One day before the earthquake and tsunami hit Japan and sparked a nuclear crisis, the U.S. Nuclear Regulator Commission announced it would renew the license for Vermont Yankee Nuclear Power Plant. Vermont state legislators had voted to close the plant when its license expires in 2012. The 38-year-old facility has had a series of radioactive tritium leaks and is almost identical to the troubled Fukushima Daiichi plant in Japan. “My heart obviously goes out to the people of Japan,” Gov. Peter Shumlin says. “Extraordinary crisis and everyone’s worst nightmare, when they have aging nuclear power plants in their country or in their state. Vermont is no different. We have an aging nuclear power plant here. It’s owned by Entergy Louisiana, a company that we found we can’t trust. And obviously, it asks all of us to reexamine our policy of irrational exuberance when it comes to extending the lives of aging nuclear power plants.”
Source:
democracynow.org
