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Opinion
February 23, 2010
Support our Troops – Make Sure Their Votes Count
By Deb Markowitz, Vermont Secretary of State
Williston Town Clerk Deb Beckett, who is also a member of the National Guard, understands the importance of ensuring that the ballots of our military and overseas voters can be counted. When she was deployed to Kuwait in 2005 she missed her own race for re-election. And although she received her ballot for that election, it arrived very late. To this day she is unsure whether her vote was ever counted.
Last week the Vermont House made it easier for our military and overseas voters to have their votes count by changing the date of our primary election from mid-September to late August. This change is in response to a new federal law that requires ballots to be sent to military and overseas voters at least 45 days before an election. By moving our primary date, Vermonters who are serving in remote areas of the world will have the same opportunity to cast a ballot as the rest of us here in Vermont. This change could not have come sooner with as many as 1,500 Vermont National Guard members being deployed to Afghanistan over the course of this year.
Although the federal mandate is new, our efforts to make it easier for our service men and women to vote are not. Indeed, in every legislative session since 2000, my office has proposed that Vermont’s primary be moved to an earlier date to allow enough time to print and prepare ballots so that they can be received and returned by our overseas and military voters by Election Day.
Governor Douglas has said that he does not support this change. He suggests that we should instead implement internet voting or accept ballots for at least two weeks after the election. But neither of these solutions will work.
First, no internet voting system is federally certified as secure and reliable. We already fax or send ballots electronically to military and overseas voters upon request, but these efforts have not been sufficient to ensure timely return of voted ballots from remote locations. Counting ballots received after the election would significantly change how we manage our elections, raising questions about the security of the ballots and finality of the votes. But even more importantly, late counting would deprive our military men and women of the privacy of their vote since few ballots would be received after Election Day. Moreover, United States Justice Department lawyers have indicated that neither of these solutions would exempt Vermont from the requirement that ballots be available for voting at least 45 days before the election – a requirement that can only be met by moving our primary to an earlier date.
Governor Douglas has suggested that we apply for a waiver from the requirements of this new law because changing the primary could help Democrats in the upcoming election. I ask that the governor not play politics with the rights of our military men and women to vote.
I will not request a waiver for voters’ rights, especially those voters who put themselves in harm’s way to protect our freedom. We ask the men and women who serve in the military and their families to sacrifice tremendously. They shouldn’t have to sacrifice their right to vote. We must ensure that our military men and women have the same opportunity to vote as the rest of us, by moving our primary to the end of August.
By Deb Markowitz
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Opinion
Fields of Opportunity
By John Crabtree, Center for Rural Affairs
Increasingly, organic farming and ranching is impacting agriculture and the rural economy. The steady, significant growth of organic production in Vermont cannot and should not be ignored. Recently the USDA demonstrated their renewed commitment to organic farming and ranching by announcing another $50 million in funding for the Environmental Quality Incentives Program (EQIP) Organic Initiative, which provides a 75% share of the cost of implementing organic conservation measures to those who qualify – 90% for beginning, limited-resource and socially-disadvantaged farmers and ranchers.
Vermont farmersinvolved in organic production or transitioning to organic have until March 12th to apply for the EQIP Organic funding for 2010 through their local Natural Resources Conservation Service office. And there is additional help available. The Center for Rural Affairs has also provided an EQIP Organic Initiative fact sheet at (http://www.cfra.org/2010-eqip-organic-initiative and a Farm Bill Helpline (402-687-2100) to assist individuals in applying.
Vermont was allocated $226,000 out of last year’s $50 million but ultimately received over $460,000 when unused allocations in other states were shifted where demand was greater. That total funding helped 16 farmers either get started in organic production or enhance their established operations.
The same national funding level available for 2010 will provide scores of interested farmers in Vermont a tremendous opportunity to take the leap into organic. Their reward and the rewards to rural communities and our food system will be with us for a long time.
By John Crabtree, Center for Rural Affairs
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Opinion
The Nuclear Question
Artificial harvest of solar energy is most efficient with solar-thermal collection, as in solar hot water. The heat is stored for several days to a week or more without much sunshine. If 75% of the houses in Vermont had solar hot water, the energy saved will equal to what VY produces. Operation is carbon-neutral.
