was not an unusual cause of death.

Money talks

This is the column headline in the New York Times, the Valley News, and I'm sure many newpapers and blogs across the nation. I think that all Americans, even those of us who are not political junkies, knew that there would be changes in the law of the land when Bush’s appointees Samuel Alito and John Roberts ascended to the Supreme Court bench.

But the idea of oveturning legal precedents that reach back over a hundred years, and giving corporations many of the same Bill-of-Rights rights as citizens is beyond astonishing. The long history of legislation and lawsuits concerning corporate money funneled to political campaigns stems from repeated evidence showing that such money bought elections.

I attended Northwestern University from 1961-1965. Chicago politics was run by Richard J. Daley’s Democratic party machine, funded largely by Chicago businesses and some multi-national corporations and Big Business leaders across the land. “Vote early and often” was an accepted fact in Chicago elections.

In 1965, at my first job with AT&T, I was covered by a union contract, and in local and federal election years money was always deducted from our paychecks to contribute to the candidate that the union backed, whether individuals (me, for instance) backed that candidate or not. After some bad press of some sort, the union membership was finally able to put a stop to this practice. Still, it was not until sometime in the 1970s that most state legislatures passed laws against automatically taking campaign “donations” out of the paychecks of state and local government employees, to support the party in power.

The difference between the politics of those days and today is the Internet. Information flows freely and quickly, and I can only hope that bloggers and news reporters (the few that remain) will keep tabs on the rivers of money that flow and will flow from corporations and lobbyists to state capitals and Washington. There is not a snowball’s chance in hell that any state legislature, or Congress, will pass any more laws that really require thorough financial reporting – the laws on the books now are evaded or ignored. In fact, we should be concerned that the Supreme Court ruling will render many state campaign-finance laws invalid.

President Obama has learned the hard way that national politics requires presidential involvement, direction and leadership. But the Democratic party has been equally ignorant: see how full the news was of Massachusetts going Republican "after electing Democrats for 40 years." Hey, stupid Dem party officials, Massachusetts elected Ted Kennedy time after time, not just some Democrat. Massachusetts found it had a senator who was effective. As time went on, Kennedy's party affiliation meant little. People weren’t voting for Democrats. They were voting for Teddy.

There has been so much Congressional wrangling, name-calling and unsavory deal-making over the health care business that the public has turned against the Obama administration. Those of us who hoped for a President who could influence Congressional leaders or legislation have suffered crushing disappointment. The public has watched its government unable to stem horrific job losses; allow bank bailouts to be followed by big bonuses; and totally fail to make meaningful changes in health care costs and delivery. Many people of various political persuasions and I are shaking our heads. We see the US government as inept, disconnected from the public it serves, or close to corrupt.

Now uncontrolled money will be thrown into the mix. We should be even more concerned that only the wealthy and well-connected will be able or willing to run for office. The public confidence and trust in government that is so low today will drop even lower when money begins to influence election outcomes even more.