8/27/2013 Vermont Yankee nuclear plant to shut down

Source: The Boston Globe
Date: 8/27/2013
By Martin Finucane

The Vermont Yankee Nuclear Power Station sits along the banks of the Connecticut River in Vernon, Vt. Credit: Toby Talbot/AP File

The Vermont Yankee nuclear power plant will be closed, the company that owns it announced today, bringing to a close a long-running, divisive battle over the plant.

“This was an agonizing decision and an extremely tough call for us,” said Leo Denault, chairman and chief executive of Entergy.

While activists have criticized the plant for years, the company said its decision was based, in the end, on economics. The company blamed a variety of factors, including the boom in natural gas that has driven down natural gas and wholesale energy prices, the high cost of operating the plant, and what it called wholesale market “design flaws.”

The company said it would operate the Vernon, Vt., plant through the fourth quarter of 2014 to “duly and properly plan for a safe and orderly shutdown” and prepare filings with the Nuclear Regulatory Commission on shutdown and decommissioning.
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Editor's Note: Map of Vermont Yankee Nuclear Power Station below.

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