Pushing Old Nukes
The Nuclear Regulatory Commission and the Department of Energy held a joint meeting in Bethesda, Maryland, Feb. 19-21, planning "the technical issues and research topics for potential extended operation of the nation's nuclear power plants beyond 60 years." Vermont Yankee is the 48th of the nation's 104 nuclear reactors seeking a license extension beyond the original license agreement of 40 years.
I find it disturbing that the federal government is planning now for beyond 2032, yet our state government has no such plans.
Nuclear power is, at best, short-sighted. It is based on yet another finite resource.
To push old reactors beyond their intended design specifications must lead to such events as cooling tower collapses, increased outages due to equipment failure secondary to overload, increased erosion corrosion within the reactor (a problem that can only be found through deep inspections that we have not seen in the NRC's get-the-job-done, cursory inspections).
While it is remarkable the uprates and license extensions have yet to lead to a catastrophic release, I believe some such accident is an inevitability. May no one be hurt, yet may it finally stop the industry and its massive PR teams.
Gary Sachs
Brattleboro
Corrections:
In our Feb. 21 issue, we mistakenly credited Peter Dellert for doing the six-foot landscape paintings as part of The Man Show at the Nashawannuck Gallery in Easthampton. Actually, they were created by Eric Ruegg. Peter does organic sculptures with recycled wood.
We failed to identify the image that appeared on the cover of our Feb. 28 issue. It is a photograph of Larry Slezak's piece, "News, Weather and Sports," which was part of the recent Cover Me show at UMass. Our review of that show ("Cover Me, Uncovered") also contained inaccurate information about recently announced layoffs at the Boston Globe. We reported that the Globe had announced 100 layoffs, based on reports in Boston Metro in late January. While the Globe said the report was factually inaccurate, Metro stood by its story, insisting that it had credible sources outside the Globe. On Feb. 28, the Boston Globe officially announced a plan to trim its staff by 60 employees.
