|
Getting your Trinity Audio player ready...
|
By Guy Page
The Vernon Selectboard tonight is scheduled to hear plans by a Texas company to redevelop the former site of the Vermont Nuclear Power Plant.
Under New Business, the published agenda reads: Planning Commission-NorthStar/Power Transitions Proposed Site Development; Battery Storage, Data Center and mini nuclear power plant
On May 27, Power Transitions of Texas told the town planning commission about its exploration of future redevelopment opportunities for the former VY plant, which delivered 620 MW of carbon-free power, much of it to Vermont, before the Vermont Senate declined to relicense the plant under pressure from renewable power supporters, residents concerned about a tritium leak, and advocates opposing longterm storage of spent nuclear fuel. The plant, forced to sell electricity at unusually low prices on the open ‘spot market,’ closed shortly thereafter.
During a recent update to town officials, PowerTransitions representatives said the company’s long-term vision centers on small modular reactor (SMR) technology, while its near-term focus is battery storage projects.
The company noted that a previous analysis found the Vermont Yankee site suitable for a data center and said such facilities could help stabilize the electric grid because of their constant power demand. Officials also discussed the importance of securing New England grid interconnection approvals, with application windows opening in October and closing in November, as a key factor in determining what types and sizes of projects could be built. PowerTransitions said it would provide emergency preparedness training and compensation to the town if battery storage is developed and noted that noise from data centers can be mitigated through the use of panel walls.
The VY site is next door to a grid-level ‘switchyard’ that received large amounts of generated electricity and transmitted it via the New England grid.
Discover more from Vermont Daily Chronicle
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
Categories: Energy
Great idea. Hopefully the Vermont crazies won’t fight it tooth and nail.
“…noise from data centers can be mitigated through the use of panel walls.” I am very skeptical. These things sound like a highway and highway noise is not mitigated by those walls. This was a problem where I grew up in Northern Virginia near the Beltway.
How much time and money & effort was spent decommissioning Vt Yankee? How many greenhouse gases were spewed into the environment? Quite ironic to be considering an SMR. Now we can spend time, money and effort arguing over it. A larger concern should be the data center and its water demands. My understanding is they are great. And the closed loop system still uses mega amounts of water. Proceed with Caution. ⚠️
“All truth passes through three stages: First, it is ridiculed. Second, it is violently opposed. Third, it is accepted as being self-evident.”
Sad thing was, as Gerry alluded to, VT Yankee wasn’t broke, but they tried to fix it anyway. Looks like we’re about to hit that third stage of truth again.
That’s the moonbat way: try to fix what ain’t broke
60 years to put in a connection from I-189 to downtown Burlington and 20 years to
permit a Walmart in St. Albans…dont hold your breath on a re invigoration of nuclear power in Vermont.
With the Tritium and Strontium 90 in the ground water on this site, where are they going to get the water to cool down the data center? I have worked on a house in Bethesda and the 24 hour noise from the Beltway will drive you nuts.
I am in support of the environment and the agrarian, outdoor,2A, rugged individual life Vermont history exemplifies. Water, woods, wildlife etc are paramount in this type of life. I support SMR’s, and other advancement for society. We have watched as the government sells/destroys our natural resources based on the fallacy of Anthropologic Global Warming. CO2 the building block of life is under attack even though it is a minuscule heat trapper when compared to water vapor in the atmosphere. They allow out of state companies to destroy our forests and farmlands and put up solar farms that send energy and tax break money out of state, Just to meet their data point goals by 2030 and 2050. Water is the next battleground. They do not represent us or Our Vermont. I do not trust the Vermont government to allow an SMR and data center that would benefit Vermont. Our water, our tranquillity (noise) in nature for generations to come is more important. We cannot feed ourselves without farms, water and wildlife. We cannot take care of ourselves sick without healthcare. We cannot educate and raise children without the family as the building block of our society. We have a finite amount of money and energy and Vermont needs to to direct it to the above mentioned areas. All this is unattainable if we do not have an honest, morally centered, value oriented population. And this last part comes from our Judeo-Christian heritage as God’s word on right and wrong in the Bible.
Amen, Gerry.
As the godly Christian founder, John Adams, said,
“We have no government armed with power capable of contending with human passions unbridled by morality and religion. Avarice, ambition, revenge or gallantry would break the strongest cords of our Constitution as a whale goes through a net. Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.” — John Adams, October 11, 1798