Deep-earth geothermal power is used in many places and is the main power source in at least one First World country. It has some promise to be used in some Vermont towns the same way. If it is, it will supply base-load power and local heating with a very small carbon footprint.
Efficiency Vermont saves more power than some suppliers produce. This is equivalent to base-load, carbon-neutral power. Most houses in Vermont still need its services, which will save much more than VY produces. And household utility costs will be reduced.
We could list many more alternate power supplies. I have not even got to wind and hydro.
Nuclear power is supported by loan guarantees of up to 80% of the cost of a plant, covered by taxpayers. Insurance risk for catastrophic failure is almost entirely born by taxpayers. The cost of dealing with the waste falls to the taxpayers. The taxpayer gets no return for these risks except in the price of power. But, the power is expensive anyway. VY is planning a 50% price increase if its license is renewed, but will only commit to that price for a fraction of what we buy.
Nuclear plants age quickly. VY is one of the oldest plants in the world, and the tritium leak is a symptom of its age. Repairs that go beyond a patch and really address the problem would be prohibitively expensive. The cost would dramatically increase the price of power or close the plant altogether.
The internal reaction is carbon-neutral, but this does not consider decommissioning, which produces a lot of them, or waste disposal, which is unknown.
If the plant closes, there will not automatically be a sudden increase in taxes in Vernon. Maine Yankee, which operated years ago in a town very like Vernon, continued to pay taxes from the time it closed until it was fully decommissioned. After it closed, it paid a good deal more than VY is paying now.
By way of comparison, the money we pay VY for electricity all comes from our economy, and only about 40% of it is put back. Local power from local resources will keep close to all of our money here. VY employs about 210 Vermont residents, and many of these will not lose their jobs when the plant closes. Developing local resources will develop many new jobs, possibly thousands of them. Greenhouse gas comparisons are often deceptively favorable for nuclear technology.
Now, to assess the facts: Why are we even thinking about relicensing VY?
by George Harvey of Brattleboro, Vt.
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Opinion
Not just Vernon, but all Vermont would benefit from Vermont Yankee relicensing
By Vt. Rep. Patricia O’Donnell, R- Windham
Tuesday, January 12, surrounded by Vernon town and school officials and other Vermont Yankee supporters at a Statehouse press conference, I expressed the following message: not just Vernon, but all of Vermont would benefit from the license renewal of the Vermont Yankee nuclear power plant.
Southeastern Vermont has been hit hard by the recession. The shutdown of Vermont Yankee would cost more than 600 lost jobs at the plant itself-more than $40 million in annual cumulative payroll for the region-and also endanger the jobs of the hundreds of vendors and contractors that depend on the plant’s operation. The result would plunge Vernon and surrounding towns into a regional depression. The local social services “safety net” would suffer terribly from the loss of nearly $400,000 in Vermont Yankee employee giving, as well as the incalculable loss of donated employee time and services.
But not only my town and county would suffer. Many other jobs would be lost across Vermont, especially in industries sensitive to higher electricity costs such as manufacturing, hospitality, grocery and dairy farming. State and local government would lose most of the $16.5 million Vermont Yankee pays in annual revenue. Vermont businesses large and small would lose a stable, affordable, low-carbon source of electricity, and homeowners also would suffer the sticker shock of greatly increased electric rates.
The ongoing thorough, professional inspection processes have found Vermont Yankee to be safe and reliable time and again. Last year, a reliability assessment commissioned by the State of Vermont determined that a relicensed Vermont Yankee can be operated reliably, and Vermont Yankee routinely passes with high marks the stringent safety inspections conducted by the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
As a Vernon resident, as a mother, and as my town’s representative, I completely agree. Visitors to Vernon sometimes wonder why a nuclear power plant was built so close to the elementary school. In fact, it was the other way around. The people of Vernon built our elementary school across the road from Vermont Yankee. Would we have done so, if we had any doubt about the safety of Vermont Yankee? Never. Would we work in the plant ourselves and encourage our children to work there, if we had any concerns about its safety? No. And time and time again our family members and neighbors who operate the plant have justified this confidence.
