VERMONT YANKEE NUKE PLANT TO SHUT DOWN

Entergy announced yesterday that it will be shutting down its Vermont Yankee Nuclear Power Station in late 2014. The plant will cease power production after its current fuel cycle ends and move to safe shutdown at that time. Entergy plans on using the decommissioning process known as “Safe Store,” which allows the plant to be stored for 60 years under Nuclear Regulatory Commission regulations while the radioactive material cools down before it is taken away.

Entergy said it has decided to shut down Vermont Yankee because of financial concerns, citing issues such as sustained low natural gas prices and wholesale energy prices from shale gas, a high cost structure after already investing $400 million into the plant since 2002, and wholesale market design flaws which resulted in artificially low energy and capacity prices in the region. However, the plant has also been at the center of a lengthy legal battle between Entergy and Vermont lawmakers, who had sought to shut it down. "This was an agonizing decision and an extremely tough call for us," Entergy Chairman and CEO Leo Denault said in a statement. "Vermont Yankee has an immensely talented, dedicated and loyal workforce, and a solid base of support among many in the community. We recognize that closing the plant on this schedule was not the outcome they had hoped for, but we have reluctantly concluded that it is the appropriate action for us to take under the circumstances."