Going Nuclear . . . or Not

So much for the nuclear renaissance President Obama's energy plan was supposed to usher in. The Vermont Senate just voted yesterday, 26–4, to shut down the state's only nuclear-power plant by 2012. If the Vermont House of Representatives backs it up, it will be the first time in 20 years that a reactor has been closed by a state legislature.

And it will hardly come as a surprise. There's been a lot of excitement over loan guarantees and tax credits promised by the Obama administration to the nuclear industry to spur the development of new reactors; just last week Obama announced that the first such loans would go toward the development of two new reactors in Georgia. Those would be the first new reactors in the U.S. in 30 years.

But existing reactors around the country have been beset with problems—from leaky pipes to mounting nuclear waste that no one seems quite sure what to do with. The Vermont plant is no exception.

For its part, Entergy, the Louisiana-based energy company that owns and operates the Vermont plant, is like a showcase for the nation's growing nuclear-energy schizophrenia. In recent years Entergy has struggled to explain missing fuel rods, the collapse of a cooling tower, and the unmonitored release of tritium radiation into groundwater. And that's just at its Vermont plant. In New York, the company's Indian Point reactors have had a long history of problems, including leaks and faulty emergency-alarm systems. Elsewhere, critics say Entergy is faced with decaying infrastructure and costly site decommissionings on the horizon.

The Vermont troubles came to light after the Nuclear Regulatory Commission voted to renew the plant's 20-year operating license; that doesn't say much for the federal agency, charged with ensuring the safety of the nation's 104 existing nuclear reactors.

Entergy is so overwhelmed that it's now trying to spin several of its existing nuclear reactors—including the Yankee plant in Vermont and the Indian Point plant in New York—into a new company called Enexus. Entergy would still exist, but stockholders would no longer be liable for any of the problems at the Enexus plants. Those burdens would largely be shifted to the consumer: in New York especially, where the plants in question account for 15 percent of the energy supply, failures at the nuclear reactors would leave the energy market scrambling to replace that power and would thus drive utility bills skyward.

Of course, none of this has stopped Entergy from trying to grab some of the pie that the Obama administration has recently baked up. Like most of its peers, the company has been lobbying for the opportunity to build even more reactors—in Mississippi and Louisiana, for starters. If either of those proposals is approved, Entergy would likely receive billions from the federal government, along with a promise that if its projects fail, it will be absolved of any financial liability.

It remains to be seen whether the Vermont Senate's decision will have a chilling effect on Entergy's prospects in other states, or on the nation's perception of nuclear energy as a viable alternative to coal. But there's a lot of money on the table right now, and if the companies that we entrust with that money fall short, it's the taxpayers who will shoulder the burden. For my money, I'd want someone with a better track record.