In some ways, our location in the southeastern corner of Vermont is a political weakness. Most of Vermont’s population and statewide media are located in the top third of the state. Therefore many of the state’s decision makers may not fully appreciate the real-life consequences of losing a major employer in southern Vermont.
The Vermont Legislature should look for ways to preserve and create good jobs for our constituents, and should not close down a major employer and impose increased electric costs on Vermont businesses that are trying to survive in these tough economic times.
By Rep. Patricia O’Donnell, R-Windham
(Rep. O’Donnell represents the town of Vernon in the Vermont House of Representatives.)
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Opinion
December 24, 2009
Statement Of Senator Patrick Leahy
On H.R. 3590, The “Patient Protection And Affordable Care Act”
Senate Floor
We have reached a defining moment for the Senate and for the American people. The bill we are considering will rank alongside other major decisions such as the creation of Social Security and Medicare and the Civil Rights Act. Health insurance reform has been talked about and attempted for seven decades. The American people for years have named health insurance as among the greatest concerns in their daily lives. Now, here at hand, is the opportunity to act.
An Arduous Process
This has been an arduous process. The President has rightly noted that if health insurance reform were easy, it would have been done long ago. The defenders of the status quo have spared no expense – nor have they been sparing in their distortions – to keep the system that pays them so handsomely. Health reform will benefit every American of today’s generations. But let us especially think ahead one, two or three generations. If we were to abandon our responsibility now, saying “It was too difficult,” that would be an excuse for doing nothing that our children and grandchildren would never accept.
Friction, A Byproduct Of Reform
For many reasons, including the health of public discourse on the most pressing issues we face as Americans, it is regrettable that the defenders of the status quo, doing their utmost to influence this debate from their comfortable perches outside the Senate, have stooped to new levels to obstruct health insurance reform. Friction is a byproduct of reform, especially when well-funded and entrenched special interests rally to protect the status quo. The heat of this debate is a measure of the cozy setups that these reforms will unsettle. This year alone Senate Democrats have been forced to contend with 101 filibusters by the Minority Republicans. Even on an issue this important, health insurance reform is still being subject to filibuster and parliamentary delay to a level I have not seen in 35 years in the United States Senate.
Opponents of reform unfortunately have wasted much of the public’s time by provoking arguments over their distortions about what health reform really means. The country suffers when there is a failure to act on serious challenges that millions of ordinary Americans face in their daily lives.
The arguments that we hear today to prop up the status quo by knocking down challenges to the way things are seem eerily similar to those made against creating Medicare nearly 45 years ago. Opponents then tried to demonize the plan and claimed it would never work. During the debate decades ago on Medicare, one Senator said: “It would achieve little for those who need it, while subjecting the very fabric of American life to the strain of severe and unnecessary sacrifices.”
Eventually during that historic debate, Members from both sides of the aisle worked together to pass a bill that is one of the most successful, purposeful and popular programs today. The Medicare program, like Social Security, was not perfect when it began, but improvements have been made over time. Vermonters can be proud that our State’s congressional delegation, all Republican at the time, supported passage of that landmark legislation.
The Senate has overcome the stalling and delay tactics, the filibusters and the roadblocks to the consideration of health care reform, and now we are closer than ever to passing comprehensive and meaningful health insurance reform.
Is the Senate health care bill without any problems? No. Is the bill before us the one I would have drafted, or the one that any other member of the Senate would have drafted? Of course not. Extensive negotiations and refinement were needed to produce a bill of this scope and importance, as it should be in the legislative process. The difficulty was magnified by the Minority’s calculated decision to spend their efforts to undermine, instead of to constructively engage. Not only majorities but supermajorities were required at several steps in the Senate’s work on this bill. There are 100 Senators and 435 members of the other body who will have to stand up and be counted in this historic process. The votes of most, I believe, will be tallied on the right side of history and of the real-life, everyday needs of the American people for real health insurance reform.
The Peril Of Doing Nothing
Some say the bill before us does not go far enough. Others say it goes too far. What everyone can agree on is what will happen if we do nothing.
