(HOST) Last week we heard from John McClaughry, who criticized the effort to fund the energy efficiency program with a windfall profits tax on Vermont Yankee. We also heard from James Moore, who supported taxing Yankee at the same rates as wind generation. Today we hear from commentator Timothy McQuiston, who wonders why Vermont Yankee was virtually the only source considered.
(MCQUISTON) In this session, the legislature debated several means of funding an energy efficiency program. Proposals included initiating a new tax on either Yankee profits or actual generation, as will be the case for wind generation. Supporters argued that it made sense to use one energy source to help reduce another, specifically home heating fuels and the carbon emissions they produce. Yankee has the money and is already taxed. Expand that tax and you’ve raised the money.
Oh – and increase the Yankee tax from 4.5 million dollars to fifteen million – or maybe even twenty-five.
Personally, I think this approach is disingenuous. If energy efficiency is a common good, then I think we should all pay for it.
But getting back to the recent debate, I really have to wonder if there’s been a hidden agenda in all this – if some lawmakers simply would like to see Vermont Yankee shut down early – even before its license expires in 2012. If that’s the case, new taxes might be just the way to do it – by making it too expensive to be worthwhile for plant owner Entergy to continue operations.
Another option would be to limit dry cask storage. All the spent fuel at every nuclear plant in the US is still sitting on-site. Most of that radioactive waste is stored in pools of water within the containment area of the plant. The rest, still at the plant but outside the containment, is in what’s called dry casks. These are steel and cement structures that are intended as temporary storage units until a federal repository is opened. Without them, Yankee would have to shut down in just a couple of years. Simple as that. But the legislature has already approved dry cask storage for now.
So Entergy’s Vermont Yankee nuclear power plant in Vernon is still generating about a third of our electricity. Most of the rest is provided by Hydro-Quebec, but our contracts with them are going to start to expire soon. And until real alternatives are fully up and running, any power we lose will likely be made up with natural gas, because here in Vermont and New England, we won’t burn coal. And greater dependency on natural gas would make our energy costs even higher – when compared to most of the rest of the nation.
So here’s the punch line. If Vermont Yankee were to be forced – by financial means or otherwise – to shut down its operations before 2012, the result would be – at least for the immediate future – the inevitable production of more greenhouse gases – and higher energy prices.
So please remind me. Are we anti-nuclear power or anti-greenhouse gases? Exactly what high and mighty horse are we supposed to be riding?
Timothy McQuiston is editor of Vermont Business Magazine.