In the next decade, without reform, half of all non-elderly adults will find themselves without coverage at some point. The number of people without insurance will jump by more than 30 percent in 29 States, and by at least 10 percent in every State. American families will continue to pay a hidden tax of $1,100 on their health insurance premiums to pay for the costs of care for the uninsured. The very same insurance coverage a family has in 2008 is projected to nearly double to $24,291 by 2016, consuming a whopping 45 percent of projected median family incomes. Premiums will continue to double every several years, making health insurance vastly unaffordable for many Americans. Economists project that if health insurance reform fails, the resulting lower Gross Domestic Product (GDP) will reduce family incomes by $10,000 by 2030. Small businesses will continue to struggle and fewer and fewer will be able to offer coverage to their employees.
Furthermore, as our population ages, Medicare is projected to be insolvent within ten years, jeopardizing coverage for millions of American seniors. Each day that passes without reform, 14,000 Americans lose health insurance coverage. These are not minor problems to be brushed aside or kicked yet again down the road for another generation of Americans to tackle. These problems are on the Senate’s doorstep, right here, right now. Keeping the status quo guarantees a struggling economy in the future, with more Americans unable to afford life-saving treatments because of the rising cost of insurance.
In 2001, 46 percent of all bankruptcies were attributable to medical costs. By 2007, that number had grown to 62 percent. While hard-working Americans were losing their jobs, homes and savings simply because they got sick, insurance and pharmaceutical company executives were making record profits. In 2000, the ten largest publicly traded health insurance companies had profits of $2.4 billion. By 2007, profits at those firms had jumped to $12.9 billion, a 428 percent increase. In 2007, CEO salaries at these firms were $118.6 million, or $11.9 million for each CEO. In 2007, prescription drug companies had a profit margin of 15.8 percent. The same year, profit margins at all Fortune 500 firms were 5.7 percent.
Since the Nation’s last attempt to pass health reform 16 years ago, millions of Americans have lost their insurance and costs have skyrocketed. In the absence of a fair and sensible health insurance system, families, businesses and taxpayers have been dragged along by an inflationary curve that only worsens with time. Next year, small businesses – already suffering from skyrocketing medical costs – will see their premiums rise by an average of 15 percent — twice the rate of last year’s increases. Drug companies have boosted prices of brand-name drugs by about 9 percent over the last year, the steepest increase in years.
Vermonters’ Experiences
Even though Vermont has long recognized the importance of building a health care system that includes all Vermonters, individual States acting alone cannot make enough progress without comprehensive health insurance reform. Tens of thousands of Vermonters still lack basic health insurance. Workers nationwide are losing insurance for their families when they change or lose jobs. Insurance companies can and do discriminate against sick people.
I know so very many of these Vermonters. Many of them are my neighbors, my friends. Some of these Vermonters without health insurance went to school with me. Some grew up as I did in Montpelier, Vermont. Some are people I have known all our lives. They are hardworking, good, honest, decent people. It is a travesty that after working so hard and playing by the rules they still cannot begin to have the kind of health coverage that federal employees – including those of us in this Chamber – are able to have because of earlier reforms of the federal workforce health insurance system.
Too many Vermont families live in the shadow of constant insecurity because they know that if they have an illness or if they lose a job, it might mean the end of their health insurance. Too many Vermonters are forced to sell their homes or file for bankruptcy to pay their health insurance bills. In no other modern society are families confronted with such heartbreaking dilemmas.
Let me give a personal example. I heard recently from a Vermonter who only periodically had health insurance throughout his life and now goes without prevention and screenings and pays for everything out of pocket because he cannot afford any health care that is not urgently needed. Tragically, his wife was in a car accident, and even though the couple paid thousands in treatments, they “had to stop short” in giving her the necessary physical therapy and medications her doctors recommended, because of the costs involved.
Another Vermonter, who is lucky enough to have insurance, says her family pays almost $1,100 each month in premiums, and yet they have to reach a $3,000 deductible before the insurance company will pay a dime. She told me that “as the cost of health insurance continues to rise, it feels like we will be swallowed whole by it.”
These should not be stories heard in today’s America. We remain the only industrialized Nation in the world that lets its citizens fend for themselves without health coverage.
Long-Overdue Reforms
The bill before us would make giant leaps toward reforming our health insurance system. Under the Senate bill, 31 million more Americans would have health insurance, bringing coverage to 94 percent – the highest level of insured Americans ever in our history. More low-income Americans will be able to access the State Medicaid programs, and middle income families will get enough help to be able to buy health insurance through State-based health insurance Exchanges, which will be closely monitored. Insurance companies will never be able to drop your coverage, charge you more, or deny you or your children coverage because of a preexisting health condition. This bill also sets standards for qualifying health insurance so the insurance companies can no longer sell you coverage that does not actually help when you are sick. The legislation also contains a Patient Bill of Rights, long championed by Senator Kennedy, which guarantees that patients have a right to appeal denials or decisions by their health insurance companies.
Holding Down Costs
The insurance industry will no longer be allowed to pay excessive executive bonuses and salaries on the backs of their customers. All insurance companies will be required to spend more of their premium revenues on clinical services and quality activities, with less going to administrative costs and profits – or else they will have to pay rebates to policyholders. This change will improve quality of care and will hold the insurance industry accountable for their spending.
Small businesses, which make up more than 80 percent of the businesses in Vermont, at long last will have access to affordable care under this bill. This bill will make tax credits available to small businesses to help them offer health insurance to their employees. These tax credits will make health insurance more affordable both for small businesses and for their workers.
The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office confirmed that the reforms in the bill — including lower administrative costs, increased competition, and better pooling for risk — will lower premiums for American families. CBO estimates premiums for the overall population will be reduced by 8.4 percent.
In addition to the consumer protections and industry accountability provisions, this bill also takes significant strides to slow the growth of the spiraling health spending that has the potential to cripple our economy in the years to come. A substantial portion of the Senate bill is devoted to testing ways to reduce health care costs while improving quality over time. The bill contains pilots for efforts like Vermont’s Blueprint for Health, under which patient care is coordinated to reduce unnecessary hospital visits and to keep patients healthy. Other programs will test various ways to pay doctors and hospitals that could be more efficient than the current fee-for-service structure. A greater emphasis on prevention — long supported by Senators Kennedy and Harkin in the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee — will reduce preventable deaths and hospitalizations.
Falling Short
While these improvements to our health care system are significant and noteworthy, I am disappointed that the bill no longer includes a public insurance option to compete with private plans, nor does it include a provision I have proposed to repeal the antitrust exemption for health and medical malpractice insurers. Though there are differing views on the best ways to inject competition into the health insurance market, we can all agree that health and medical malpractice insurers should not be allowed to engage in blatantly anticompetitive practices, such as colluding to set prices and allocating markets. My legislation would ensure that basic rules of fair competition apply to insurers. I believe that repealing this antitrust exemption, combined with the public option, would go far in providing fair competition and choice in the health insurance marketplace.
With all the progress the Senate’s health care bill makes in the area of women’s health — such as prohibiting insurance companies from discriminating against women through higher premiums and by allowing women free access to vital preventative services — it is unfortunate the bill also threatens to chip away at women’s reproductive choices. Before a restrictive provision was added in the managers’ amendment, the bill would have maintained current law by restricting federal funds for abortions. The original Senate bill would have required insurance companies to segregate public and private funds to ensure no public funds would go to abortion services. Now, instead, the Senate bill would require women who purchase insurance on the Exchanges to make two payments if they wish to have a wide range of choices. States could also opt-out of allowing abortion to be covered at all on their Exchanges, leaving women with fewer choices than they have now on the individual insurance market. While this language is far less restrictive than the language in the House-passed legislation, there is legitimate concern that despite the interest of women to have this choice available in the marketplace, this language would prompt private insurers to stop offering such options at all. I hope a better solution comes in conference.
Senate Can Be Conscience Of The Nation
After one of the cliffhanger votes over the course of this long Senate debate, I spoke privately with Vicki Reggie Kennedy, the courageous and insightful widow of our beloved friend, Senator Edward Kennedy. This is a bittersweet time for her, and for all who know how fully he was committed to winning this battle to lighten the load for the ordinary Americans who are struggling so mightily today. Health reform was the first of the many causes of his life and of his work in this body.
We talked about how he would have relished this moment. And we talked about how he would have pressed his shoulder to the tiller to steer the Senate toward the right outcome for the American people. Though Senator Kennedy strongly supported including a public option, as I have, along with other reforms such as ending health insurers’ antitrust exemption, Vicki Kennedy knows, as I do, that he would be fighting to pass this bill. This is the Senate’s opportunity to advance real reform. This is a bill that reflects the core principles the President outlined in beginning this debate early this year.
This is reform based on the existing system of employer-based insurance, offered by private insurers with health services delivered largely within the private sector. But any objective reading of this bill makes crystal clear that this is real reform. This is a bill that will improve the lives of every American. This is a bill that is a credit to this good and great Nation and its people.
At its best, the Senate through our history has been able to act as the conscience of the Nation. Those moments were forged amid fervent debate, and with the purpose of advancing a pressing national interest. This is such a time, and my hope and belief is that the Senate again will rise to the occasion.
- Senator Patrick Leahy
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OPINION
December 7, 2009
Laying the Groundwork for A Secure Energy Future
By Brian Dubie
Abraham Lincoln once said, “Things may come to those who wait — but only the things left by those who hustle.”
Energy developers to our north, south, east and west are hustling. Vermont needs to hustle for its own energy future, too – or be content with the leftovers.
We stand at an energy crossroads.
Our energy security is inseparable from our environmental security and our economic security. Contracts for three quarters of our total electricity needs will expire in 2012 and 2015. I view this as an opportunity to act.
And to act, we must have a vision.
My vision for a better energy future is one that strengthens our economic, environmental, and energy security.
It includes more conservation and efficiency, and more renewable energy. It also leverages our strategic location to dramatically increase our energy options.
Continue Efficiency & Conservation Efforts
Vermont is a world leader in efficiency and conservation. At 2.3 cents per kWh, the average cost of saving electricity is a fraction of what it costs to generate it.
In Vermont, we have made significant investments in efficiency, in the form of the Energy Efficiency Charge included in our monthly electric bills. Since it began operating in 2000, Efficiency Vermont has helped us reduce electricity usage at work and at home by a total of more than $31 million.
Earlier this year, the Legislature passed a measure that allowed IBM to manage its own Energy Efficiency funds, and invest in its own in efficiency. IBM demonstrated that it could do it more effectively than Efficiency Vermont. GE Rutland is asking for the same opportunity.
Our objective should be to encourage and support employers and individuals to manage their own efficiency efforts. The development of a Smart Grid, smart meters and smart appliances will give us the tools we need for smarter power use. Smart Vermonters know that investing in energy savings benfits their pocketbooks.
Support In-State Renewables
Vermont’s Clean Energy Development Fund (CEDF) promotes renewable energy projects for the long-term benefit of all Vermonters. Since established in 2005, CEDF has helped finance 84 projects that have added 9.6 mWh of clean energy generation in Vermont. Vermont Yankee’s owner, Entergy, will contribute approximately 5 million dollars this year to the CEDF.
The new Feed-In-Tariff program was designed to help bring another 50 mWh of renewables online, including solar, small hydro, wind, biomass and geothermal generation.
Capitalizing our state’s strategic location to establish a role for Vermont in regional transmission would assist with the economics of in-state renewables.
Leveraging Vermont’s Strategic Location
Our friends to the north in Quebec want to sell power to our friends in southern New England and the mid-Atlantic. Hydro Quebec is currently constructing 4,000 MW of renewable green hydropower in Quebec. They need a way to move this green power. Other new renewable energy projects in upstate New York and New Hampshire have the same need.
New transmission infrastructure will be required to move these renewables to population centers to our south. Vermont has existing transmission corridors that could accommodate greater capacity today. With upgrades to our transmission infrastructure, we could increase our access to even more renewable energy options – and help pay for our own in-state renewables.
Building new transmission would create jobs. Having it would strengthen the stability and reliability of our power supply. And hosting it would be worth millions each year to those communities in its path.
Meanwhile, Vermont Yankee (VY) produces 640MW of base load power today. We buy about a third of our power — approximately 330 MW — from Vermont Yankee at a cost to us of 3.9 cents per kWh. Vermont utilities are negotiating with Entergy and Hydro Quebec now on the terms of future contracts.
Whether it shuts down in 2012, or is granted a license extension to run till 2032, VY some day will close. Now is the time to hustle and develop the new power sources we’ll need when it does. We must build transmission capacity with the future in mind.
Thomas Edison said, “Opportunity is missed by most people because it is dressed in overalls and looks like work.”
Now is the time for Vermont to get to work laying the groundwork for a secure energy future.
submitted by Lt. Governor Brian Dubie, Dec. 7, 2009.
Nuclear power is an issue confused by self-interested politics. We should look at the facts.
Many alternate technologies remain unexplored, and others need to be researched for local use. Big business cannot foresee huge profits, and government still has not got its act together. Even so, many technologies are simple, and employment often can be done quickly, so there is still hope.
Biomass uses solar power very efficiently. Even with our short growing season, fuel harvest from aquatic plants, such as cyanophyta and water hyacinths, can be more than four times what we get from corn. These aquatic plants only need carbon dioxide for fertilizer. Biomass supplies base-load power. Operation is carbon neutral because it removes as much carbon dioxide from the air as it produces.
Biomass cogeneration plants supply electricity and their waste heat can supply large groups of buildings, eliminating need for coal or oil. They are common in Northern Europe, much farther north than Vermont. They are very efficient and the carbon dioxide they give off can fertilize aquatic plants.
Some biomass power uses methane from landfills, sewage, and farms. The current price of power from one Vermont-owned plant is lower than VY’s. Burning such methane is carbon-neutral but reduces greenhouse gasses. It supplies base-load power.
Artificial harvest of solar energy is most efficient with solar-thermal collection, as in solar hot water. The heat is stored for several days to a week or more without much sunshine. If 75% of the houses in Vermont had solar hot water, the energy saved will equal to what VY produces. Operation is carbon-neutral.
Deep-earth geothermal power is used in many places and is the main power source in at least one First World country. It has some promise to be used in some Vermont towns the same way. If it is, it will supply base-load power and local heating with a very small carbon footprint.
Efficiency Vermont saves more power than some suppliers produce. This is equivalent to base-load, carbon-neutral power. Most houses in Vermont still need its services, which will save much more than VY produces. And household utility costs will be reduced.
We could list many more alternate power supplies. I have not even got to wind and hydro.
Nuclear power is supported by loan guarantees of up to 80% of the cost of a plant, covered by taxpayers. Insurance risk for catastrophic failure is almost entirely born by taxpayers. The cost of dealing with the waste falls to the taxpayers. The taxpayer gets no return for these risks except in the price of power. But, the power is expensive anyway. VY is planning a 50% price increase if its license is renewed, but will only commit to that price for a fraction of what we buy.
Nuclear plants age quickly. VY is one of the oldest plants in the world, and the tritium leak is a symptom of its age. Repairs that go beyond a patch and really address the problem would be prohibitively expensive. The cost would dramatically increase the price of power or close the plant altogether.
The internal reaction is carbon-neutral, but this does not consider decommissioning, which produces a lot of them, or waste disposal, which is unknown.
If the plant closes, there will not automatically be a sudden increase in taxes in Vernon. Maine Yankee, which operated years ago in a town very like Vernon, continued to pay taxes from the time it closed until it was fully decommissioned. After it closed, it paid a good deal more than VY is paying now.
By way of comparison, the money we pay VY for electricity all comes from our economy, and only about 40% of it is put back. Local power from local resources will keep close to all of our money here. VY employs about 210 Vermont residents, and many of these will not lose their jobs when the plant closes. Developing local resources will develop many new jobs, possibly thousands of them. Greenhouse gas comparisons are often deceptively favorable for nuclear technology.
Now, to assess the facts: Why are we even thinking about relicensing VY?
by George Harvey of Brattleboro, Vt.
